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"When 'sovereignty' is distinguished from 'control' as I noted above,
the sovereignty/responsibility antinomy disappears."
Yep. And you've lost a significant component of the meaning of
"divine" sovereignty (at least as it's understood in the Reformed
confessional tradition). Your appeal to the human analogy is indeed
correct. But we all recognize it to be an analogy. No human king can
have the kind of sovereignty that I am talking about, but, of course,
God can. And I think you rightly described that governance in *The
Fourth Day* and quoted scripture to support that view.
We do agree that creatures act with authentic creaturely activity
according to their natures. In other words, control doesn't imply
coercion. I'm not sure how God does it, but he does.
>Terry quotes Charles Hodge:
>> "All we know, and all we need to know, is, (1.) That God does govern
>> all his creatures; and (2.) That his control over them is consistent
>> with their nature, and with his own infinite purity and excellence."
>> (p. 605)
>In _The Fourth Day_ I made frequent reference to the concept of divine
>governance. However, I have stopped doing that because of the way in which
>terms like 'governance' and 'sovereignty' are taken to imply 'control.' As I
>have suggested before on this list, I do not see these as terms implying
>'control' at all. Rather, I think they serve better as reminders of human
>These terms are drawn from the royal metaphor; God is pictured as being
>something like a king. But a king does not 'control' each action of his
>subjects. No, the king makes known what actions are expected, and the
>subjects are then accountable for acting in accord with those expressed
>wishes. The king does not micro-manage the action of subjects. The king's
>subjects are treated as persons with their own integrity of being and with a
>sufficient measure of the requisite capabilities needed for appropriate
>action. That being the case, it is fitting that they be held accountable for
>their actions. Control is neither desirable (the king wants obedience, not a
>puppet-like coerced response) nor necessary (obedient behavior -- perhaps in
>response to persuasion??? -- is possible).
>> We may not be satisfied with an "all we need to know" type answer,
>> but what is interesting about Hodge's conclusion is that it affirms
>> God's absolute control and at the same time affirms the creature's
>> authentic creaturely activity (even the action of free agents). He
>> also escapes the problem of evil. What an economy of words!
>Sorry, I do find this combination to be contradictory. Hodge's affirmation
>is not at all convincing, and his economy of words simply leaves numerous
>> Those of us who think this statement contains a contradiction or want
>> to peer in more detail into the how's of God interactions with the
>> universe will indeed be dissatisfied, but, as I have said before,
>> this antinomy is just an extension of the sovereignty/responsibility
>> antinomy. Christianity is no stranger to such formulations. We see
>> the same sort of tensions in our discussions of the human/divine
>> natures of Christ and the nature of the Trinity.
>When 'sovereignty' is distinguished from 'control' as I noted above, the
>sovereignty/responsibility antinomy disappears.
>> So in answer to Howard's concern about "coercion", I simply say,
>> "No!" God's control does not violate the real agency of the creature.
>> One of the interesting things about Hodge's evaluation of the various
>> solutions posed is that they each introduce new problems. Howard's
>> formulation, I believe, does just that. It compromises the governance
>> of God over the details of creation because he desires to preserve
>> authentic creaturely agency (and perhaps in the interest of solving
>> the problem of evil). But, this only appears to be the case because
>> he cannot see how both can be true. He cannot see how God can control
> > without coercion.
>> (I'm not sure I can either, but I affirm that it is
>> possible since both scripture and experience tell us so.)
>Sorry, but I see no need to affirm such contradictions.
>Howard Van Till
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 email@example.com http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jun 12 2001 - 01:30:37 EDT | <urn:uuid:ce5d731a-35ed-44a4-87bc-564f62c056b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/200106/0111.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944713 | 1,072 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The 2013/14 marketing year might set up as a new dawn in agriculture, says Jerry Gulke. He explains.
Few will argue the extremely high prices seen in 2013 seemed normal. Overall, corn prices have a tendency to normalize.
As drought conditions lessen in parts of the country, Jerry Gulke, president of the Gulke Group, believes the assumption that high prices will continue is also fading. He says through his travels this winter, he’s had a hard time finding anyone who things corn should be $6 this fall.
"We’ve already cut demand and we are opening up production," he says. "With high prices, we’ve incentivized the rest of the world to produce more and for us to consume less internally."
The rainfall and snow cover seen in many areas of the country are bringing optimism about production levels. "We may end up in a late spring, but I think the idea that we can’t produce enough this year is a figment of our imagination."
Gulke believes that the market agrees the yields won’t be as dire as 2012. "We run a risk of having lower prices this year."
But, Gulke says, "low" prices may not be as low as they used to be. "I’m hoping we look at a new paradigm where we have a low of $4.50 and high of $6.50, as we build demand back."
Looking Long-Term at Prices
Gulke says if you look at a corn chart from 2007 forward, you can get some interesting perspective on prices. He says the price rallies of 2010/11 and 2012/13 saw prices peaking in both corn and soybeans -prior to or just at the beginning of the their respective marketing years (Sept—Aug).
"Both rallies were due to production reduction, not demand explosion. China helped in part, but without their year-over-year increase in soybean demand, the rallies would not have been what they were since the global demand base." He says had global ethanol usage didn’t increase, the lofty prices would have been short-lived.
"The price explosion in corn above $6.50/bu in 2008 only lasted six months!" he says. "Corn spent almost 3 ½ years waiting for either a demand explosion (China to the rescue) or a drought to get prices back and hold above $6. China didn’t come but the crop problems of 2011 and 2012 did."
Hear Gulke's full audio analysis: | <urn:uuid:df47ec88-ed3b-4b1f-a627-56050b0117b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/article/what_is_normal_for_corn_prices/ | 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 | 0.965317 | 528 | 1.539063 | 2 |
From the Tampa Tribune:
A Florida program of community-based care aimed at keeping people with disabilities out of institutions faces severe budget cuts, threatening to increase institutionalization.
Families say the budget cuts could reduce payments to half of the amount from the previous year and force them to put their family members with a disability into group homes. They say that turning to institutionalization could reverse years of progress and that people with disabilities would lose independence, employment income, consistency, security, and motivation. Moreover, the state would be required to pay more for institutions, and those who currently provide services for home-based care could lose their jobs and businesses.
See also: Budget cuts hurt the disabled and their families from the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Utah legislature plans to cut an array of disability programs from the state budget, including workshops intended to provide guidance to families who continue to wait on a list for support services. | <urn:uuid:ba2718f1-33f6-451c-8091-9932a82c61b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2008/10/06/florida-program-3372/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967399 | 185 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Asian church news agency UCA News reported recently about a new Web site for anti-trafficking activists, law enforcement officials, trafficking victims and others.
Human Trafficking in Asia has investigative reports on human trafficking and its own blog. The site receives funding assistance from at least two U.S. government agencies and an American nongovernmental organization.
Emmanuel Drewery of the Catholic organization PREDA welcomed the Web site. PREDA, founded in the Phillippines by Irish Columban Father Shay Cullen, works to help abused children and exploited women.
Drewery told UCA News that such initiatives on the Internet are important because that is where predators are prevalent. | <urn:uuid:d2e6ae29-0cc6-4927-82fe-a8fdda6ae4f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/new-web-site-focuses-on-human-trafficking-in-asia/?like=1&_wpnonce=81a70c627a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931523 | 141 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Tyler Sirens: a visual police scanner
Tyler Sirens presents nearly-up-to-the-minute incident report data from Tyler Police Department. However, if it were just that it wouldn’t be much different from the Tyler Morning Telegraph’s Police Call Map. What Tyler Sirens adds is real-time updates. If you leave your window open and a report comes in (or is updated), the map will instantly update and display the newest information. It’s less like looking at a map of what’s happened and more like listening to a police scanner. (For the geeks out there, this is built on Pusher. Oh, and there is an API. And, of course, it’s open source.)
This project came about because of my fascination with a singular set of data made available by the Tyler Police Department:
This dataset is updated every two minutes and lists, with important exceptions, all the incident reports that come in to the police. Censored from the list are certain sensitive crimes, such as Sexual Assault and Suicide. Violent crimes are delayed up to fifteen minutes so police can secure the scene. There is a FAQ that describes all the limitations of the data.
While its important to keep what is left out in mind, it’s also worth recognizing just how rare a dataset like this is. In many places—including my favorite metropolis, Chicago—the idea of getting real-time data from the police is almost unthinkable. (Though I have discovered that a few other cities, including Memphis and Colorado Springs, have similar systems.) So how did this forward-thinking open data innovation come about in east Texas?
It turns out the ACL was a capstone project of four students at the University of Texas at Tyler Computer Science department. They worked with the police department’s IT staff to implement the system. I think it goes without saying that this is a pretty remarkable collaboration between the university and the local government. And though the final product has certain… shall we say, idiosyncrasies (the RSS is completely invalid) it’s an impressive accomplishment and a fascinating source of useful public information.
There is much more to be done with this data. In fact, Tyler Sirens is more of a demo than a useful application. This information, with more work and, perhaps, some improvements from the Tyler Police Department, could power real-time traffic alerts, emergency notifications or give citizens an unprecedented window into what is happening in their neighborhoods. (While testing I spotted what appeared to be a rash of automobile burglaries around Tyler Junior College.) These initial reports could even be correlated with the Police Public Information Reports for accountability and responsiveness analysis. It’s a tantalizing example of open data without pretension. I love to think about what could be built if we knew what the all of our government was doing every two minutes. | <urn:uuid:0aaf57ee-3391-4c2e-afb3-58cde34186bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hacktyler.com/tagged/crime | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951248 | 591 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Spending and consumerism don't fuel an economy. Not when credit is lax and quantitative easing is the policy of corrupt central banking entities.
This is the same reason that you don't give a kid more money to spend to "fix" the problem of him running out of allowance. If credit is not disciplined and isn't generated from sources of actual savings, it is never allocated effeciently to most productive sectors.
Printing more money (or rather, keeping central lending rates low) does nothing but further undermine savings and investment vehicles which are denominated in nominal terms (papaer curriencies). This excacerbates the problem of undisciplined credit and further distorts what sectors of the economy actually contribute to production. | <urn:uuid:55d821f7-052d-4bd0-a860-37241d297256> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.snowboardingforum.com/407946-post23.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955461 | 150 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I don’t spend much time thinking about what’s happening to my body. Sure, I know it’s succumbing to gravity and the wear and tear of lifting heavy weights during my nursing career. However, I don’t run a daily inventory on aches and creaks. As an RN, I figure I spend enough time looking for symptoms in others without having to search out my own. Although I’m not immune to the inevitable decay that overtakes us all, life is short and I have to prioritize.
At least, that’s how I thought until I had surgery. Suddenly, I became acutely aware of physical sensations, especially pain at the surgical site. If I want to recover and have better function in my leg than I had before the surgery, I have to continue to pay attention to what my body tells me. Well, all that’s okay for a while but I admit I can’t wait to throw away the crutches and embrace again my habitual choice of focusing on feelings and thoughts rather than aches and pains. Anger leads to action and words, sometimes soon regretted. Disappointment leads to a gathering of fresh information and a change in strategy.
No writer wastes experiences. From the unfamiliar world of physical sensations, perhaps I can bring back new physical responses to emotional situations. I tend to focus more on what a person does when confronted with such a situation rather than letting the reader know the physical response of disgust, fear, or paralyzing panic, etc.
After all, if I really found my neighbor dead or badly injured, I’d be more than horrified. So many TV dramas and even printed stories start with a dark and often rainy scene and a corpse with ghastly injuries. Viewers and readers become immune to what is really a terrible experience. We’ve come to realize we’re a violent and aggressive species. Are we setting ourselves up to accept a continuing level of violence and brutality in the societies we create?
I don’t know. However, I do know, if a writer finds a novel way of describing a character’s response to death and violence, I’m hooked. I want to continue for the ride with that character. I want to enter a world where people matter and murder and torture are not just part of the scenery.
Although not my favorite feeling, I don’t regard the response of intense disgust and nausea to a cinematic or verbal scene of violence as a bad thing. Since I don’t experience the need to look away with every violent scene, I wonder if a scene creator ever intends the audience to experience extreme revulsion.
Have you read an unusual description of a fictional character’s response to violence and mayhem? | <urn:uuid:cf957742-26c6-4dce-9304-6e63ec8572d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/2011/08/blow-to-gut.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957496 | 571 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Ursi's Eso Garden
Your Competent Esoteric Guide
Thursday, 31. August 2006
News & Stories
Scholar: Iliad, Odyssey Penned by Woman by Discovery News.
"In many oral traditions, the best and most reliable creators, the ones who are used by folklore collectors, happen to be women." Dalby explained that women throughout the ancient world were "often the last and most skillful exponents of an oral tradition." For example, the world’s first named poet was a Sumerian woman named Enheduanna, who lived from around 2285-2250 B.C. Dalby said women also saved the ancient oral poetry of the northern Japanese, many Irish traditions, and numerous English folk ballads.
Hitler and Stalin Were Possessed by the Devil by Daily Mail.
"I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler - and Stalin did. Almost certainly they were possessed by the Devil."
Father Amorth, who is president of the International Association of Exorcists, said of the JK Rowling books: "Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil."
"Atlantis" Eruption Twice as Big as Previously Believed, Study Suggests by National Geographic News.
Scientology nearly ready to unveil Super Power by St. Petersburg Times.
Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being prepped for its eventual rollout in Scientology's massive building in downtown Clearwater. That will be the only place worldwide where the program, much anticipated by Scientologists, will be offered. A key aim of Super Power is to enhance one's perceptions - and not just the five senses we all know - hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.
Dig unearths round table evidence at Windsor Castle by The Independent.
Evidence of a building linked to the myth of King Arthur and the knights of the round table has been found at Windsor Castle. The circular structure was built by Edward III in the 14th century to house the round table intended to seat the original 300 Knights of the Garter. Archaeological proof of the building was uncovered by members of Channel 4's Time Team in the castle's quadrangle.
Some news-links do not last long. In this case please send me a note.
Category: News & Stories
Comments Temporarily Disabled
Sorry folks - too much spam, the comments are deactivated. Stand by and please excuse the inconvenience. | <urn:uuid:f682cfdc-4986-4649-9e38-b5739d877f22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eso-garden.com/index.php?/weblog/comments/news_stories4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941498 | 517 | 1.75 | 2 |
Wednesday 30th May 2012 | 14:16
GMB: Solidarity in the EU must mean using collective strength to help struggling countries to recover and grow again
European Central Bank must respond to demands from electorates across Europe to deploy the necessary economic and monetary resources to resolve the on-going problems with the Euro and to restore confidence says GMB.
The GMB office in Brussels commented on the report issued today (30th May) from the European Commission with recommendations for budgetary measures and economic reforms to enhance financial stability, boost growth and create employment across the EU.
Kathleen Walker Shaw, GMB European officer, said “Today’s reports from the European Commission contains over 1000 pages of analysis but no action. After almost four year of crisis, the EU institutions and leaders must recognise that the time for diagnosis is over, and the need for a sustainable cure is pressing. A cure based on growth through targeted investment and job creation
strategies, not self-defeating austerity and labour deregulation.
It is vital that progressive forces across the European Union push for a change of direction from the harsh austerity-only strategy currently being pursued by the right-wing elites, which is not only
economically flawed, but also socially damaging.
Trade unions must play a decisive role by working together in shaping and promoting an alternative strategy which is based on the principle of solidarity and on a progressive vision of fairness, investment and jobs.
In particular, the trade union movement must break down and challenge the negative stereotypes about fellow workers across Europe that are currently being pushed to deflect attention from the real culprits.
The movement’s strength is in its unity and attempts to divide people must be rejected.
Solidarity is one of the founding principles of the EU, but yet, it is the leaders of the EU that are forcing struggling countries like Greece into a never-ending self-destructive cycle. Solidarity in the EU must mean using collective strength to help struggling countries to recover and grow again.
In addition, all the institutions of the EU including the European Central Bank must play their part in responding the clamour from electorates across Europe for them to deploy the necessary economic
and monetary resources to resolve the on-going problems with the Euro and to restore confidence.” | <urn:uuid:6ebb9611-99b4-44d8-87dd-6fc6db40967e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicshome.com/uk/article/54722/gmb_solidarity_in_the_eu_must_mean_using_collective_strength_to_help_struggling_countries_to_recover_and_grow_again.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 | 0.948467 | 466 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Apparently there’s big bucks to be made in suing the Feds…
Is this how all these environmental groups get those deep pockets?
The federal government is opposing an environmental group’s request for nearly $1.4 million in attorney fees stemming from a lawsuit over grazing in eastern Oregon.
The request is “prodigious” and “excessive” because the environmentalists have exaggerated their victories and inflated the amount of time they spent on the lawsuit, according to the government.
The Oregon Natural Desert Association challenged cattle grazing in the Malheur National Forest, claiming the practice was harming threatened steelhead.
Last year, ONDA reached a settlement with the U.S. Forest Service in which the agency admitted the group won several points of law during nearly a decade of litigation.
The group is now seeking about $1.4 million in compensation under federal laws that allow plaintiffs to recover their costs when they succeed in certain types of lawsuits against the government.
Read the article HERE | <urn:uuid:bfced34a-dd90-4508-a7ba-885ac4e34c6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sagebrushcoalition.com/2013/02/28/apparently-theres-big-bucks-to-be-made-in-suing-the-feds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958451 | 207 | 1.703125 | 2 |
With hundreds of “magic pills” out there how do we know what works?
Diet pills have been all the craze, advertising that lifestyle doesn’t have to change you just need to add one pill a day and the weight will come right off. Well if it was that easy then everyone would be thin and have incredibly rocking bodies, giving the stars of Hollywood a run for their money.
Why diet pills don’t work
Many of the magic pills act solely as a thermogenic, raising the body’s core temperature. When the body’s temperature rises it burns more fat. But it won’t actually address the problem. Fat accumulates in the body for several reasons, most commonly because of diet or food consumed, Toxins present in the body or lack of activity. Diet pills do not address any of the underlying problems and instead just temporarily mask them.
Diet pills are designed as a one off kind of deal, you take one pill and you are good to go, but our bodies aren’t a one off kind of think, meaning we can’t just survive off of one type of food. Our bodies are a system, a very complex system at that and there fore in order for our bodies to have a complete change we need to implement a system. A system that supports proper body function, adds essential nutrients and helps rid the body of unwanted body fat and toxicity. A good system will also encourage and support better food choices and activities.
Diet pills might work to lose a few lbs but once the product is not taken any more the bodies core temperature goes back to normal and the weight is usually put back on, when looking for weight loss or better health and you need it fast don’t turn to a pill. Most of them are not checked or endorsed by the FDA for safety. Find a system that incorporates live foods, good nutrition, awesome support system and encourages activity and better food choices! That is when the change/transformation comes | <urn:uuid:2610f17a-a954-4751-841e-c3ead8765c6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://howtocleanse.com/diet-pills-dont-work/ | 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 | 0.943971 | 414 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Fire raged through the upper floors of a landmark skyscraper in the Taiwanese city of Taichung, killing four before fire crews managed to put it out.
Helicopters winched nine people from the roof of the 25-storey Golden Plaza Tower in the centre of the island's third city as smoke swirled up.
The fire began at about 1600 (0800 GMT), apparently in a disco on the 18th floor, and spread quickly.
People streamed out into the street, covering their heads from glass shards.
Taiwanese television showed diners who had been eating in the revolving restaurant on the roof being lifted one by one to safety in helicopter rescue baskets.
Helicopters winched diners one by one to safety
The cause of the blaze has not been established.
The tower houses offices, shops and tutorial schools, as well as the disco, which is not thought to have been operating at the time.
At least two of the victims, said to be employees in the tower, were found on the 18th floor.
None of three people injured was seriously hurt, Reuters news agency reports.
The agency said fire crews took up to an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze. | <urn:uuid:073f799f-6fb0-4fd8-976e-c09d41a4d69a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4300601.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983513 | 252 | 1.59375 | 2 |
If a new Farm Bill isn’t passed by Jan. 1, permanent law dating back to the 1930s and 1940s takes effect. That, in turn, would deliver parity and raise dairy price supports to $38 per hundredweight or more.
“We’ll have $38 milk at that point. And that will hopefully motivate somebody. We’ll see what happens,” Collin Peterson (D-Minn), ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, told Agri-Talk Radio on Tuesday. (Listen to the audio clip above.)
Peterson continues to express frustration over failure to pass a new Farm Bill. Yet, he remains hopeful that a new one will be passed in the congressional “lame duck” session between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
“We have enough votes to pass this bill the way it came out of (the House Agriculture) Committee,” Peterson said. “They just need to put it on the floor (of the House), and hopefully they will.”
Peterson said House Speaker John Boehner has not been the problem.
“The problem has been (House Majority Leader Eric) Cantor and his allies,” Peterson said. There’s about 100 House Republicans who are holding up the Farm Bill discussion for various reasons, he added.
“Some of them think we haven't made enough reform in the commodity title; some of them don’t like the sugar program; some of them don’t like the dairy program,” he said. “Some of them want to cut more out of food stamps.”
Boehner would like to get a farm bill done in the lame duck session, Peterson said, citing discussions he had with the Speaker this summer.
“Hopefully, we will have an ally in the Speaker in bringing this up in the lame duck session,” Peterson added. | <urn:uuid:66c64428-1d88-4781-9a0e-08bc7041052c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dairyherd.com/editorial/tom-quaife/No-Farm-Bill-could-mean-38-milk-after-Jan-1-171351401.html?email=yes&cmntid=102773605 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955598 | 395 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Alabaré's long term goals
1. An end to homelessness
The primary goal of Alabaré is to end homelessness for our service users. We want to ensure that there are appropriate services that actively prevent homelessness. This will be through our floating support services and information and advice services. When someone does become homeless, we aim to provide the appropriate safety net - our drop in centres, direct access accommodation and supported housing projects and that appropriate move on accommodation is available.
2. Provide the right support
Everyone in need has access to support that enables them to find and keep their home. This means support that prevents people losing their home, helps them to resolve their housing difficulties and improves their housing situation.
3. Provide the right care
Some of our service users need regular long term care. We aim to ensure that we provide appropriate and quality care to enable the service user to lead a more independent and fulfilling life.
4. Provide the right training
Housing, support and care are only part of the jigsaw. Through the provision of formal or informal training we can support service users to gain new skills which can help them to become involved in their local community, go onto other training or undertake paid or voluntary work. | <urn:uuid:79657c87-ea1d-4170-8d29-ccfac8157e39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alabare.co.uk/longtermgoals.php | 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 | 0.960417 | 251 | 1.726563 | 2 |
George Steinbrenner of Cleveland: The Miami Heat is On...
STEINBRENNER OF CLEVELAND
It was 1973 when a young shipbuilding-magnate from Youngstown, Ohio would forever change the face of professional sports. George M. Steinbrenner failed in his attempt to buy his hometown Cleveland Indians. Would he succeed in the glitter of New York and become the next owner of the Yankees?
The glitz and glamour more suited his style. Not only did he snub his hometown, but he took three of the Indians most promising players with him. Chris Chambliss, Dick Tidrow and Cecil Upshaw joined a team that also boasted the first of a new trend in sports.
Free agents. Jim “Catfish” Hunter was the first baseball player to be declared a free agent. And his services went to the highest bidder. They all became World Champions.
The Yankees would win the coveted title seven total times along with 11 American League pennants in the Steinbrenner era. Some would argue they bought those titles. It matters not. Those trophies are on display in their showcase.
Love them. Hate them. But you can’t deny their success.
So it stymies me that the good people of Cleveland should be surprised that this trend continues.
Time here for full disclosure. This writer, a native Clevelander, now resides in South Florida. Now back to our regularly scheduled article.
Yet another hometown hero has turned his back on the City on the Lake to pursue the glitz and glamour. And for all the similarities, this storyline follows a totally different plot.
LeBron James left his house, family and friends behind to pursue every athlete’s dream. He wanted to win. Not a few games, not MVP awards, not scoring titles. He saw the NBA Champion’s ring his buddy Dwayne Wade wore. He wanted one of his own.
This was not a superstar chasing after the biggest contract. He took a pay cut to sign with the Miami Heat.
This wasn’t chasing the spotlight on a bigger stage. He chose to play at someone else’s house. D-Wade owns this stage, James and Chris Bosh will play a supporting role.
This is three good buddies taunting neighboring kids to come play in their ‘hood, knowing full well the ball is in their court.
No superstar egos at risk on this team. Every player took a cut in pay for the opportunity to chase a prize bigger than mere money. Even bigger than an NBA championship. We’re talking dynasty here, something Heat President Pat Riley knows a thing or two about.
Miami will never be considered a sports town. They couldn’t even fill the stadiums when the Marlins won the World Series. The Dolphins have enlisted celebrity “co-owners,” including Serena Williams, Jimmy Buffet and Jennifer Lopez, to raise interest in their sport.
South Florida is finally abuzz over a game. Sports talk is in the air in local clubs, on television and in the streets. For the first time since the Dolphins’ 1972 perfect season, people are actually turning to the sports section of the Miami Herald.
Does this mega-team spell trouble for the rest of the league? I don’t think so. Attendance will skyrocket in every arena when the Heat come to town. Opposing players will want to prove these guys can be beaten, raising the level of play across the league.
Bravo, Miami Heat. Not only have you cast your team in the role of favorites for next year’s NBA title, but for several years to come.
You’ve brought the game of basketball into the national spotlight just as the players collective bargaining agreement is about to expire.
You are doing for the game of basketball what George Steinbrenner did for baseball.
The aftermath will bring both good and bad. But one thing is for certain. It will sure be interesting.
Bring on the Heat!
And to the fans of my hometown Cleveland Cavaliers, football season is right around the corner.
What is the duplicate article?
Why is this article offensive?
Where is this article plagiarized from?
Why is this article poorly edited? | <urn:uuid:0e4e8034-33ef-422a-a026-7117e53303a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bleacherreport.com/articles/421814-steinbrenner-of-cleveland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968446 | 888 | 1.625 | 2 |
When you wake up in the morning intent on joining a pro-democracy march in China, its one of those things that sounds impressive to brag home about. Images of angry, weapon yielding masses, Molotov cocktails, and a single man standing in front of an advancing line of tanks are thrown around liberally. I wasn’t sure if I was exactly ready to stare down a tank, but this morning I was ready to stand up and demand democracy from those crazy communists in China.
So, I put on my best fitting running shoes, protective long pants, and of course, grabbed my camera before heading out of the door.
Then, on the way there, I stopped by Starbucks and grabbed a chai tea…venti size.
“Huh?,” you remind me, “Andy, you can’t light a chai tea on fire and throw it through a storefront window!?”
+ + +
Chinese-American relations have been on shaky ground for quite some time. In the last decade alone: an American military plane crash lands while spying on China, all ends well but the Chinese threaten to keep the plane; Americans love the “low prices” of their Chinese-manufactured goods, but then turn a blind eye when sweatshops are discovered; America need China to negotiate with North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program and everyone is buddy-buddy,but then tainted Chinese toothpaste shows up in American consumer’s bathrooms, spurring threats of US Congressional trade sanctions.
Asked by Pew Researchers in February 2006 whether they viewed China’s emergence as a world power as a “major threat, minor threat, or not a threat to the well being of the United States,” 47% of Americans saw it as a major threat, while 34% called it a minor threat (that would mean 84% of American see China as a ‘threat,’ either minor or major).
“How can the people of China support an oppressive authoritarian communist government (with an emphasis on the word ‘communist’) that doesn’t even let their people read Wikipedia!?” asks an American.
“Isn’t it hypocritical for America to mettle in our country over isolated ‘human rights violations’ that we ARE trying to clean up, when they’ve just made a total mess out of The Middle East against the wishes of the rest of the world!?” asks a Chinese.
The reality of it all is that things are a bit different then most seem to perceive based on what I’ve seen, and my experience during the pro-democracy march helps to begin to illustrate this (And my hope is that my upcoming posts about my travels in China will help me share my new found perspective on this relationship).
You see in the end its much more complicated than, ‘the kung fu masters, oppressed by the communists’ versus ‘the freedom-loving Americans’ (as many Americans often see it). And its much more than the ‘hip-hop wearing American’s with cool movies and TV, power-mungering around the world’ (as many Chinese often see it). Things on either side of the Pacific are a little bit different than most perceive.
Let’s start with Hong Kong.
As it turns out, the pro-democracy march I speak of was held July 1, 2007 in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, though officially part of China, is not really like the rest of China—but it IS China. It developed for 150 years on its own as a British colony before being handed back to the Chinese government on July 1, 1997 (10 years ago), with the requirement that the Chinese Communist Party make no changes to the laws for 50 years. (The most embarrassing thing about being an American here is that huge number of Americans who believe that Hong Kong is in Japan?….including the Oscars.)
So despite what you hear about China, Hong Kong is a bastion of freedom, consumerism, internationalism, Chinese culture, wealth, air conditioning, busy streets, sleepy cafes, wide beaches, tall skyscrapers and, often contrary to the general intuition of those who have never visited, it is home to:
- The world’s freest economy (the US is tied for third)
- The world’s most efficient subway system
- The world’s best airport (as voted in passenger surveys)
- One of the lowest tax rates of any developed country (if it were a country), at a flat rate of 15% (the US ranges from 25%-39%).
- The above mentioned tax rate with a respectable per capita income of $27,466 USD (as opposed to Mainland China’s $2,001USD and America’s $44,190 USD)
- The world’s best shopping (more Louis Viton stores than Paris, France, plus all the cheap goods from China you could ever want)
- 1.3 mobile phones/person (The US is at .74.), with one of the world’s most advanced cell phone networks
- Unfiltered internet, unlike Mainland China (so everyone can read Wikipedia, and does)
- Reportedly, the most Rolls Royce’s per capita.
Not exactly the Hong Kong you were thinking of, eh? Hong Kong has all of this, yet the citizens are not allowed to:
- Assemble without a permit (though the law grants ‘the right to assembly,’ in theory it can be limited by the permit process, though the freedom to assemble is generally respected)
The debate to pass “universal suffrage” (i.e. one person, one vote) in Hong Kong is a complicated, long running debate, and may never find an end—right now the legislature is elected by a sort of representative democracy in which representatives of different sectors of society vote on behalf of their sector for the legislature and the head of the government. (On its surface it seems pretty fair, but there is a lot of accusations of fixing by China’s Central Government in the process.)
So Hong Konger’s have low taxes, great subways, and lots of Rolls Royces, but they can’t vote and are discouraged from mass assembly.
+ + +
All this is what had me walking down Hennessy Road on July 1st, 2007 in Hong Kong, with an empty Starbucks cup and a camera, not quite sure what I was about to see.
What I did see was between 25,000-50,000 people (depending on who you ask) of all sorts—Chinese, British, French, German, American, Filipino, young, old, fat and skinny–all marching in a four hour long protest (it was actually more of a parade than a protest) across Hong Kong Island to the government’s main offices.
What struck me most about it was that not everyone was chanting and screaming for ‘universal suffrage’—as the protest organizers had promised. Sure they had that in mind, but they also had a hundred other causes as well, from stopping “genocide” in China, to the freeing of Tibet, to domestic workers rights, to putting an end to the ill-treatment of Hong Kong’s orphaned pet population (“Hong Kong’s should adopt a ‘No-kill policy’ to pet over-population,” declared one sign). The signs were as varied as the faces of the people and though it was, at its heart, a pro-democracy march (calling for the government to give all Hong Konger’s a vote), it was really a march for much more—and I guess, that’s the point of democracy: anyone can stand up and fight for whatever they want and in any way they choose. This is a right that has not always been respected in Hong Kong’s long history, and maybe something that some of my American friends take for granted.
But coming from a small, liberal, hippie, protest-oriented town in middle America (Iowa City), a town known as the home of the university that first admitted men and woman on an equal basis, one of the first towns to have fair housing laws to allow African-Americans affordable housing, and most recently a key campus in the worldwide “Students Against Sweatshops” movement, I’ve seen a protest or two, and know how to exercise my right to assemble. The protesters in Iowa have their own causes too: “Farmers for Fair Trade Coffee,” “Iowans for Peace in Israel,” or one of my all-time favorites “Students Against Students Against Sweatshops.” In the end, everyone has their own cause and they stand up for what they want—-and in a free society, that’s the point, right?.
In the end, maybe the scenes (both in Hong Kong and Iowa) were summed up by two Europeans I caught rigging up hand-made signs on a curb as I walked across Hong Kong. Wide smiles crossed their faces as they chuckled and stretched long strips of grey duct tape on the back of a piece of ripped cardboard, taped to a bent broom pole. As they tossed the tape roll aside, exchanged glances, laughed a bit, and ran into the melee of 50,000 protestors, I was just able to make out what their sign said: Hastily written in plain black marker across their ragged piece of cardboard were the words, “Down With Evil.”
And maybe that sums up the experience best, I think we’re all against evil, however we define it, but I guess that’s also where the problem lies too, because what we may think is ‘evil,’ might actually turn out to be a lot more like us then we might at first have imagined.
See more photos from the march in my Flickr account by clicking here.
What you can do now:
Leave a comment on this post.
See more of Andy’s photos from the Pro-Democracy March in my Flickr account.
Read about Hong Kong, Japan and The Academy Awards.
See some of Andy’s photos of Hong Kong Places | <urn:uuid:62ceca8f-29b3-4a32-b7f9-b6ee6d95aae5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://noboundaries.org/blog/2007/07/28/marching-for-democracy-in-china/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96471 | 2,147 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Re: "Is stiffer DWI enforcement making our streets safer?" A-1, Oct. 28. As New Orleans and Jefferson Parish engage in a frenzy to arrest as many as they can on DWI charges, there is little effect on the problem. Yet in St. Tammany, where DWI arrests are down, so too are incidents of impaired driving.
This clearly illustrates that increased arrest rates do not and will not solve every crime problem. In fact, arresting people when other alternatives are available destabilizes families and the community, causing societal harm with no countervailing public benefit.
Under current law, anyone who refuses a field sobriety test can be held for that refusal, and is therefore taken off the road while impaired. If the goal is to make the streets safer, no-refusal blood testing serves no purpose. If, on the other hand, the goal is to increase arrests, then let's not pretend that it's about public safety.
Our criminal justice system is bloated. We can't afford adequate public defense, the jails to hold everyone we arrest, or the prisons to hold them after conviction. St. Tammany Parish, which focuses on public education rather than incarceration for DWI offenses, should serve as model for other communities.
We need impaired drivers off the roads. Arresting them doesn't work, and we can't afford it. Education and alternatives to arrest whenever possible are less expensive and more effective than trying to arrest our way out of every problem. When DWI rates go down with a decline in arrest rates, maybe we should all learn a lesson.
Marjorie R. Esman
Executive director, ACLU of Louisiana | <urn:uuid:1ab1950a-ff47-4cf5-b045-3018d7dcb67d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/10/education_is_what_will_make_ou.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 | 0.957336 | 340 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The SAVING FACE outreach mission is to support NGOs and other changemakers to leverage the film as a tool to gain support and momentum for the global campaign to end acid violence, in Pakistan and beyond.
Our outreach plan combines:
- Web and social media platforms to connect community members with information, resources and one another;
- Localized efforts for reaching those most at-risk for being affected through local radio and television campaigns;
- Educational materials including pamphlets, a film viewer’s guide and prevention focused screenings;
- Special media, commercial and other projects with fundraising and awareness-building potential to support survivors.
To maximize the impact of this outreach strategy we are working in concert with many international NGOs focusing on prevention and survivor support, including our lead international partner, London-based Acid Survivor’s Trust International (ASTI), Islamic Help and the Virtue Foundation. We are also consulting with surgeons, scholars, journalists, activists and other experts.
From joining our Facebook page to show your support, to hosting a screening to inform others, to donating to one of our partner NGOs, to funding our outreach team’s work to produce new television and radio campaigns, there is much you can do. Please join us.
We hope you will Get Involved in the campaign to eradicate acid violence. | <urn:uuid:45fb11c5-5322-4bbf-92f8-2e83aa8ed879> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://savingfacefilm.com/the-campaign/mission/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935611 | 269 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Nevertheless, Ackerman almost lost his crown this week, as I opened up David Kilcullen's Counterinsurgency, and was treated to this passage:
Some armchair chicken hawks (none with experience of actual warfare in any form, let alone against real guerrillas) have argued that, contrary to recent evidence, you can indeed kill your way out of an insurgency, and have even suggested that an intensely brutal and violent approach is the quickest and best way to suppress an insurgency. Two favorite examples are the Romans and the Nazis, who supposedly ignored the "politically correct" notions of modern counterinsurgency and applied mass brutality with great success.
After reading that, I felt as giddy as a Japanese schoolgirl in a Hello Kitty store.
Kilcullen mentions that the Romans were able to subjugate Gaul, Helvetia, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and other lands not "by the sword", but by instituting Roman law, introducing Latin, and delivering essential civil services, like fresh water, channeled through aqueducts. Indeed, Roman population-centric nation-building efforts are faithfully reproduced in this classic scene from Monty Python's Life of Bryan.
Kilcullen goes even further. He cites one study which suggests that many Wehrmacht commanders during the Second World War actually reduced the level of partisan activity (read: insurgency) by instituting fairer forms of government. I will also submit that in many cases, even the Mongols understood the value of state-building. During the Mongol expansion of the 13th Century, cities which chose to submit rather than fight found themselves treated relatively favorably by the Horde. The Mongols would simply exact a tribute and remove the city's leadership, leaving the civil servants unharmed. It seems even Ghengis Khan understood that "de-Baathification" was a bad policy.
Yet, the chapter didn't really address the question as well as I would have liked to. Certainly, there are hundreds of insurgencies worth examining, many being quelled with a wide range of solutions. Some might resemble the population-centric methods favored in the US Army's Field Manual 3-24. Yet, others might resemble a brutal "crushing" of an insurgency. Strangely enough, the brute force method might seem to be successful in at least a few situations. Even Galula concedes that the brute-force method is effective some of the time.
Granted, it's quite a gamble. As The Duck of Minerva points out, reckless neglect for the welfare of civilians tends to cause mass uprisings, as is evidenced in Afghanistan. Fittingly, The Duck also ends with a particularly notable quote from Machiavelli, one which is often taken grossly out of context by many in the "brute force" camp.
The 16th Century Florentine writer is most famous for claiming that it is better for a prince to be feared than loved, and this much is true. However, the second half of the original sentence notes that it is also important that a prince not make one's self hated. By causing civilian casualties in such a reckless manner, we cross the fine line from "fear" to "hatred".
Focus: Does the brute force method ever work in counterinsurgency? Under what conditions?
Update: Dr. Patrick Porter weighs in at The Offshore Balancer.
Update 2: The Canadian Cincinattus also addressed this issue over the weekend. | <urn:uuid:0d27fe9b-6d73-4d65-95d9-6d2fe7aa604e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wingsoveriraq.blogspot.com/2010/05/ackerman-retains-his-crown.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964123 | 717 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I notice that no one so far has made any mention of the boy's autism. Does anyone know how this might- if at all- affect his condition? The article on the Daily Mail website has it in the headline perhaps to attract more views, but the article barely mentions it save stating that he is 'mildly autistic'.
I used to be very very opposed to gender reassignment until I learned more about it. Back then I considered it self mutilation and felt that the person should learn to accept the body into which they were born and not have surgeries or whatnot.
When I actually met a person who had gender reassignment it changed my mind. In addition having known someone as a male for a very long time only to find out that they were actually born a woman was interesting. As I did research I found that we usually hear about the more exploitative and sensational versions of these stories. But many of the transgendered live quiet lives and people would never ever know they had not been born differently.
This is why early intervention is so important. There is a transsexual in our neighborhood up here. And she obviously can't afford the surgery and didn't understand what was really going on until she became a full fledged man after puberty. There is nothing she can do to hide the fact that she is physically a male. And it is heart wrenching to watch her suffering.
I could pm you some clips that might change your mind. I don't want to post them publicly since we get a lot of traffic on here. But it's very sad the way this is misconstrued in society.
Think of it more like those people who grow horrendous tumors on their faces or body. Would you deny them the treatment to have it removed simply because that is the way their body is naturally? Of course not. It's pretty much the same issue. It's only the taboo and sensitivity that people have about their sexual organs that makes it any different.
Edited by pickletoes, 29 December 2010 - 05:53 PM. | <urn:uuid:1b5d8448-b3bb-4d52-8a9c-6506c1d15b3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?s=1cb962ca1f553e27ba49075f17bc2dca&showtopic=197595&st=15&p=3717138 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991606 | 417 | 1.515625 | 2 |
29 April 2009. Sensational Cat. An unexpected and fabulous afternoon/evening was spent observing a beautiful female leopard.
28 April 2009. Xpl-35. Movement animations of Xpl-35 are now available for March and April 2009. Photos of the meeting with Torra Conservancy have been added (see below).
26 April 2009. GPS collar animations. Analysis of the new movement data, downloaded from Xpl-35’s GPS collar on 24 April 2008, is currently underway. Movement animations for the period 23 February to 26 March 2008 have been posted (see Springbok Male). The latest update for the Hoanib Male is also available.
Ever since she was first radio-collared in 1999, Xpl-5 has been aggressive and weary of humans. At the age of 17 years she has lost none of those attributes, and it required a 38-hour effort to dart her and replace a fading radio collar. She was in remarkably good condition with hardly any scars and weighed 140 kg. A new radio collar with a 5-year battery life was fitted, which should see her through the rest of her life. Wilderness Safaris from Rhino Camp (Daphne Hanabeb) and Palmwag (Durr Ferreira & Heidi Debnam) assisted with the darting and provided generous support.
Photo (2nd row, left) shows the dart making contact with Xpl-5, and one of the cubs (2nd row, right) playing with Xpl-5's collar after she had been immobilised.
Photo credits: 3rd row, middle & right taken by E Vervey.
Remarkably good teeth for a 17-year old lion
Demonstrating the vakue of long-term data
Daphne Hanabeb & Palmwag staff move Xpl-5 to shade
23/24 April 2009. Radio-collar new Aub lioness. A five-year old female was darted and fitted with a normal VHF radio collar. Garth Owen-Smith & Margie Jacobsohn (Directors of IRDNC) and two WWF, UK representatives (Diane Walkington - Director of Species, and Drew McVey - Programme Offic) joined the occasion. An adult male arrived after the lioness had been darted and there was much surprise and excitement when he was identified as Xpl-35 – the lion that killed “Miles” in the Ugab River. The movement data were downloaded from his GPS collar and new animations will be posted shortly under GPS Collars / Sprinbok Male. New movement animation for Hoanib Male.
23 April 2009. Re-unite with Aub lions. An intensive search effort, after leaving the Agab lions, produced a result when a sub-group of the Aub pride, including Xpl-5, was located at sundown on 22 April. Xpl-5 is one of the founding lionesses of the current desert population - she is the mother of Xpl-10 (the Hoaruseb lions) - and it was great to see that she is still in good condition. There were also two lactating lionesses and five 8-week old cubs. The whole night was spent observing the lions and allowing them to become habituated to the field vehicle.
22 April 2008. Abandon Agab lions. After 59 hours of searching for and/or monitoring the Agab lions by listening to radio telemetry signals, the observations were abandoned. Early this morning they were spotted for the first time, at a great distance, as they moved deeper into the mountains. See photos below: notice the two lionesses and small cub (right zoom) and Shackleton (left zoom).
21/22 April 2009. Find Agab lions. Large concentrations of zebra, springbok and oryx were observed in the valleys near Juriesdraai and Rooiplaat. The Agab lions were tracked down late on 21 April 2009 in a narrow gorge where they had killed a zebra.
21 April 2009. Agab lions take to mountains. During the night of the 19th April the Agab lions moved into the mountains towards Juriesdraai. It was not possible to follow them and listening to their radio telemetry signals from high points on 19 and 20 April 2008, served to monitor their movements. Staff from Wilderness Safaris, Rhino Camp assisted with the monitoring and provided support. At 04h00 on 21 April 2008 the lions moved further east and their telemetry signals were lost. This is of concern because they are moving towards the livestock area of Torra Conservancy where they ran into trouble earlier in the year. The search to locate them continues. New movement animation update is available for the Hoanib Male.
19 April 2003. Agab cub struggling to keep up. During the early morning hours Xpl-36 and her small cub got separated from the group – the cub could hardly keep up during the early part of the evening. Xpl-36 spent the day with her cub at a spring and they rejoined the rest of the group at 21h30.
19 April 2009. Single cub for Agab lioness. After 24 hours of observation it was confirmed that Xpl-36 produced only one surviving cub. This is the first record of a single-cub litter in the desert population, but it is possible that some cubs may have died due to the heavy rains and flooding rivers at the time of their birth.
18 April 2008. Skittish Agab lions. The changes in the behaviour of the Agab lions towards tourist vehicles are more serious than the initial evaluation. Four vehicles from Wilderness Safaris - Rhino Camp tried to view the lions today, but the lions were skittish and moved into thick vegetation when the vehicles approached. Only after the last vehicle had left did they come out into the open and were then quite active and playful. A serious effort will have to be made to regain the trust of the lions before they can once again be approached and viewed by tourists. Tip: move mouse over last photo (far right).
18 April 2009: New cub(s) for Agab lions. The Obab lions moved into mountainous terrain and it were impossible to continue following them. Attention was turn to locating the Agab lions. The radio signal of “Shackleton” (Xpl-48) was picked-up at 03h00 in the Agab River. The group consisted of two adult females (Xpl-18 & 36)," Shackleton" and three large cubs. This is also the first record and confirmation of Xpl-36’s new litter. One cub, approximately 8 weeks old, was observed, but the litter size still has to be confirmed. The lions were surprisingly nervous and weary of the vehicle. This is possibly due to recent conflicts with people when a male was shot. These lions are important to tourism, especially to regular tours that run from the nearby Rhino Camp (Wilderness Safaris). Several days will now be spent with this group to ensure that they calm down and become habituated to tourist vehicles. New movement animation for the Hoanib Male.
17 April 2009: Obab lions avoid Xpl-50 & 51. The Obab lions consumed the rest of the zebra carcass before 22h00 last night. They were sleeping around the remains of the carcass when, at 00h10, the signal of Xpl-50 appeared on the radio telemetry monitor. At 00h30 they all leapt up, looked intently in the direction of the approaching males, and moved off in the opposite direction. They spent the day resting in a Salvadora thicket.
16 April 2009. Obab lions. Afternoon images as lions return to the zebra carcass.
16 April 2009. Obab lions kill zebra. After spending the day at Urunedis Spring, “Nina” and her family moved east towards the Aub River. They hunted zebras along the mountain slopes, but were unsuccessful during four recorded hunts. At 23h20 they stopped and rested until 03h10. Shortly after 04h00 they caught an adult male zebra in a broad valley running down to the Aub River, and fed vigorously until sunrise. A tourist vehicle drove past at high speed and did not see the lions, but disturbed them and they moved off. A spotted hyaena, that had been watching the lions from a safe distance for over an hour, took advantage of the situation and moved in to feed on the carcass, whilst the lions watched from a distance.
Spotted hyaena feeding on the lion kill - moved to Spotted hyaena Page.
15 April 2009. Lion tourism. Continue with data collection on the interaction between tourist vehicles and lions, following the study design developed in the Purros Conservancy. These data will aid the development of lion eco-tourism in the Torra Conservancy and the Palmwag Concession.
Notice the lion in the middel and right photo. The tourists had not yet seen the lion (middle), but viewed it when they moved back (right).
15 April 2009. Urunendis Spring. The two males (Xpl-50 & 51) remained in a Euclea thicket for most of the night. The young lioness, Nina, and her group moved down from the mountains at 23h00, and observations were focussed on them. They hunted zebras on the moonlit plains, but were unsuccessful on several occasions. Just before dawn they started moving south and reached Urunendis spring after sunrise, where they are now resting in the shade of a Salvadora bush.
13 – 15 April 2009. Monitoring Obab lions. After darting the two new males (Xpl-50 & 51) they were observed regularly. The young lioness (Xpl-49), marked on 11 April 2009, was named “Nina” and her movements were tracked daily. At midday on 14 April 2009 “Nina” and her group were resting <8 km from the males (Xpl-50 & 51). Observations will continue to see if the two groups meet-up and interact. It is yet unknown if the males are nomads or recent immigrants. New movement animation available for Hoanib Male.
14 April 2009. Tire problems. Fieldwork has been hampered by regular punctures. Nine flat tires had to be repaired during the past four days. With only one serviceable spare wheel at the start of the fieldwork, the repairs had to be made on the spot, often in the blazing sun, at night, or near lions. The punctures resulted mostly from sharp rocks penetrating the tread of the tires. Large numbers of zebras have been observed in the upper Urunendis and Obab Rivers (photos below).
13 April 2009: Xpl-50 & 51. Two adult male lions were darted in the upper Obab River. A GPS radio collar was fitted to Xpl-50.
10-12 April 2009: Obab lions. A follow-up meeting, from the discussions with Torra Conservancy, was held with Wilderness Safaris at Palmwag on 10 April 2009. Thereafter, fieldwork resumed with intensive radio tracking and surveying of the Aub, Barab, Urunendis and Obab Rivers. On 11 April 2009 a group of 11 lions were located on the water-divide between the Urunedis and Obab Rivers. A young lioness was immobilised and fitted with a VHF radio collar. New movement animations are available for the Hoanib Male.
9 April 2009: Torra Conservancy. Moved to Human Wildlife Conflict Page.
8 April 2009: Wereldsend. The rains appeared to have stopped even though April is normally the period that the desert receives most of its annual rainfall. Driving through the areas with extensive grass cover, like the Springbok River and around Wereldsend, is difficult and none of the radio-collared lions have been located. See Hoanib Male for new movement animation update.
2/4 April 2009: Website statistics. Rainfall continues throughout the region and unusual movements of wildlife have been observed. Website statistics for March 2009 and new movement animations for the Hoanib Male are available.
25/6 March 2009: Koigab River. Vultures pointed out a carcase at sundown in the lower Huab River, but after 12 hours of watching and hoping that lions may be close by, it turned out that a cheetah had killed an ostrich. Disturbing tracks left by 4x4 vehicles that entered the Skelton Coast Park illegally was observed on the north-bank of the Huab River (middle photo). These tracks will likely be visible for the next 20-30 years. Many of the tributaries to the Koigab River flooded this year for the first time in several decades. Large pools of water have dammed-up against the moving dunes that now block the path to the coast (photo-right). The main Koigab River, however, managed to cut a path through the dunes and reached the sea.
24 March 2009: Huab River. Coastal fog during the early morning in the lower part of the Huab River. New movement update for the Hoanib Male.
23-24 March 2009: Land Cruiser Club. Members of the Land Cruiser Club of Southern Africa visited the project briefly on 22 March '09. David van Breda led the group of four vehicles and we met in the Springbok River (see Cruiser page). Our search for the adult male lion, Xpl-35, towards the Huab River was unsuccessful. Disappointingly, I located a lioness in the lower Huab River the following day, after the LCC group had left.
20-22 March 2006: 2009 Research Report. The analyses of GPS radio collar data has been completed and the results have been compiled in a report "Movement patterns and activity of desert-adapted lions in Namibia - March 2009". The latest movement animations are available for the Hoanib Male. Photo (below) of green grass near Wereldsend.
16 March 2009: Unusual year continues. As we enter the usual peak of the rains (March/April), the clouds continue to build in the late afternoon and showers fall far and wide. Vast areas of the Namib have been transformed into green pastures and the nutrient-rich grasses attract springboks from afar. New movement animation update available for the Hoanib Male.
11 March 2009: Data analysis. Efforts have been focused on data analysis of the movements of GPS-collared lions, until such time as active field work can be resumed. New GPS animation - Hoanib Male.
8/9 March 2009: Green grass in the Desert. The extensive rains over the past two months have turned large parts of the northern Namib into green "meadows". There are few people alive today that have witnessed a spectacle of similar magnitude. New GPS animation - Hoanib Male.
5 March 2009: Messum River. The area south of the Ugab River, including the Messum, was surveyed for signs of lion movements. No recent evidence was found, but the efforts were hampered by daily showers. GPS animation update posted for the Hoanib Male.
3 March 2009: Search for GPS collars. An extensive search over the past few days for the GPS collared lions produced no results. However, the latest update from the satellite GPS collar of the Hoanib Male, is available.
1 Mar 2009: Rain, lions & updates. With the continuing rains, fieldwork is becoming virtually impossible. This is disappointing because the movements of the lions, in response to the wet conditions, are fascinating. However, with all the major ephemeral rivers in flood, there are no alternative options. During the long periods of waiting for water levels to recede, or being bogged down, the time was spent on data analysis and updates for the website. NEW updates include: visitor statistics for February 2009, movement animations for the Hoanib Male, the last section (Part 8) of the “Sandfall movie”, and additions to the Sponsorship page. | <urn:uuid:b9705f0c-0a93-4ec5-8b81-b0269d120903> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desertlion.info/news09/news09_34.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967561 | 3,372 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Published on ShanghaiDaily.com (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/)
Harder to buy US Treasuries
Created: 2009-12-18 0:13:35
Author:Zhou Xin and Jason Subler
IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.
The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds.
Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets.
China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange reaffirmed this month that the dollar stands secure as the anchor of the currency reserves it manages, even as the country seeks to diversify its investments.
In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.
He then addressed where demand for that debt would come from.
"The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries," Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. "Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible."
"The US current account deficit is falling as residents' savings increase, so its trade turnover is falling, which means the US is supplying fewer dollars to the rest of the world," he added. "The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries."
China continues to see its foreign exchange reserves grow, albeit at a slower pace than in past years, due to a large trade surplus and inflows of foreign investment. They stood at US$2.3 trillion at the end of September.
Copyright © 2001-2011 Shanghai Daily Publishing House | <urn:uuid:c37311bb-aeca-437c-835b-e5a304422e30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/print.asp?id=423054 | 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 | 0.960083 | 435 | 1.6875 | 2 |
A-Z of prog rock
13th May 2010 | 14:00
A is for… Anderson, Jon
The diminutive and high-pitched singer of Yes is one of prog’s best known and distinctive front men.
Anderson fronted the band through their classic 70s era and also during their 80s resurgence, as well as launching a successful solo career. He's also known for having more contemporary hits with keyboard pal Vangelis.
Currently ousted from Yes following a health scare, much to the chagrin of fans, but is back on the road to recovery. His distinctive tones were matched by his legendarily unfathomable lyrics.
A is also for… Asia
A supergroup formed of members of Yes, King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the early ‘80s, Asia's mix of AOR and prog rock rocketed them to the top of the charts for a few years at least, whilst most music critics seethed with barely concealed vitriol.
Barclay James Harvest
B is for… Barclay James Harvest
Formed in Saddleworth in 1966, Barclay James Harvest mixed their early progressive sounds with orchestral arrangements, which placed them firmly in the symphonic prog area.
This was also occupied by the likes of The Moody Blues, forcing BJH to respond to critics by penning Poor Man’s Moody Blues. Still a going concern today, although like many prog bands of their era, the original members have fallen out, meaning two parties currently tour under the BJH moniker.
B is also for… Bigelf
A modern day prog quartet from Los Angeles, Bigelf formed in 1991. However it was signing to ex-Four Non Blonde singer Linda Perry’s Custard label and releasing Cheat The Gallows in 2008 that really set the band, fronted by top-hatted Damon Fox, on the right road. Currently touring North America as support to Porcupine Tree.
C is for… Canterbury Scene
The name given to a collective of bands who, somewhat unsurprisingly, mostly hailed from the Canterbury area.
All the bands followed a slightly jazzier, more pastoral route than some of the more bombastic and ostentatious prog bands of the 70s, and thus had more low-key success.
C is also for… Curved Air
Formed in 1970, Curved Air added classical, folk and electronic elements to their progressive sound. However they were most noticeable for having a female singer, the not unattractive Sonja Kristina, who was prog’s pin-up girl du jour and helped propel their single Back Street Luv to number four in the charts in 1971. Check the reformed band out at Glastonbury later this year.
D is for… Dream Theater
Immensely successful US prog metal band, indeed one of the most successful prog metal bands there’s ever been. In their very early days Dream Theater sounded like a cross between Metallica and Rush, but their sound has become bolder and more progressive as the years have passed.
Unusual for a modern day prog band in as much as they’ve had major chart success with both a major label (Atlantic) and now with metal indie Roadrunner.
Prodigiously talented, the band notably champion prog with their international touring progfest the Prog Nation tours.
D is also for… Dark Side Of The Moon, The
Pink Floyd’s legendary 1973 album which rocketed the band into the stratosphere. The sixth studio album the band released, it was a conceptual treatise on life, death and mental fragility (perhaps a nod to the band’s former frontman Syd Barrett), the album spent over two years on the Billboard charts.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
E is for… Emerson, Lake & Palmer
They premiered at the Isle Of Wight Festival in 1970 and became one of the biggest bands on the planet, although the late John Peel grumbled that they were a “waste of electricity”. Known for their OTT stage shows, by the mid-70s they also came to embody the excesses for which prog would be slated by the punks.
This year they celebrate their 40th Anniversary and have reunited to perform at Classic Rock magazine’s High Voltage Festival.
E is also for…The Enid
A quasi-classical prog rock outfit fronted by the eccentric Robert John Godfrey, a one-time member of Barclay James Harvest, The Enid are a quirky act who were once signed to EMI. Their party piece was to perform Elgar’s Land Of Hope & Glory at Reading Festival during the ‘80s to a bemused audience of headbangers and punks.
F is for… Focus
A Dutch prog rock quartet who are best known for introducing yodelling into prog on the legendary hit Hocus Pocus on which flautist Thijs Van Leer vocalised like a maniac over Jan Akkerman’s heavy metal riffing.
Focus are aso notable for supplying the theme music for Steve Coogan’s Saxondale TV programme with House Of The King from their 1970 In And Out Of Focus debut.
Still going with two original members although like many bands of their era, to diminishing returns.
F is also for… Fripp, Robert
The professorial leader of King Crimson and guitar whizz, who legendarily broke up Crimson as they were reaching a commercial and creative high in the mid-70s. Fripp reformed the band with a new line-up and vastly different sound in the 80s. Married to Toyah Wilcox and notably diffident when it comes to progressive rock music.
G is for… Genesis
Arguably one of the biggest and most commercially successful of all the prog rock bands.
Formed at Charterhouse public school in 1967 and managed, for a short while by Jonathan King. Originally arty and complex and fronted by Peter Gabriel, when he quit after the epic concept album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
Drummer Phil Collins took over as singer and the band became more of a stadium rock band as long-time fans blamed the garrulous Collins for dumbing down the progressive inclinations of the band. Reformed in 2007 for a massively successful tour, but alas, without Gabriel.
G is also for… Gong
Originally a bizarre hippie collective based in France who believed in a world of flying tea-pots and pot-headed pixies. Fronted by eccentric Australian Daevid Allen and featuring Steve Hillage on guitar, in the 70s Gong became a jazz fusion outfit, but reformed recently with their ‘classic’ line-up to notable success.
H is for… Hawkwind
One of prog’s most enduring, and often endearing bands, Hawkwind brought their unique brand of space rock to the prog rock table.
Formed in 1969 in Ladbroke Grove, whilst many prog bands seemed most civil and quintessentially English, Hawkwind were from the counter culture, a hippie collective based in London’s Ladbroke Grove.
They had a massive hit in 1972 with Silver Machine although the late 80s and 90s were something of a fallow period for the band. Have just released a brand new studio album, Blood Of The Earth.
H is also for… High Voltage
A brand new London-based rock festival inspired by Classic Rock magazine. Headlined by ZZ Top and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, High Voltage also features a prog stage backed by its sister publication Classic Rock Presents Prog (of which your humble author is the editor), featuring an array of established and new up and coming prog rock bands.
And yes - this is a plug for MusicRadar's sister magazine!
In The Court Of The Crimson King
Is is for… In The Court Of The Crimson King
The 1969 debut album from King Crimson, In The Court Of The Crimson King is largely believed to be one of the best and most influential of the prog rock genre.
The album also features one of the most distinctive prog rock album covers, painted by Barry Godber, who sadly died within months of the album’s release.
I is also for… IQ
A quintet originally from the Southampton area, IQ rose to prominence as part of the prog revival of the 1980s, which also saw the likes of Marillion, Pallas and Pendragon gain levels of fame. Still going today, IQ were once signed to a major label, but pioneered the DIY approach to setting up their own label that became the lifeblood of the genre.
J is for… Jethro Tull
One of the longest lasting and most successful of all the great prog rock bands, Jethro Tull formed in 1967, and an early line-up included Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.
The band, led by the enigmatic Ian Anderson (a salmon farmer and Scottish Laird no less) who is well known for playing the flute stood on one leg, remain a going concern over 40 years down the line.
With a blues base, Tull added elements of folk and hard rock to prog, notably with their mega-selling 1971 album Aqualung.
J is also for… Jean Michel Jarre
The flamboyant French keyboard maestro who is most famous for his 1976 work Oxygene and the 1978 follow-up Equinoxe, as well as for putting on enormous outdoor shows turning the likes of London’s Docklands and Paris’s Palace de la Concorde. JMJ is one of the first Western musicians to be allowed to play in China.
K is for… King Crimson
One of the most talented and eclectic of the prog’s bands, King Crimson formed in 1969 and immediately made an impact with their debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Led by guitar whizz Robert Fripp, the band had something of a revolving door policy concerning line-ups, and featured at various junctures such luminaries as Greg Lake, Bill Bruford and John Wetton.
Fripp disbanded the band in 1974, and reformed in the 1980s as a more experimental outfit, but has always resisted a return to the bands perceived classic line-up and sound.
K is also for… King Arthur
As in '… and the Myths And Legends Of The Knights Of The Round Table', the third solo album from keyboard maestro Rick Wakeman which is notable for the ensuing live performances on ice at Wembley Arena.
Although the album sold well - 12 million copies and counting! - the pricey concerts are regarded as an example of the excess that grounded prog after its early 70s glory years.
Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, The
L is for… Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, The
Released in 1974 the album centres around the adventures of a Puerto Rican in New York named Rael. The album, which reached No. 10 in the UK, was performed in its entirety live a total of 102 times (Gabriel would cite exhaustion as one of his reasons for leaving the band), and also gave the band something of a hit when The Carpet Crawlers began to gain the band radio airplay.
L is also for… Loreley
The name of a rock formation on the banks of the Rhine in Germany is also etched into prog folklore. Not only have bands such as Wishbone Ash, Styx and Blackmore’s Night penned songs entitled Lorelei (Loreley’s alternative spelling), but Marillion recorded a 1987 VHS there (later a 2009 live CD) and it now hosts the successful annual Night Of The Prog festival.
M is for… Moody Blues
Originally their label wanted the band to record a rock version of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but they had other ideas, recording their own concept piece featuring the smash Nights In White Satin. From there they’ve never moved back, and still command stadium audiences in America to this day.
M is also for… Marillion
Of all the bands who came through in the 80s prog revival, Marillion were by far the most successful, reaching number one in the UK with their third album Misplaced Childhood. The band survived the loss of original singer Fish and went on to even greater success with his replacement Steve Hogarth, who fronts the band to this day.
N is for… Nice, The
However fired by the talent and ideas of keyboard player Keith Emerson, the band swiftly moved on from the psychedelic whimsy of The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack, taking on board classical influences melded with their bombastic rock on material like America and Rondo.
Emerson split the band in 1969 to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who took The Nice’s original ideas to an often illogical conclusion.
N is also for… Neu!
Neu! (German for New) formed out of an early incarnation of Kraftwerk and were, alongside the likes of Can, Faust, Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream, one of the main bands in the Krautrock movement, which was Germany’s take on prog. Despite a typically Germanic approach, they also released some amazingly catchy-ish singles. As for the rest - come back in a few months for an A-Z of Krautrock. A is for Amon Duul, B is for…
O is for… Oldfield, Mike
Multi-instrumentalist Oldfield shot to fame with his very first album, 1973’s Tubular Bells and went on to carve out a very successful career, originally built around lengthy instrumental pieces that blended classical and progressive music.
By the late 70s he began to mix in shorter contemporary pieces which would eventually pay dividend with the 1981 hit Moonlight Shadow.
O is also for… Opeth
Opeth began life as a Swedish death metal band. However hooking up with Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, who produced 1991’s Blackwater Park saw them allow more progressive influences to show through. Today they are one of the leading prog metal bands, recently selling out the Royal Albert Hall.
P is for… Pink Floyd
One of the most successful of all the prog rock bands, Pink Floydstarted life as a psychedelic band but when main songwriter Syd Barrett left the band, replaced by David Gilmour, the band began exploring more expansive soundscapes which by 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon paid dividends.
Floyd strode across the remainder of the decade like a colossus, peaking with the double album The Wall. Roger Waters left in 1984 but the band continued on regardless, to even greater success, and reunited for a one-off performance at 2005’s Live 8.
P is also for… Project
As in Alan Parsons Project, initially a studio-based project centred around producer Alan Parsons and manager and songwriter Eric Woolfson. Utilising various musicians and singers the pair created a string of successful concept albums and even had several hit singles before going their separate ways after a disagreement in 1990.
Q is for… Quintessence
Quintessence were quote unique in the grand scheme of prog, for although musically they added a dash of jazz to the prog mix, they also added an Eastern influence of Indian music.
To enhance the new age image they all gave themselves Indian names like Shiva Shankar Jones and Raja Ram. One of the band’s best known songs, Notting Hill Gate was named after the area where they rehearsed.
Raja Ram is currently involved with dance act Shpongle, who also worked with Alan Parsons in 2004.
Q is also for… Qango
A short-lived offshoot from the supergroup Asia, Qango featured Asia members John Wetton and Carl Palmer, and were also supposed to feature Geoff Downes too. However he did not join, being replaced by John Young.
Guitarist Dave Kilminster completed the line-up. The band failed to record an album but one show was recorded for a live album.
R is for… Rush
One of the most popular prog bands around, Canadian trio Rush began life as a hard rock act who mixed Led Zeppelin with Yes.
Soon fantasy and sci-fi became prevalent themes in the band’s writing and the music became more complex and conceptual.
R is also for… Renaissance
Renaissance were a very melodic progressive act who also featured strong elements of folk and classical music. After a faltering start the band settled on a line-up that featured Bolton-born Annie Haslam on vocals, and went from strength to strength, even hitting the pop charts in 1978 with Northern Lights.
S is for… Supertramp
After a faltering start the band hit paydirt with the 1974 album Crime Of The Century which featured the smash hit Dreamer. The band repeated the feat with 1979’s Breakfast In America, establishing them as one of the most successful bands of the era.
Singer Roger Hodgson left in 1983 but co-founder Richard Davis continued the band. They celebrate their 40th Anniversary later this year at the O2 Arena.
S is also for… Soft Machine
One of the pioneering bands who epitomised the Canterbury sound, Soft Machine originally featuring Daevid Allen, who would form Gong, and Kevin Ayers, who would later work with Mike Oldfield. They also featured drummer Robert Wyatt for a while. The band became jazzier as time went on.
T is for… Tool
Tool are one of the most influential and pioneering of modern day prog bands. The band began life as very much an alt-metal act, but by the time they released 1996’s Aenima, they’d become a lot more arty in sound.
Follow-ups Lateralus (2001) and 10,000 Days (2006) are full on prog metal records, and some of the finest the genre has heard. The band is fronted by the enigmatic Maynard James Keenan, who also fronted the very progressively inclined A Perfect Circle.
T is also for… Tangerine Dream
The pioneering German synthesizer wizards have been creating music since 1970’s Electronic Meditation. Tangerine Dream really hit their stride in the 1970s with albums like Phaedra, Rubycon and Tangram.
Still a going concern, the band have released over 100 studio albums.
U is for… UK
UK were a late 70s progressive supergroup who featured John Wetton (King Crimson), Bill Bruford (Yes/King Crimson), Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music/Jethro Tull) and guitar legend Allan Holdsworth. This 1978 line-up was the end of a lot of inter-label and -band wrangling, with Rick Wakeman and even Robert Fripp all part of the stew.
They released the excellent self-titled debut album in 1978, after which Holdsworth and Bruford left, and ex-Zappa Band drummer Terry Bozzio joined.
A three-piece line-up recorded Danger Money in 1979 and also released a live album, Night After Night, both of which were more mainstream but the individual talents were still more than evident.
U is also for… Utopia
Utopia were Todd Rundgren’s progressive rock outlet. Having tasted success with The Nazz and as a solo artist, Rundgren formed Utopia in 1973 and released a series of complex and intriguing progressive rock records. The band recorded and toured until 1986, although they briefly reunited in 1992.
Van der Graaf Generator
V is for… Van der Graaf Generator
Arguably the most eclectic and challenging of the first era of prog rock bands, like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, VdGG (it was always a small 'd') eschewed the lead guitar, in this case replacing it with the squawking saxophones of David Jackson.
Fired by the emotionally fragile vocals and fevered imagination of Peter Hammill, VdGG were often surprisingly melodic but always an intense listen.
They reformed a few years ago to some fanfare, their re-appearance as challenging as ever. Up there with King Crimson as prog’s deliberately awkward buggers.
V is also for… Vangelis Odysseus Papathanassiou
You probably know him better as Vangelis, composer of the trillingly engaging Chariots Of Fire theme, or the more enthralling Blade Runner soundtrack. However he was also a member of Greek prog demi-Gods Aphrodite’s Child, who also featured Demis Roussos (we kid you not), who released the excellent 666, a concept album about the Bible’s Book Of Revelations. the album was released on another 'V' - Vertigo - for which we'd need another A-Z entirely…
W is for… Wakeman, Rick
Cape wearer, keyboard wizard, member of The Strawbs, Yes and solo star in his own right, Classic Rock Presents Prog columnist and official grumpy old man, Wakeman embodies everything that is good about prog.
A prodigious talent, a man who’s ideas are grandiose but believable (even on ice!), and who also recognises the folly of both his own work and prog’s more nonsensical excesses, Wakeman is something of a breath of fresh air for the genre.
Even wears a cape in the full knowledge that everyone giggles at him for it!
W is also for… Wakeman’s offspring
Notably Adam and Oliver. The former is keyboard player for Ozzy Osbourne, but also a member of aspiring new prog outfit Headspace with Threshold singer Damian Wilson. Oliver has replaced his father in prog legends Yes.
X is for… Xaal
An example of French progressive music, three-piece Xaal combined the eclecticism of King Crimson with the finesse of Camel.
The band only ever released two albums in the 90s, both appealing to fans of fusion-based acts like Return To Forever and Brand X - the art rock band that also featured Phil Collins on drums.
As one might expect of a letter as troublesome as X, there is little on show on the Internet of the band, apart from this!
X is also for… XL
Another trio, this time from Finland, but a band again who are rooted in jazz. XL met at Finland’s legendary Sibelius Academy and released a string of albums that played on the band’s ethnicity. They even added a DJ at one point!
Y is for… Yes
One of the greatest of all prog rock bands, Yes started out as a band who sounded surprisingly melodic - they even covered Simon And Garfunkel at one point but soon opted for difficult to decipher intellectualism, quirky time changes and heavy conceptualism.
They gave the genre Roger Dean album covers, keyboard star Rick Wakeman and even had a massive international hit with Owner Of A Lonely Heart when the band re-invented themselves in the 80s with the aid of South African guitarist Trevor Rabin.
Y is also for… Yorke, Thom
Yorke is the the nu-prog wonder who fronts the enigmatic Radiohead. Although they began life as your standard indie band but when they released OK Computer in 1997 the press were quick to dub the band ‘the new Genesis’.
Z is for… Zappa, Frank
A legend who may not have made a huge commercial impact on the music world, indeed Peaches En Regalia is only one of his better known tunes, but Zappa’s anti-establishment stance had a far bigger impact on rock music than any hit could have given him.
His Mothers Of Invention’s Freak Out album was one of the precursors of prog rock music and Zappa's later outings into classical music are far more than worthy. Music is sadly lacking without his genius to torment it.
Z is also for… Zeuhl
A sub-genre of prog that is dedicated to French nut jobs Magma, a jazz-infused outfit who are based around a language and mythos invented by band leader Christian Vander. Harsh on the ear, the likes of protagonists Art Zoyd and Guapo are still highly regarded by intense aficionados.
Liked this? Now read: A-Z of heavy metal
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Archive for the ‘Maserati Birdcage’ tag
1960 Maserati Tipo 61 “Birdcage” racer. Image courtesy of Mecum Auctions.
When the ex-Briggs Cunningham 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 “birdcage” earned the Best in Show European award over the weekend at the Keels and Wheels Concours d’Elegance, it was surely recognized for its advanced engineering and svelte aluminum body, not for the accusations that the car is largely a reconstructed replica.
The birdcage, chassis number 2459, currently owned by Ken Dougherty of Houston, Texas, was the subject of some controversy when it was announced for sale at the Mecum Auctions Monterey 2011 event. Ahead of the auction, some questioned the authenticity of the former Briggs Cunningham car, which was destroyed in a 1962 crash and parted out, then more recently rebuilt by Steve Hart Racing in Norfolk, England. Mecum Auctions was quick to respond, clarifying that the car had been fully certified by the FIA; documentation of the car’s restoration process was included as part of the sale. “The owner/seller’s opinion is he is selling a re-constructed current rendition of the original,” Mecum explained.
Bidding reached $1.85 million, perhaps proving that even a significant restoration has little impact on a car’s value among collectors. On the other hand, the reserve was not met and the car was not sold, and it’s unclear if the Keels and Wheels Best of Show win was for the same owner selling the car in 2011. While Mecum typically maintains listing pages for cars from past auctions, it has since removed the listing and description for the birdcage.
Named for the seemingly delicate steel tubing that composes their primary structure, birdcage Maseratis were built with one goal in mind: winning races. Following on the success of the Tipo 60, the Tipo 61 increased displacement from 2.0 liters to 2.9 liters, bumping output to 250hp. Given that the car’s trellis frame weighed less than 80 pounds (and was wrapped in aluminum bodywork, producing a curb weight of under 1,300 pounds), performance was impressive, and the car’s top speed was nearly 180 MPH. One of multiple birdcage Maseratis that Cunningham owned, chassis number 2459 largely served as Walt Hansgen’s ride and took several overall wins in SCCA racing in 1960 and 1961. It also competed at the 12 Hours of Sebring both of those years, but DNF’d both times. On its final outing, in February of 1962 at Daytona with Augie Pabst at the wheel, the birdcage blew its engine, hit a wall, and catapulted end over end. Pabst, who was thrown from the car in the crash, survived with some broken ribs.
1932 Stutz DV-32 Rollston Convertible Victoria. Image courtesy Keels and Wheels.
Less controversial is the 1931 Stutz DV-32 Rollston Convertible Victoria that took Best in Show American at Keels and Wheels. Owned by Richard and Irina Mitchell of Montgomery, Texas, it was recently treated to a full restoration completed earlier this year. In its first outing at this year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, the Stutz collected a Best in Class award, and its next appearance will be at this year’s Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s. The Mitchells, who bought the Stutz in 2010, are no strangers to the concours winner’s circle, having taken three Best of Shows and a Best in Class with their Lancefield-bodied supercharged 1929 Stutz Model M over the last couple of years.
Image courtesy Keels and Wheels.
Stutz was known to be a very forward-thinking automaker, delivering amenities such as safety glass and a hill-holder transmission to its customers, years before safety features like this were common. In 1931, Stutz introduced a modified version of its Frederick Duesenberg-designed inline eight-cylinder SV-16 engine in an attempt to deliver more power without adding cylinders. Called the DV-32 (for Dual Valve head with 32 valves), the new engine featured four valves per cylinder, dual overhead camshafts and hemispherical heads, increasing output to 156hp, or roughly 40 percent more than the SV-16 engine.
1937 Trumpy Mathis Fan Tail, the Flying Lady. Image courtesy Keels and Wheels
As for keels, the Best of Show Big Boat award went to a 1937 Trumpy Mathis Fan Tail (named the Flying Lady), owned by Scott Monroe of Seabrook, Texas. The Best of Show Small Boat award was presented to the 1949 Chris Craft Special Runabout (named Unfinished Business), owned by Loyd Kirchner of Houston, Texas.
For a complete list of Keels and Wheels class winners, visit Keels-Wheels.com.
Mecum Auctions is a company known primarily for specializing in the sales of Corvettes and American muscle cars, but in a bid to take on the heavy hitters of the annual August Monterey Weekend, this firm has scored a coup with the consignment of a car of serious interest: the 1960 Sebring competitor, ex-Briggs Cunningham 1960 Maserati Tipo 61/60 “Birdcage” racer.
To be sold during Mecum’s third Monterey auction event August 18-20, this sports racer is chassis number 2459. Like the less than 20 other Tipos 60 and 61 built in 1959-1960, this example is powered by a front-mid-mounted, all-aluminum 200hp, 2.0-liter DOHC inline four-cylinder with two Weber 45DC03 carburetors. This light engine sits in a tubular space frame chassis designed by engineer Giulio Alfieri; it’s made up of more than 200 individual 10-15mm-thick tubes, many of which are exposed in the aluminum-bodied car, giving the Maserati its “Birdcage” nickname.
This ultra-light (sub 1,300-pound), purposeful car has advanced features like a five-speed manual gearbox, rack and pinion steering, four-wheel disc brakes and a De Dion rear end. Mecum reports that it has been completely restored and prepared by Steve Hart Racing in Norfolk, England; photos of the restoration and FIA papers will be included in the sale. | <urn:uuid:d7e2ead2-c6d7-40bf-9be2-559fbd87e5bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/tag/maserati-birdcage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959476 | 1,399 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The advisory went into effect Wednesday due to a broken 16-inch water main along Highway 78 near Forestdale. The broken main caused a loss of pressure, and prompted the alert. The water is now safe to drink, according to a Water Works Board press release:
"Rigorous testing has been conducted to verify the safety of the drinking water, and all bacteriological samples from the boil water alert area have come back negative," the release stated. "The water is safe to drink through the entire service area, and the water quality will be monitored continually."
On Wednesday, the Birmingham Water Works Board warned residents of Adamsville, Graysville, Brookside and West Jefferson to boil any water to be used for drinking. That warning also applied to the following neighborhoods:
Pratt City communities off of Pratt Highway
And to residents along the following streets (including streets adjacent to):
Cherry Avenue, west of Brandy Lane
U.S. 78 west of Chickasaw Drive
As of 10 a.m. Friday, the boil water advisory is no longer in effect. | <urn:uuid:79ec66b4-d9ce-48fe-8c44-90e389ace400> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/01/birmingham_waters_works_lifts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931497 | 221 | 1.648438 | 2 |
GOLD COAST POOL INSPECTIONS & POOL SAFETY COMPLIANCE
As from December 2010 new laws regarding access to all existing swimming pools were put in place for all Queensland. The changes to the existing pool fence regulations and pool safety were made primarily to help protect and prevent our children from drowning. Through building safe pool fences and incorporating safe access to our swimming pools, in addition to adult supervision, we can all play our part in reducing the amount of drownings in Queensland. The new Gold Coast pool fence regulations will affect everyone in different ways to what they may need to do to meet the new pool safety compliance regulations. Our suggestion is not to wait, book your pool inspection today. Be pool safe and know where you stand.
If you require a pool inspection, Gold Coast Pool Compliance covers from the Gold Coast to Brisbane. We are honest/efficient/reliable and offer detailed reports/explanations when required and offer competitive pricing. Gold Coast Pool Compliance only undertake pool safety inspections, we are not looking for any building work.
POOL FENCE REGULATIONS GOLD COAST & POOL SAFETY BARRIERS
The maintenance of swimming pool fences and pool safety barriers, so that they comply with Gold Coast pool fence regulations, is essential in reducing the number of drownings and serious immersion injuries of young children in swimming pools. Gold Coast swimming pool owners are responsible for ensuring pool safety barriers are maintained and that damaged pool fencing or pool safety barriers are repaired immediately to comply with the pool fence regulations Gold Coast. There is now one pool safety standard in Queensland and has replaced the previous eleven different pool safety standards. Considerations that Gold Coast pool owners need to be aware of are available through the government website. (See Below for link)
POOL SAFETY INSPECTIONS GOLD COAST – SERVICE AREAS
There are four main areas that may apply to you. Please see the categories below…
Pool Safety Tips
Tips on pool safety and pool fence safety.
Things you can do around your swimming pool to help prevent drownings. Also check out Website.
Real Estate Tips
Tips on how the pool safety rules effect Real Estate Agents. The must know about pool safety compliance when it comes to selling/leasing.
Personal check list before pool inspection. (This can help towards passing your pool inspection first time and save money on re-inspections) | <urn:uuid:df61e31e-271d-4589-ab28-b2e95ea05190> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goldcoastpoolcompliance.com.au/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943295 | 489 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Human rights campaigner Brenda Downes yesterday [Thursday] released the following statement in relation to an emergency anti-plastic bullet motion put to Dublin City Council by éirígí activist Councillor Louise Minihan.
Brenda is the wife of John Downes, who was killed by a plastic bullet fired by the RUC in west Belfast in August 1984.
Brenda said: “I welcome this initiative by éirígí in highlighting the lethal nature of plastic bullets, particularly after they have been recklessly fired by the PSNI on two separate occasions in less than two months. I appeal to all the councillors on Dublin City Council to back this crucial motion and put pressure on the British government to ban their use. This is a human rights issue that needs to rise above normal party politics.
“Plastic bullets kill. Since their introduction to the Six Counties in the early 1970s, 17 civilians have been killed as a result of their use. Hundreds more have been injured, many seriously.
“I hope that other parties will follow éirígí’s lead and put similar motions to councils across Ireland. Everyone has a role to play in getting plastic bullets banned before someone else is killed or seriously injured.”
éirígí chairperson Brian Leeson welcomed Brenda’s statement, saying: “Over the last 25 years, Brenda Downes has campaigned tirelessly for the banning of plastic bullets. Today’s statement shows she is as committed to the campaign as ever.
“éirígí is grateful for Brenda’s support of this motion and is confident that a broad coalition of communities, human rights campaigners and political groups can succeed in getting plastic bullets taken out of the hands of human rights abusers and banned for good.”
Campaign for British withdrawal
We Only Want the Earth!
No British Royal Visits!
Britain's Day of Shame
Reclaim The Republic
Copyright © éirígí, All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:1aea828a-8acb-4d3f-ae17-38f024d7a2a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest040909.html | 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 | 0.945713 | 414 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Absence Of Colour
Written By: Annameka Porter-Sinclair
Photo Credits: None
As a Jamaican born black woman brought up in a muli-cultural environment in the UK that is now it’s own entity as a conglomeration
of cultures, identity has always been an issue of interest. In a country that fundamentally attained it’s supremacy through exploration
and discovery of new land and civilisations, where it’s economic development and technological geometry is structured and built by
many cultures, how does one find one's self by looking back, at the trail of hurt and injustice that brought my ancestry to the
Caribbean, or looking out to today’s news at the black on black violence in the UK, where second generation Caribbean youth and
African youth are in conflict?
With hurt behind you and conflict in the present, I long for a distraction as do many. So how does the twenty something black British
women define herself outside from her career or loved ones? A great aspect of being a woman is our innate desire to focus on
beauty, the physical self. I can only speak of what I have observed; I see a lot of black British seeking for a sense of self, clinging to
their culture, in a media drenched environment that caters for the white British demographic.
Media representation of the black woman is limited in the UK, there are few and far between main stream magazines that feature
black female issues or even commercials that cater for ethnic female cosmetics and beauty products, let's be honest, Pantene isn’t
for afro hair. The physical definition of beauty of the black woman is silenced in the media only showing black females with
European features or build, ask Naomi Campbell how much work she gets, and how much more work she would get if she took out
the European hair extensions and contact lenses and kept the afro, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with women
experimenting with beauty, because that’s what we do, it’s the lack of physical definition of real solid black beautiful women in a
media rich consumer marketing society that I take issue with. | <urn:uuid:8835cb01-5580-4154-aae3-be4589c71052> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mimimagazine.com/2008/march/04-03-beauty01.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937823 | 454 | 1.625 | 2 |
View Full Version : just curious...sock question
03-13-2006, 11:17 AM
I am contemplating socks...not as my next project but for the one that follows (as a mother's day gift for my mom and my mil)....I already read posts about socks even though I've never knitted any b/c it's really the whole reason I got interested to begin with...so here's my question:
When you say you'd like to knit socks at the same time, what exactly do you mean (or sweater sleeves...I've seen it used there too). Is there a way to knit two items in the round or on dpns at one time or are you referring to knitting a section of one, followed by the same section of the other, and so on and so forth...???
Thanks in advance for your help!
03-13-2006, 11:21 AM
Could someone move this--I posted in the wrong section by mistake....sorry!!!! I meant to put it under general...:(
03-13-2006, 11:25 AM
A lot of people knit two socks on two circs -- the are literally side by side on the circs, and have two balls of yarn attached. So you knit the front of the first sock, then the front of the second, then turn the work and knit the back of the second, then the back of the first, and so on. (This will probably make more sense if you're already familiar with knitting on 2 circs)
I'm sure there are people who knit on two sets of DPNs too, just so they finish both socks around the same time. Eliminates the second sock syndrome. :D
03-13-2006, 11:26 AM
Thanks Julia--I'm not familiar with knitting on two circs but what you just said kind of makes sense...do you know if there is a video on that or something? I'd like to see it being done...
03-13-2006, 11:27 AM
wow that was cool...my thread just zipped right over here...you guys are magic! :)
03-13-2006, 11:28 AM
Amy has a video on just plain two-circ knitting...I haven't seen one where they do 2 socks. There's a lesson with photos here: http://www.socknitters.com/2circs/ (the good photos start in "lesson 2")
03-13-2006, 11:42 AM
I have made only a couple pairs of socks - one pair on dpn, one pair at the same time on 2 circs. I would suggest you try the first pair one at a time on dpn....then try two at once on circs. For me, doing one at a time on dpn helped me understand the whole process. Then it was easier doing two at once on circs. I think I would have been overwhelmed trying two at once right out of the gate.
I was relatively new to knitting and had never done short rows or much knitting in the round prior, so my advice may not apply to you!
Either way, you'll be thrilled to conquer the sock! Good luck.
03-13-2006, 11:55 AM
Thanks Lynn--I will most likely try them on dpns first--I was just interested in the concept...I really don' t mind knitting on dpns...I think I'll have enough to deal with without trying to learn two circs at the same time! ;)
Thanks for your suggestion!
03-13-2006, 02:00 PM
I've knit about 7 pair of socks and at first I knit both socks on two sets of dpn. I wanted them both to be done at the same time. So I would work awhile on one then put it down and then later pick up the other sock and work on that one. It worked great for me. Now I just do one at a time because I am not the type to just knit one sock and never finish the second one. good luck in which ever way you try. :XX: :XX:
03-13-2006, 02:08 PM
Cristy if you're going to use DPNs, I definitely recommend Silver's Sock Class -- it's the best :thumbsup:
03-13-2006, 02:58 PM
My first pair of socks was two at once toe-up on two circulars. I used the pattern at KnitPicks. The instructions are VERY clear; it was easy to understand what to do.
If you try their pattern, I do suggest one change: Do the afterthought heels one at a time instead of both at once. That way you can ignore the instructions about transfering stitches to safety pins.
I'm now making my second pair one at a time, toe up on DPNs with a shortrow heel this time.
One of these days I'll get the nerve to go cuff down, but I always get worried I'll run out of yarn before the toe!
You can also do them on one long circular, via the magic loop method. directions here (http://webdesignsbybarb.com/tostetoes/twosocksoneneedletoeup.htm) | <urn:uuid:7f338a6f-52be-4306-9b9d-43147cd8fa2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knittinghelp.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-38378.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952172 | 1,107 | 1.523438 | 2 |
It was dark when I opened my eyes again. Strange, stiff garments were upon my body; garments that cracked and powdered away from me as I rose to a sitting posture.
I felt myself over from head to foot and from head to foot I was clothed, though when I fell unconscious at the little doorway I had been naked. Before me was a small patch of moonlit sky which showed through a ragged aperture.
As my hands passed over my body they came in contact with pockets and in one of these a small parcel of matches wrapped in oiled paper. One of these matches I struck, and its dim flame lighted up what appeared to be a huge cave, toward the back of which I discovered a strange, still figure huddled over a tiny bench. As I approached it I saw that it was the dead and mummified remains of a little old woman with long black hair, and the thing it leaned over was a small charcoal burner upon which rested a round copper vessel containing a small quantity of greenish powder.
Behind her, depending from the roof upon rawhide thongs, and stretching entirely across the cave, was a row of human skeletons. From the thong which held them stretched another to the dead hand of the little old woman; as I touched the cord the skeletons swung to the motion with a noise as of the rustling of dry leaves.
It was a most grotesque and horrid tableau and I hastened out into the fresh air; glad to escape from so gruesome a place.
The sight that met my eyes as I stepped out upon a small ledge which ran before the entrance of the cave filled me with consternation.
A new heaven and a new landscape met my gaze. The silvered mountains in the distance, the almost stationary moon hanging in the sky, the cacti-studded valley below me were not of Mars. I could scarcely believe my eyes, but the truth slowly forced itself upon me—I was looking upon Arizona from the same ledge from which ten years before I had gazed with longing upon Mars.
Burying my head in my arms I turned, broken, and sorrowful, down the trail from the cave.
Above me shone the red eye of Mars holding her awful secret, forty-eight million miles away.
Did the Martian reach the pump room? Did the vitalizing air reach the people of that distant planet in time to save them? Was my Dejah Thoris alive, or did her beautiful body lie cold in death beside the tiny golden incubator in the sunken garden of the inner courtyard of the palace of Tardos Mors, the jeddak of Helium?
For ten years I have waited and prayed for an answer to my questions. For ten years I have waited and prayed to be taken back to the world of my lost love. I would rather lie dead beside her there than live on Earth all those millions of terrible miles from her.
The old mine, which I found untouched, has made me fabulously wealthy; but what care I for wealth!
As I sit here tonight in my little study overlooking the Hudson, just twenty years have elapsed since I first opened my eyes upon Mars.
I can see her shining in the sky through the little window by my desk, and tonight she seems calling to me again as she has not called before since that long dead night, and I think I can see, across that awful abyss of space, a beautiful black-haired woman standing in the garden of a palace, and at her side is a little boy who puts his arm around her as she points into the sky toward the planet Earth, while at their feet is a huge and hideous creature with a heart of gold.
I believe that they are waiting there for me, and something tells me that I shall soon know. | <urn:uuid:b3b8ac71-790c-48fc-8d47-e7a9d6da81f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sedition.com/a/1883 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973215 | 780 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Arizona Humane Society sent its emergency team to respond to a report of a cat stuck in a cactus in north Phoenix. They found the cat had escaped the cactus, but took parts of it with him as he became stuck in a fence!
The vet techs rushed the unfortunate feline, now dubbed “Prickly Pete”, to the Humane Society’s Second Chance Animal Hospital. Vets spent two long hours, painstakingly removing cactus spines, one by one, from Pete’s muzzle, eyelids and mouth.
Now recovering in Second Chance, Pete will remain on pain medication and antibiotics to prevent infection. | <urn:uuid:f88a75e5-4665-4466-b54c-d77d3f0b39c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neatorama.com/pet/2012/12/24/Prickly-Pete-Rescued-from-Cactus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954855 | 134 | 1.601563 | 2 |
"No. In income tax there is no case for amnesty. Because now almost all returns are online except a small category which was exempt. We have a huge amount of data which is being mined. Therefore, there is no case for amnesty today. Best case I can make out is tell people 'please don't hide your income'. Just admit your income and pay tax and be a proud citizen," he told PTI in an interview.
He was asked whether government would consider giving an amnesty to tax defaulters to unearth an estimated huge amount of black money on the lines of amnesty given to service tax defaulters announced in the budget.
Chidambaram pointed out that no tax burden had been imposed in the budget on any category of people other than a "small burden" of 10 per cent surcharge on relatively affluent 42,800 people with incomes of over Rs one crore a year, he pointed out today.
That number was deliberately used to "shock" the nation that in this country "which swears by truth and virtue" there are only 42,800 people who admit an income of over Rs one crore, he said.
Dispelling apprehensions that the tax could continue beyond one year, the Minister said, "surcharges have been imposed in the past and they have been removed".
He gave the instances of removal of banking cash transaction tax and fringe benefit tax which were removed in subsequently budgets few years ago.
The Minister also allayed fears that tax on 'super rich' would drive away people saying "... nobody will move anywhere, I assure you. Nowhere in the world you can afford to employ so many domestic helps.
Wellness does not only come from wealth.
It comes from host of other services that we have in place."
Voicing the hope that "other measures" proposed to be taken and the "shock" of the number would persuade more people to declare their true income, Chidambaram said that based on data mining notices have been issued to 35,000 people.
Those served the notice have been told about what they had spent and about their purchases despite which they had not filed income tax returns, the Finance Minister said, adding another 35,000 notices are going next week to be followed more notices.
"We have got the central process cell in Bangalore which processes all income tax returns using most advanced software.
So, if the information which we have from other sources is not matched with the information with IT returns, that will be thrown up," he said.
To a question, Chidambaram said there are no estimates on the amount of black income and the number who should be in the net but who are not.
But, he said, in a country with 125 crore people, after excluding 67 per cent of the people under food security and elderly people and children, there would be 15 crore people with incomes in various segments.
"The top 10 per cent should have large income...I think the number must be several times 42,800 who have high income," he said, adding they may not be earning Rs 1 crore but certainly Rs 75 lakh or Rs 50 lakh.
"They should be admitting to that income and paying income tax. I think not paying taxes is misdemeanour. Not paying the right kind of tax is another misdemeanour," he said.
The Finance Minister said that central processing centre in Ghaziabad, inaugurated last week, will now be able to track every single TDS deduction and match it with whether the deductor has remitted the money to the government and issued TDS certificate to the deductee.
"Every deductee can now see online what are the deductions that have been made by other deductors. The FIU unit is mining the data and generating data for the CBDT. The whole lot of activity going on.
"So my appeal to the people would be that there is no place where you can hide your income any more. Just admit your true income and be proud. Why should anybody be ashamed that he has a high income.
When I was a lawyer, I had a high income in the past. I was quite proud about it. Why should I hide my
income. You admit your income and pay your tax," he said. | <urn:uuid:7a6e54a8-3bb7-4a35-a889-3d250d2a311c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://profit.ndtv.com/news/economy/article-chidambaram-warns-tax-dodgers-rules-out-amnesty-318883?pfrom=home-business | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98118 | 872 | 1.554688 | 2 |
It started just like many religious sectarian wars do. One blogger who regards himself as a “true” biblioblogger accused another blogger of being a “false” bliblioblogger. In this case the true biblioblogger is supposed to be Jim West, who first issued the accusation, and the false biblioblogger is supposed to be John Loftus. John Loftus responds that West is just afraid that a secularist is fast gaining ground in the biblioblogosphere. Who is right?
Definition of a Biblioblogger
The conflict, of course, hinges on the proper definition of a biblioblogger. In one of the salvos launched by Jim West we don't really find much of an explanation of why Loftus is not a biblioblogger. There is no explicit definition given by West so that we can measure Loftus against it. What we find instead is Jim West simply stating that Loftus is someone “wishing to be a biblioblogger.”
If one looks inductively at the blogs that are on the list of biblioblogs, we also find some confusion. For example, is a biblioblog one that is ONLY devoted to biblical themes? Or is it a blog that PREDOMINANTLY includes biblical themes? If the latter case, then are there required percentages or a threshold amount of biblical themes?
If a biblioblog designates a blog that ONLY addresses biblical themes, then Jim West’s blog certainly would not qualify. In fact, West’s own description of his subject matter is: “On the Bible, Theology, and ANYTHING [ELSE] that I find interesting” [emphasis mine]. So does this mean that you can call yourself a biblioblog even when only one of the three named topics is about the Bible?
And if we perform a very superficial statistical analysis of the content, I don’t find much difference. Taking any random day—-for example, December 29—these are the types of posts we would find on Jim West’s blog:-SublimeAs one can see, Jim West’s posts include one on Luther’s view of Atheists and another one on Taco Bell. Neither of these two sound particular “only biblical” to me.
-Luther, on the Stupidity of Atheists
-James Crossley Isn’t Dead After All…
-And Not a Moment Too Soon!
-If Scholars Are Advising TV Producers, Why Do Programs Still Mess --Up Biblical History So Badly?
-Ok Now I’m Officially Annoyed
-The Taco Bell Diet? Really?
If we select any other day--let’s say December 22, 2009—for Debunking Christianity, we find these posts:-Robert G. Ingersoll on "What I Want For Christmas"Here, I don’t see any posts on DC that would not also fit under Jim West’s categories of “The Bible, Theology, and anything [else] I find interesting.” I see at least two posts directly related to the Bible (“Nazareth” and “Conflicting Bible Teaching...”). I see theology and I do see “anything [else]” Loftus finds interesting (e.g. health care).
-Conflicting Bible Teaching of the Week
-Science is Essential to Morality
-God Blew it Again on National TV! Maybe He's on Strike, Right?
-Toby Keith's Remedy For the War on Christmas...Bah, Humbug to Him!
-Dr. Marlene Winell - Recovering from Toxic Religion (Parts 1 & 2)
-Recently Posted: Richard Dawkins Interviewed
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So are Jim West’s blog and DC really different in terms of content? Only a wider and more precise statistical analysis will tell, but remember that West includes “and anything [else],” so how would that count statistically?
In terms of quality and depth, there are a few posts about the Bible on DC that are up to 10,000 words long and that are supplied with a scholarly apparatus, including one of my own on ancient Near Eastern and biblical law, and another one on the use of Egyptian vocabulary to assess the historicity of the Moses traditions right here.
Jim West questioned John Loftus’ credentials merely by questioning whether Loftus is a biblioblogger. I am not sure what sorts of credentials are required in biblioblogging, but I would say that Loftus’ credentials are as good or better than those of Jim West. Note these comparisons:
John Loftus:B.R.E. from Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing, Michigan, 1977Jim West See Link.
M.A. from Lincoln Christian Seminary, Lincoln, Illinois, 1982
M.Div. from Lincoln Christian Seminary, Lincoln, Illinois, 1982
Th.M. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1985
Ph.D. Studies for 1 1/2 years at Marquette University, but no doctorateB.A., Carson-Newman College, 1985These are quite comparable once you see that Andersonville Baptist Seminary does not really have a campus. It describes itself as a distance learning institution, but without on-line courses (see brief FAQ further below). It is not accredited by any government agency. It recognizes the King James Bible as the only inspired word of God.
M.Div, Southeastern Theological Seminary, 1988
Th.M, Southeastern Theological Seminary, 1991
“Doctorate of Theology,” Andersonville Baptist Seminary, 1994
Thus, many of us in a public university would not regard this as a real institution, nor would we hire anyone with such a doctorate in a public university. Once you remove that doctorate from Andersonville, you are left with master's degrees that are quite comparable to those of Loftus. Therefore, Jim West is no more a biblical scholar by academic training than is John Loftus.
If we look at publications, Loftus would have an edge. Loftus has books that are published by presses (e.g., Prometheus) that rely on independent evaluations by biblical scholars. At least some of his edited books have contributions by well-credentialed biblical scholars.
Jim West has books that are self-published. There are no listed refereed articles for Jim West in any highly respected or major peer-reviewed journal (e.g., West does list essays in something called the “Journal of Biblical Studies”) of which I am aware. That itself is not a crime, of course, but one cannot deny Loftus a status as a biblioblogger and then grant it to West when neither has publications in major refereed biblical studies journals.
Much has been made of DC being focused on debunking Christianity. However, it would be unfair if blogs focusing on supporting the Bible and its authority qualify as “biblioblogs,” but those that do not support the Bible’s historicity or authority are disqualified. That charge against DC seems to reflect an anti-secularist bias on the part of at least some of West’s supporters.
We see the anti-secularism focus repeatedly on West’s blogs. For example, he has posts about how Luther thought Atheists were stupid. Yet, it is unclear why citing Luther’s opinion about atheism is any more philosophically valid than Loftus quoting Dawkins about how foolish theism is.
In any case, citing Luther on what counts as foolish is itself a foolish undertaking. Luther was a notorious anti-Judaist, and some of his stated policies would violate some basic human rights conventions today. So, why cite Luther on the virtues of theism or the foolishness of atheism?
Indeed, some of West’s heroes were regarded as atheists by their opponents. Thomas Jefferson says: “I can never join Calvin in addressing his god. He was indeed an atheist which I can never be” (Jefferson to John Adams, April 11, 1823; Thomas Jefferson: Writings (New York: The Library of America, 1984), p. 1466.
In other words, I don’t see that West shows any more sophistication or historical knowledge about atheism or even Christianity than what West might say Loftus shows about Christianity.
In terms of content, I don’t see that Jim West and DC differ that much in my admittedly unscientific survey. In terms of credentials, Loftus has the advantage of graduating from institutions whose existence is not in question.
In terms of publications, Loftus relies on known publishers and not self-publishing. In terms of knowledgeability, I don’t see that West is that much better. In any case, if there is a definition of a biblioblog, then it should be consistent and not dependent on whether the blog is for or against the Bible’s historicity and authority.
Ultimately, the “guild” of self-described bibliobloggers will have to decide on the definition and qualifications of bibliobloggers. What I argue here is that the discussion so far seems based on applying unclear or inconsistent criteria for who counts as a “true” biblioblogger. It seems very much like a sectarian war or a war between heresy (secularism) and Christian/biblical “orthodoxy.”
See link: Andersonville Theological Seminary/FAQ
Q. Does ATS have a campus?
A. We do not have a campus where students come to take classes—we have an office complex including our chapel. However, students are more than welcome to come by the school at anytime to see our institution and look around.
Q. Are the courses at ATS online?
A. The courses at ATS are distance learning, but they are not online. We have book courses and courses that are on MP3 CD’s.
Q. Which Bible does ATS use?
A. We use the King James Version because we believe that this version is the inspired Word of God.
Q. Is ATS accredited?
A. We are privately accredited through Transworld Accrediting Commission out of Riverside,CA.
Q. Do you plan to seek regional (governmental) accreditation?
A. We have considered this many times, but we have always opted to remain privately accredited because of the governmental red tape and rules involved in governmental accreditation. | <urn:uuid:e039764f-b36e-4c48-8727-adbb9c1ff278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/12/who-or-what-is-biblioblogger-by-dr.html?showComment=1262239253031 | 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 | 0.949115 | 2,250 | 1.507813 | 2 |
After four years of layoffs, teaching jobs are finally coming back. Public school hiring rose this summer to its highest level in six years.
Local school districts added 79,000 education jobs this July through September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the strongest summer hiring since 2006.
But even with the small hiring spurt, it's still not nearly enough to keep up with the growing number of students in American classrooms.
"The data suggest that at least we're not shedding a lot of teacher jobs any more. That's a really nice first step, but there's still so much to make up," said Heidi Shierholz, economist with the Economic Policy Institute.
Considering public schools were slashing jobs in the four years leading up to July, the recent gains are hardly enough to bridge the gap.
Over that time period, enrollment in public schools was projected to grow by about 377,000 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
To keep up, schools would have had to hire about 62,000 workers, Shierholz estimates. Instead, they laid off about 315,000.
Recent teacher hiring comes as government budgets have started to slowly recover. Data collected from the Census Bureau shows local and state tax revenues have been gradually increasing since mid 2010.
Property taxes -- one of the largest sources of funding for public school districts -- were much slower to recover, but as of the second quarter of 2012, they were up about 6% from a year earlier.
"You're beginning to see a recovery in state and local hiring because tax revenues have been positive," said Brett Ryan, an economist with Deutsche Bank. "This is another overall sign that the economy continues to recover." | <urn:uuid:e179051c-b0d6-4466-a097-0b33a639e742> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koco.com/news/money/Teaching-jobs-finally-coming-back/-/9843810/16924676/-/item/0/-/pr8mhh/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982687 | 350 | 1.84375 | 2 |
I will start my post with my reply to Robert. Now, please try to listen carefully, because it has started to become a little tiring to have to teach you all the time about what science and the scientific truth is, and then having you go off and make HUGE erroneous assumptions mixed with a good dose of disjointed thinking. I am willing to discuss for as long as you like, but I am not willing to have to reply to things that are simply not logically founded- or disprove the same assumptions again and again. Let me show you.
All studies are faulty because you can never test everybody, only portions of people.
There is a difference between the term 'faulty' and the term 'representative'. A study is meant to show trends, trajectories, general rules
about things. It is not meant to be taken as some sort of prophetic truth about each and every person. If the study is conducted with all the rules and precautions that it should be conducted (you should go to university to know about those rules), and then repeated (the term is 'replicated') accodingly in different populations and different points in time and always yields the same results
, then this study is representative and reflecting a certain pattern of behavior
. How the study will be interpreted is the next stage, which should be done with due support. Therefore
: NOT ALL STUDIES ARE FAULTY (or 'flawed', as is the correct term). Faulty are only those studies that are not conducted properly. If you want to really be objective about what you believe and what you tell other people, then you should get educated on how to tell the two apart and refrain from stating an opinion when you can't.
However, for a person who believes all studies are faulty and therefore none (including those that seek to prove that homosexuality is biologically based) are reflecting the truth of the matter, you sure do struggle dreadfully to support something you have no support for. ;)
Also people lie on tests. AND if you make a test about homosexuality between siblings more people who have homosexual siblings will sign up than those with straight families. Plus what about closeted gays who take the tests and lie?
Well, if you ever study research, you will see that all researchers that respect themselves take all of the above for granted, and therefore design studies that do not rely on what people say
but on what people do
, and also devise ways to make sure that their sample (that means the people they examine) include both those who are willing to sign up and those who are not. How this is done? It's called a 'research design'.
Numbers do lie. Numbers lie ALL the time. You can do two different studies and get completely different results just based on location, social class, gender, religion, race, etc.
Numbers and statistics lie IF YOU LET THEM. As I stated above, if you know where to look, if you know the language of these numbers, you will be able to tell which study is 'lying' and which is not. Or if they both are. That's what being a scientist means.
Your body decides who you are attracted to, your mind decides how you deal with that attraction.
Your mind decides who you are attracted to. NOT your body. Your body may concur or not, but your mind is the one making all the clicks. You are attracted to the one you think
attracts you. There was a great case study of a man who was sitting in a train seat and this beautiful, gorgeous woman came and sat next to him. Needless to say, he was immediately attracted to her, but he was too shy to initiate conversation or acknowledge her or the like. Anyway, during the train ride, he dozed off, and at some point his leg muscles relaxed and his knee softly swung to the right, where the woman was sitting and touched her. The man immediately was aroused at that touch. He opened his eyes and was about to sit up, when he realised that while he'd been dozing, the woman had left an another man was sitting next to him, whose knee he had touched with his knee. He immediately lost all attraction and arousal. Now, why did I tell this story? Because it shows beautifully how by touching another man he was aroused because his mind believed
the other man to be a charming woman. It was not because his body was attracted to the other man's. If attraction was determined
by biology, then this would have been impossible to occur. These instances of misinterpretation of stimuli happen all the time, and it is also what happens to homosexuals when they are convinced early in their life that this is who they are. It is a fallacy that is then further encouraged by other stimuli. It is NOT biological.
But it is proof that our minds do not control everything we do. Right? One person might experience something and learn a positive lesson from it while another might learn a negative lesson from it. Neither of those cancer people become attracted to obesse people, even though they were obsessed with slender people their whole lives, right? If you work with just psychology then yes, its a huge involvement, but when you mix biology into it...
This is incoherent and I can't follow it. It does not follow a logical pattern. I gave you an example of how two people respond to a different stimulus in their life, thus demonstrating how the same stimulus may push a man towards homosexuality and fail to do the same for another on a subconscious level. How is it not proof that the mind controls the way you interpret things? And what is all this about cancer people being attracted to the obese or not??
And psychology primarily
works with biology. The standard modus operandi is to scratch off any chance for biological reasons for a phenomenon, then move on to the social. Psychology and biology go hand in hand, but those who are
psychologists are taught where to attribute things based on proof- not hearsay, not flawed studies and not what is the easy thing to believe. YOu are not making sense in this last quote (not logical sense, anyway) and I get the feeling you just want to keep this argument going for the sake of the argument.
Does surviving a plane wreck make you suddenly not allergic to chocolate?
What are you seeking to prove with this? Yes, there have been instances where a plane wreck has cured people of many things. There is also this really famous study about a man with terminal brain cancer. He had tumours the size of nuts in his brain. There was no cure for him and he was expected to die in 2-3 months maximum. Then this doctor presented him with a sugar pellet in the form of an obscure pill, and told him this was a hush-hush super drug that would cure his cancer if he took it. The man believed this to be true, and started to take the pellets according to the 'prescription'. In one week or so, the tumour was gone
. Utterly, completely gone. There are x-rays to prove this. It does not stop there, though. The man was released from hospital and went every month or so for a check up. After about 6-7 months where he had been 100% healthy, this other doctor told him that the cure he had taken (he had not been taking it ever since the tumour was gone) was just sugar. The man was devastated, and believed everything was faulty, including the assurance that he was tumour-free. In a couple of days, the tumours were back.
The hospital could not cure him, and so they did it once more with him- they gave him a different treatment (which consisted of coloured water) and told him this was a sure cure. The tumours were gone again within two weeks (or so). However, after a few years of healthy living, the man realised again (through some other unethical guy telling him so) that he had been given a placebo yet again. The tumours were back the next day, and he died within the week.
Now I ask you, aside for the criminal non-ethical treatment of this man, who controlled the tumour? His body or his mind? Let me also tell you that the same effect, called 'placebo effect' where your mind is convinced that you are getting treatment, has been demonstrated in several other people. When you mix the mind and the body (not 'psychology and biology, that's silly), then the mind wins. Therefore: Homosexuality is something you choose to be. How this is done, at what level of consciousness and what it denotes is another matter. However let me tell you that from very early in psychology up until now, homosexuality is associated with high levels of unconscious fear.
(Please don't tell me 'I am not afraid of anything' or 'my brother is afraid of nothing, in fact he's a dare devil' or something to that trajectory. I am talking about deep set fear about things that have never been brought to the conscious to be addressed- therefore there is only emotional reactivity and not cognitive one to the particular issue. )
Errrn! Wrong answer! Accepting it does have a lot to do with it. The more a socioty opresses a people, those people will try to hide who they are. Those people will be afraid to be honest in such tests. Also, the people doing the tests will look at them a certain way. You can't be nuetral if you think homosexuality is wrong. The only way to know the truth about homosexuality is if we stopped hating gay people.
You are mixing concepts again. If you are a true scientist and not a quack with a diploma, it won't matter if you like it or not. If you accept it or not. If you decide to study it, you will be objective and face the music. Otherwise, you just don't study it. About the people lying as subjects and interpreting wrong as researchers, I have already answered there are safeguards. I cannot give you the full course in research methods and statistics- I think I have shown and told enough.
Hating something is worlds apart with thinking something wrong or, to put it in the non-value judgement term, 'erroneous'. Yes, gay people should not be hated just like NO person should be hated. Hatred is a social vice that should be fought and not promoted. Hatred is what blinds people, along with greed and desire for control over others.
What also blinds poeple and makes them unable to be neutral is the need to prove something no matter what. Which happens a lot with regards to homosexuality and other issues. Many times the need to evade guilt or the need to 'let things be' instead of putting in the gruelling work needed to make things right (on any issue) is stronger than the need for truth. This is also a fact of psychology to which many (scientists and not) fall. The question is if you can get up from that trap and move on.
Not believing something is right/natural/okay to do does not mean you do not want to look at it objectively. If that were the case, nothing would have been done by humanity to make things better- from the discovery of antibiotics (nobody things the disease is right/natural/okay) to the emergence of better social systems where fewer and fewer are oppressed, people have made these inroads because they were not afraid to look at a problem/issue in the face and do something about it. Hatred was not part of the equation- and do not confuse it with intense dislike or rage (in the case of the social systems). Hate is a desire for thoughtless destruction. Rage is just anger that can be put to constructive use.
Unfortunately, hate is easier, because there's no demand to fix anything.
Also, you can't mark my comment as wrong unless you prove it in a logical and coherent way as I have been doing. However the way you phrased it gives me the impression you believe we are in some sort of contest to prove who's right. This is not a contest. There are no losing parties. Please don't bring it down to that.
Look at your example from WW2. People hid their religions and ethnic backgrounds to escape persecution. Do you think that if hitler put up a huge campaign asking for jewish people to come and get their blood tested that many would?
Of course not. Still, despite their hiding and running, Hitler did find a whole lot of them, didn't he? He also had experiments conducted on them of many types, from medical to social. A few million people is a pretty massive sample of the Jewish. Was their refusal to reveal themselves prevent him from getting what he wanted?
There is a huge difference between those two quotes. You even said later that you DIDN'T say specific, predictable events, even though you had. There is a world of difference in 'These things make you gay." and "Sometimes we see paterns in the lives of gay people and believe this may be the cause."
You are trying to twist my words out of context here. There is no difference between the two quotes. What do you mean by 'things'? A 'thing' as I understand it, is a concrete situation or an object. What I mean by 'event' is the mathematical concept of a particular situation which may occur in several superficially different contexts (with different variables) yet still be the same 'event' with the same 'outcome'. A 'pattern' consists of 'events'.
Do you understand now how everything I said is consistent? If you need concepts/terms/ideas to be defined, please state so. It is something we should have done initially, but we can always do it now. | <urn:uuid:d0b1d869-69a1-4b1f-827a-67a0bac94b2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drunkduck.com/forum/topic/145316/?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981513 | 2,854 | 1.648438 | 2 |
"The Artist Is Present," the centerpiece of a 2010 retrospective of work by the performance artist Marina Abramovic at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was one of those rare events that breach the wall dividing the art world from popular culture. Over 90 days, hundreds of thousands of people streamed through MoMA to see Abramovic face to face. She sat in a plain wooden chair, gazing straight ahead, silently, into the eyes of whichever museum patron happened to be seated across from her.
The effect, as recorded by Matthew Akers in his documentary "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present," was galvanic. Many spectators cried during their encounter with Abramovic, and tears could often be seen in her eyes as well. The film, which will air on HBO next month, traces the genesis of that work and also provides, through interviews and archival clips, an overview of Abramovic's career.
Like many other recent documentaries about artists, it is more celebratory than analytical, a kind of slick, extended promotional video for its subject. Which is fine as far as it goes, though an artist as provocative and charismatic as Abramovic might have been better served by at least a bit of contention. A hint of skepticism flutters in via television news reports hyperventilating about the presence of naked people at the museum - performers re-creating some of Abramovic's earlier pieces - but the filmmakers are disinclined to seek out critical voices or to dig too deeply
Instead, granted access to her at home, in the studio and even in the bathtub, they bask in her formidable aura and invite viewers to do the same. Tall and striking, with long, black hair and features that suggest an archaic Greek sculpture, Abramovic is an eloquent and passionate explicator of her art and the experiences that informed it. The child of anti-Fascist partisans who were national heroes in Tito's Yugoslavia, she joined the European avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s and gained a measure of fame for the fearless, sometimes violent way she used her own body in her performances.
In addition to the words of the artist herself, "Marina Abramovic" collects testimony from art historians, dealers and curators.
But the emotional power and the aesthetic interest of the film reside in its attention to the work that provides its title. Akers has performed a valuable service for both the artist and the public in presenting a persuasive answer to the question that still plagues art that creates events and experiences rather than paintings and sculptures: Is it really art at all? | <urn:uuid:205fd3e5-e800-457a-af2b-0d40b25445d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailynews.com/arts/ci_20872795/marina-abramovic-captures-formidable-aura-artist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974811 | 528 | 1.601563 | 2 |
When out in the park with a pup, it can be necessary to improvise on pet toys. Thankfully, most dogs who like to fetch will happily fetch most anything... especially sticks. Search for a stick with a width and length that's both small enough for your pooch to easily handle, but also big enough that the entire stick can't fit into his mouth.
On one visit to NYC's Tompkins Square Park, I watched a beagle happily fetching sticks (in this case, more like twigs) when, all of a sudden, the pup didn't come back and began alternately running in circles, rubbing his head on the ground, and pawing his face. The owner rushed over to the dog and, thankfully, realized what was wrong. He stuck a hand into his pet's mouth (while pushing lips over the teeth to prevent accidental biting), swept his middle fingers across the top of the dog's mouth and brought them out with a stick. While I am not advocating sticking your hands into any pet's mouth – especially a frantic one – please be careful when playing fetch with small objects that could get lodged, or splinter to get lodged, in his mouth or throat – you don't want to panic with an equally panicking pooch! | <urn:uuid:dfc02ca1-da4c-4e80-8e25-0a2c59f5dd9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petsugar.com/Rescue-Choosing-Fetch-Stick-833685 | 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 | 0.981387 | 257 | 1.648438 | 2 |
WINDER - When her daughter came home from school physically ill after an English class discussion compared a scene in the book "Lord of the Flies" to rape, Jenny Smith approached the teacher.
A ninth- and 10th-grade honors English class isn't the place for that sort of conversation, Smith said. But the Apalachee High School teacher told her that as long as an essay by E. L. Epstein appeared in the back of the book, she would teach it that way.
So Smith set out to have the essay removed.
She was successful Tuesday, when the Barrow County Board of Education voted to get rid of the essay - either by purchasing new copies of William Golding's 1954 book that tells the story of a group of school boys who have been stranded on a desert island, or by ripping them out of copies the district already owned.
"The essay itself, if you read it, it does not take it into detail, it does not use the word rape," Smith said. "It intimates sexual intercourse."
On their own, Smith said, she has no problem at all with the book or the essay, which compares a violent scene in which boys kill a pig to a sexual scenario. But an assignment given by the teacher, asking students to visualize the comparison by placing their own faces onto the face of the pig, left her cold.
"Many of them found it extremely disturbing," she said. "I'm very fortunate that my daughter discusses stuff that disturbs her with me. It made her physically ill. She was shaking and nauseated. It's a very sensitive topic for children of that age."
Roy Morgan, an assistant superintendent in the school system, said the matter first went to the teacher, then to Apalachee High School's principal and a curriculum committee which declined to remove the essay. Principal Dennis Clarke did not return a phone call seeking comment.
From there, Smith and her husband - along with another couple - took their complaint to the district's media committee, which met March 6. The committee had three choices: to continue using the book with the essay, to continue using the book but allow students to read an alternate novel or to use an alternate edition that did not contain the essay.
Fourteen of the committee's 15 members voted to continue using the book, but give students the option of reading another novel and not participating in class discussion, Morgan said. Parents also would have been warned about the sensitive nature of the
Smith said that solution was not satisfactory and took the matter before the Board of Education.
"I know a lot of people are concerned that I'm meddling with the way teachers teach, but that's not my intent," Smith said. "There are lines that you cross and lines that you do not cross."
The school board will also create a committee to review how sensitive material is presented, Morgan said.
The teacher who presented the material is a favorite in the school, Smith said, and gets her students excited about literature. Smith said the teacher has taught "Lord of the Flies" before, though never with this essay, and was trying to teach her students how to analyze symbolism.
"I think she just made a mistake," Smith said. "The teacher is one of the top teachers. Most kids think that." | <urn:uuid:c350a690-542a-49ae-aae8-db9080e9c593> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/news/2006/apr/20/barrow-county-schools-ban-039lord-of-the-flies039/?living | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983753 | 677 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|"Well, I think we should put it back in order for them, don't you?"|
|Sirius Black's motorbike|
To transport anyone who rides it
- "A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky – and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air…"
- —Description of Rubeus Hagrid landing the motorcycle at 4 Privet Drive[src]
Sirius Black's motorbike was a motorbike owned by Sirius Black. It has a large engine (judging by the noise made and that it can carry a sidecar), but in the book its make is undefined. Book references to "its exhaust pipe" in the definite singular show that, if, as likely, it had more than one cylinder, they all blew into one exhaust pipe, which is likelier for a vee twin then for a parallel twin engine. It has a kickstart. Magic made it much larger than when it was manufactured, emitting a very loud roar. When Hagrid rides it, it is large enough to fit him, a half-giant, and still can carry an ordinary-size person in its sidecar,. Another spell made it able to fly, fast enough to compete with a broomstick
Known uses of the MotorcycleEdit
Sirius Black and James Potter (1977)Edit
In 1977 both Sirius Black and his best friend James Potter used the motorcycle while being chased by Muggle policemen for unknown reasons, likely to be speeding. Their chase came to a close when they were cornered in an alleyway by the policemen, but Black and Potter escaped by flying over their heads and away on the cycle.
Rubeus Hagrid and Baby Potter (1981)Edit
Rubeus Hagrid and Harry Potter (1997)Edit
Sixteen years later, when Alastor Moody leads a group of members of the Order of the Phoenix to Harry Potter from the house of his relatives shortly before his seventeenth birthday, Hagrid is chosen to drive Harry and his possessions to the home of Ted Tonks. Arthur Weasley had helped Hagrid modify the bike with various buttons that could shoot out magically-produced traps from its exhaust pipe in case of a chase.This turns out to be useful, as Hagrid uses buttons to produce a large net, a solid brick wall, and dragon's fire, each expanding out of its exhaust pipe, to deter the Death Eaters. However, during the chase, the motorcycle was heavily damaged, made worse when Hagrid tries to use Reparo to fix it, breaking it more. Hagrid has to dive off the motorcycle to keep the Death Eaters from taking Harry, and ultimately they arrive at the Tonks house. Mr. Weasley hides the cycle in his backyard shed in hopes of fixing it when Molly Weasley isn't looking.
After the WarEdit
Behind the scenesEdit
- As in the books Hagrid is twice as tall as a normal man, the motorcycle would have had to be magically enlarged to twice the size each way to fit him: an engine capacity of 649 cc would become a bit over 5 liters, as big as in some trucks.
- The motorcycle used in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was a white 1959 Triumph 650 T 120 Bonneville.
- The 1959 Triumph 650 T 120 Bonneville is also used to represent the motorcycle in the film adaptations of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but this time it has a blue side car attached.
- Harry was first brought to the Dursleys' home by Hagrid riding the flying motorcycle, and left Privet Drive permanently 16 years later the same way.
- The buttons might be a reference to James Bond's gadgets.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows mentions "its exhaust pipe" in the definite singular, which shows that, if it had two cylinders as shown in the movie, it had siamese (= 2-into-1) exhaust pipes; the Triumph Bonneville T120 was supplied with two separate exhaust pipes as standard.
- The Triumph Bonneville was not used in the motorcycle escape scene in Deathly Hallows part one. It was a light blue Royal Enfield. They had originally contacted Royal Enfield looking for a sidecar, but ended up liking the whole rig and used it instead.
- In LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4, Hagrid accidentally crashes the cycle into Number 4 Privet Drive's flowerbeds.
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the motorcycle lands very roughly in part of the marsh at The Burrow, soaking Harry, Hagrid and the cycle itself. Since it was not destroyed, it can be assumed that it was kept by either Hagrid (who had a talent for driving it) or Arthur Weasley.
- In the video game adaption of the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 instead of being stopped by the various protections around The Burrow, Voldemort is blown away by the dragon fire.
- Harry Potter Prequel (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (video game)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Motorbike Escape
- Harry Potter Trading Card Game
Notes and referencesEdit
- ↑ Book text "[Hagrid] kicked the motorbike to life".
- ↑ J.K. Rowling and the Live Chat, Bloomsbury.com, July 30, 2007 | <urn:uuid:8dea8f6c-3405-48a6-8bbb-5bca38901ed7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Sirius_Black's_motorbike | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953988 | 1,265 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Grand Rapids, MI
The purpose of this conference is to explore the philosophical foundations of limited government by engaging ancient, medieval, and modern thinkers on the subject. Participants will focus on the contributions made by these enduring sources of political and social thought to an understanding of the necessity of limited government. A secondary aspect of the conference will be to introduce participants to the criticisms lodged against the regulatory apparatus of the modern state by having them review basic readings on the principle of subsidiarity and public choice economics. Several documents that are basic to the American founding will also be examined for their understanding of limited government.
This conference, co-sponsored by Liberty Fund, Inc., is part of the Liberty and Markets series.
Purchase a subscription to the Journal of Markets & Morality to get access to the most recent issues.
Read our free quarterly publication that has interviews with important religious figures and articles bettering the free and virtuous society. Visit R&L today.
Phone: (616) 454-3080
Fax: (616) 454-9454 | <urn:uuid:36f4b1a4-6015-4518-b490-aab817b79ac0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acton.org/zh-hans/event/2012/limited-government-rule-law-0 | 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 | 0.936282 | 213 | 1.53125 | 2 |
It should come as no surprise that as the nation — and the world, for that matter — adjusts to the new realities of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, North American truck drivers and their activities will be under a microscope like never before.
It may take awhile for all the proposals floating around the halls of government to work their way into actual legislative or executive actions, but you can be sure it's no longer business as usual for trucking.
For example, based on recent Senate discussions, the Truckload Carriers Assn. (TCA) expects to see “tougher federal guidelines for the driver licensing process, criminal and immigration background checks for new hires, and possibly fingerprint identity on Commercial Driver's Licenses.”
TCA, which keeps a pretty close ear to the grindings inside the Beltway, reports that during Senate surface transportation committee hearings — almost a month after the terrorist attacks — Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) told Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) chief Joseph Clapp to “get a hammer” to get the agency's rules in motion.
In fairness to Clapp, that visit to Capitol Hill on October 10 came just five days after he was sworn in as FMCSA administrator. At any rate, he told the committee what FMCSA had already done to improve haz-mat security and noted other safety initiatives were under way.
And, according to TCA, Duane Acklie, chairman of the American Trucking Assns. (ATA), testified to Congress that trucking wants the same access to FBI criminal databases for background checks that other security-conscious industries have.
TCA and ATA are jointly working to propose legislation that would indeed open criminal records maintained by the FBI and the National Crime Information Center to trucking firms.
But drivers are not going to be looked at only before they are hired. Anyplace a driver arrives that has any connection to national security or even just to a skittish private concern, he or she will be getting the once-over.
And given that many of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks were later determined to be in this country illegally, drivers of all nationalities are getting more attention at both our northern and southern border crossings.
There is at least some movement afoot to streamline things. The Transportation Intermediaries Assn. (TIA), which serves third-party logistics providers, says Tom Ridge, director of homeland security, has proposed merging the operations of the U.S. Customs Service, Border Patrol and Coast Guard.
While TIA points out such integration could cut the time it takes to inspect trucks at the borders, I highly doubt these bureaucratically well-entrenched entities will quietly give up their historic independence — nor perhaps should they. That would be like saying the Marine Corps might as well be part of the Army. The truth is one big organization, governmental or otherwise, is often far less nimble than several smaller ones.
We should all expect to put up with longer delays and greater inconvenience for the duration of the war on terrorism. That's not to say there will not be solutions devised that will improve security yet also speed truckers on their appointed rounds. On the other hand, we shouldn't expect quick fixes of the sort that can be expressed in a politician's sound bite to carry the day for us.
Two things are certain. We are all in this new world together. And we will all navigate it together. | <urn:uuid:9b7d8689-3363-4d7b-bd46-b460125aedd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fleetowner.com/mag/fleet_eyes_drivers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961895 | 716 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Displaying items 97-108 of 13543 » View burbankleader.com items only< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-1129 Next >
Angelina Jolie's news that she elected to have both breasts removed to reduce her chances of developing breast cancer has put a celebrity spotlight on a decision more women are facing. Advances in genetic testing and a better understanding of the BRCA...
Angelina Jolie's announcement Tuesday that a genetic predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer led her to undergo a preventive double mastectomy has raised both awareness about the procedure and concerns among physicians and other experts. The actress...
Actress Angelina Jolie's decision to have a double mastectomy rather than risk developing breast cancer hit close to home for Melissa DeSantis, a Bel Air mother of three children. As DeSantis read about Jolie's experience, she began to feel a sense of...
Northwestern University is investing $10 million in an initiative that aims to enroll more patients with advanced and hard-to-treat cancers in early-stage clinical trials. The university, which plans to announce the new institute this week, said it...
Are Americans getting mixed messages about how much sodium they should be consuming? Lately, yes, and some of those messages are muddled because studies themselves are muddled, a panel of doctors has concluded. The Institute of Medicine panel...
It's only fitting that I wish my mother a Happy Mother's Day today, although she probably won't know what today is or what we do. What really matters is that I will know. A mother is no longer the woman who gave birth to you. But she is the grandmother...
Tags: Mother's Day, Alzheimer's Disease
Hemophilia is a rare bleeding disorder in which the blood doesn't clot normally. It's often called the "Royal Disease" because England's Queen Victoria (1837-1901) was a carrier of the hemophilia gene and passed the disease on to several royal families....
Tags: Hemophilia, General Practitioners
SOUTH BEND – A case of meningococcal disease has been reported at South Bend Riley High School. The school corporation on Tuesday sent home a letter to parents and students saying the following: May 7, 2013 Dear Parents and Students, The...
South Bend Tribune ReportSOUTH BEND -- On Tuesday, parents of Riley High School students were informed of a case of meningococcal disease at the school. The disease generally affects people by causing meningitis or a bloodstream infection, the letter says. The person with the...
Here's a sobering fact: More than 110 million people in the United States, which is more than one-third of the population, currently have a sexually transmitted disease. In 2010 alone, more than 8,000 Orange County residents were newly diagnosed with an...
Dr. Jerome L. Sullivan III, the pathologist who first theorized of a link between heart disease and iron levels in the blood, died Friday of complications from diabetes. He was 68. Sullivan, a physician, scientist and professor, was recognized around...
Tribune reporterBaxter International Inc. said Tuesday that a late-stage clinical trial of a plasma product it was testing to treat patients with Alzheimer's disease failed to slow cognitive decline and preserve physical function, sending its shares down more than 3...
May 15, 2013 |Story| Orlando Sentinel
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May 7, 2013 |Story| South Bend Tribune
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May 6, 2013 |Story| Orlando Sentinel
May 7, 2013 |Story| Chicago Tribune
Original site for Diseases and Illnesses topic gallery. | <urn:uuid:b545a1cd-cc0b-4d2c-b2d1-b1dc44a31397> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.burbankleader.com/topic/health/diseases-illnesses/07001000.topic?page=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953235 | 841 | 1.5 | 2 |
(Editor's note: A version of this article appeared in the May 9, 2010, Macomb Daily.)
About 70 percent of the Utica Community Schools' annual $260 million budget goes toward paying employees covered by its current collective bargaining agreement for teachers and a few other employee groups. (The budget figure does not include debt service payments on past construction projects or other capital expenses.) Yet few people know what is in this or other school labor contracts. This analysis of Utica's is part of an ongoing series.
Utica Community Schools is the second largest school district in the state, with 29,200 students and 1,640 teachers. Teacher salaries are determined by a single salary schedule that grants automatic raises based solely on an employee's years on the job plus additional pedagogy degrees. Teachers are evaluated once every three years, but neither these evaluations nor the performance of their students affect how much they are paid.
Utica teachers get automatic annual pay raises ranging from 5 to 8 percent as they progress through the time-on-the-job "steps" of the salary schedule, except for after their 2nd and 10th years on the job, when they get about a 13 percent pay bump automatically. All teachers also receive a 1.5 percent pay increase as the entire salary schedule grows by that amount each year. The vast majority of teachers in Utica make a base salary that's between $63,224 and $88,853. The average teacher salary was $75,420 in 2008.
The district pays $15,034 annually for a family health insurance plan. Teachers do not have to contribute anything to the cost of their health insurance premiums. The statewide average cost in the private sector for an employer-provided family plan is $11,300, with the employee picking up 22 percent of that amount. The district also provides life, vision and dental insurance, and pays $1,500 annually to those teachers who choose not to enroll in the district's health plan.
School employees are entitled to a lifetime pension when they retire, and are also are promised lifetime post-retirement health benefits. Based on the state-run pension system's formula, the lifetime pension for a Utica teacher with 30 years of experience and an average base salary of $88,853 (the final "step" on the single salary schedule) would be $39,983. An employee may begin collecting a pension upon reaching age of 55, or after 30 years of employment in public schools. The district also pays each teacher $500 if they announce their retirement by April 1.
Teachers are allotted an average of 11 sick leave days per year and may accumulate an unlimited amount of these. As unused sick days accumulate, teachers are rewarded with more personal leave days. After collecting 150 sick days, teachers get six personal days each year. Upon retirement, teachers are also paid $40 for each unused sick day.
Other leave time opportunities are available for teachers. The union president is allowed full release time from teaching duties in order to conduct union business, essentially getting paid as a teacher but not teaching. Certain employees may take a year-long sabbatical and receive half of their salary during that time. Teachers also are allowed a full year of unpaid leave for "exploring the possibility of making a 'career change.'" After a leave of absence, teachers are automatically reassigned to their previous position.
The union contract also covers working conditions, including the minimum number of school days and hours. Teachers are required to be at school 184 days per year, for 7 hours and 20 minutes per day. This amounts to 1,326 hours annually. The national average for all professions is 1,792 hours over the span of about 225 work days.
The union contract also includes bonus pay for additional duties. Teachers are paid between $8 and $10.50 per student per day for any class-size overages. Acting as a department chairperson nets around $3,000 annually, and participating in certain "civic functions" gets $23 per hour. Finally, teachers can earn extra cash by coaching or participating in other extracurricular activities, such as band, drama, yearbook, debate, student clubs and many others. There are nearly 100 different extracurricular positions available to teachers that pay between $659 and $11,864 annually. | <urn:uuid:2d8e7b94-539a-4278-a303-50da6ac532d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/12730 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969568 | 884 | 1.546875 | 2 |
In our "Folklore & Mythology" section you will find articles on spectral visions so wrapped in myth and folklore that their very existence outside of fairy tales could be easily questioned. You will also find tales of encounters with vampires, werewolves, fairy folk, and other odd creatures. You will also come across real historical figures, and cases where facts, and fantasy can be difficult to separate, such as our write up on the "Bloody Countess.".Enjoy these stories, but do bear in mind that at least with some of these reports there have been those that actually believe they have encountered these often bizarre & gruesome creatures, and perhaps in some cases they really have..........
Folklore & Mythology | <urn:uuid:a4911ad8-d7b5-4e98-a45b-d18a03ef2285> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pararesearchers.org/index.php?/Paranormal/Folklore-Mythology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961645 | 145 | 1.59375 | 2 |
News & Announcements
This is the final report from the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UN DPKO) Corrections conference held in Berlin in June 2012.
(14 January 2013) PRI's Programme Development Director, Nikhil Roy, reflects new beginnings for the delivery of justice for children in Uzbekistan, reporting from a busy and interesting week in Tashkent where he facilitated training for social workers and the judiciary to improve the care and protection of children at risk.
(8 January 2013) PRI's Middle East and North Africa office are organising two workshops on juvenile justice in Egypt this week for 50 senior managers, judges, prosecutors, police officers, and social workers.
(8 January 2013) Today the European Court of Human Rights have unanimously ruled that overcrowded conditions in an Italian prison amounts to degrading treatment, in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. The applicants were held in Piacenza prison, a city south of Milan with only 3 square metres of living space each.
PRI has received funding from the EU and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for a new two-year programme to support governments and other stakeholders to abolish the death penalty and ensure human rights standards in criminal justice systems, particularly for death row, life and long-term prisoners.
(4 January 2013) The Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners are currently going through a review process which will bring them up to date with modern human rights standards. In an article for IDN - InDepthNews Viewpoints, PRI's Policy Director, Andrea Huber, explains why this initiative is so important.
(3 January 2013) Eight years in the making, the UN Principles and Guidelines on Legal Aid have been formally adopted by the UN General Assembly. PRI's Executive Director Alison Hannah reflects on their importance and on the task of implementation that lies ahead.
(2 January 2013) Please read on for details.
(21 December ) The UN General Assembly today adopted a fourth resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.
111 states in favour, 41 against and 34 abstentions.
Becky Randel reports from the Reentry Court at Harlem Community Justice Center where participants are re-convicted at a rate that is 19% lower than a comparison group on standard parole.
New from PRI
External News & Resources
For more external news and resources, please click here
Other PRI sites
Factsheets on Penal Reform International's projects, promoting alternatives to imprisonment and justice for children and vulnerable groups of prisoners, can be found by browsing on the 'Themes' or 'Worldwide' pages. NB You may not be able to download PDFs using Google Chrome - please use another browser.
Children in detention facilities around the world are at a higher risk of violence than virtually all other children.
PRI Project: Reform of criminal legislation in Kazakhstan | <urn:uuid:293404f6-d06d-4950-b6e8-c0712ee9559c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.penalreform.org/node?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930245 | 600 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Corn Chips Snacks
Corn chips are tasty snacks made from cornmeal that is either baked or fried; these chips are typically shaped into small scoops, rolls or noodles like the famous and oldest brand Fritos. Corn chip snacks have a strong aroma and taste of roasted corn, they have a thick and hard texture that is very crunchy and are seasoned heavily with salt. Tortilla chips are made slightly different from the American style corn chips because they are made using the nixtamalization process which means that the corn used to make the snacks is soaked and cooked in limewater and hulled, giving the tortilla chips a mild flavor and aroma, as well as a less rigid texture then the American snacks.
Corn chips can either be eaten alone right out from the bag or accompanied with a dip, especially the scoop style of chips. There is a wide selection of corn chip based snacks available on the market that is very popular in both the U.S. and Mexico, and both have a great and unique taste. MexGrocer.com is proud to be able to give you access to the best brands and bring these delicious snacks right to your door.
Fritos has two delicious types of corn chips: scoops and noodles. The Flamin’ Hot scoops are covered in delicious chile which gives them a fiery crunch that will leave your taste buds burning for more. Their noodle corn snacks on the other hand are flavored and seasoned with the famous picante hot sauce from Guadalajara “El Tapatio”, so if you enjoy crunchy & spicy snacks you can be sure to challenge your tongue with a snack that is both satisfying and flavorful, with a wonderful spicy kick that will leave you craving for more.
Barcel is also a famous corn chip brand that is popular for its unique variety of snacks and shapes, as well as their spicy and tangy flavors. Their most famous variety is the rolled tortilla minis called Takis, which are seasoned with the most succulent ingredients that give them an authentic taste that is incomparable to any other tortilla snacks. Takis are typically covered in chile and given their tangy taste with a sprinkle of lemon juice. Some of their famous varieties include Fuego chili pepper, Nitro habanero, Crunchy Fajita and Guacamole, all four have a hint of lime juice to give them its original spicy flavor with a lemony twist. Also available by Barcel are the chile and lime flavored Churritos and the cheese & chile flavored Quezas corn snacks.
Give your tongue a tasty challenge with Sabritas Turbo Flamas corn chips, which are a spicy and flavorful snack that are sure to please your tongue with its fiery flavor. Bokados Tubikos and Chirritos are also covered in delicious and mouth watering chile, for a snack that has a fun and sizzling taste. If you prefer less spicy snacks, you should try El Campesino and Super 30’s plain churritos, these go excellent with hot sauce or lemon poured over to give them a sensational flavor. Also Rancheritos by Sabritas are a tasty corn chip snack that is flavored with chile and a variety of spices, which gives this treat an irresistible and fiery taste that is sure to keep your tongue on edge. | <urn:uuid:bae47227-3ab7-4fb6-afe4-447cdb74149d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mexgrocer.com/snacks-corn-chips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954311 | 689 | 1.671875 | 2 |
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By Annalyn Censky @CNNMoney July 6, 2012: 4:57 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- All eyes are on jobs this week, as economists brace for Friday's June jobs report from the government.
Economists surveyed by CNNMoney expect the monthly report to show the economy added 95,000 jobs in June.
That would be an improvement over the 69,000 jobs added in May, but is still pretty weak and unlikely to make the unemployment rate budge from its current 8.2%.
So far this year, the Labor Department's reports have shown hiring peaked in the winter and then slowed in the spring -- a phenomenon many economists attribute to warmer weather early in the year, and a similar pattern to recent years.
But now that the weather effect has subsided, there is still doubt that hiring has rebounded to levels strong enough to bring the unemployment rate down.
"What's suppressing payroll growth in recent months is what we've seen in previous years," said Michael Gapen, senior U.S. economist with Barclays. "We tend to get a spike in uncertainty from events in Europe and some domestic political concerns in the U.S."
"When we get an increase in general uncertainty, employers tend to postpone investment and hiring decisions," he added.
While the outlook is still somewhat pessimistic, several reports released Thursday gave a sudden glimmer of hope, leading some economists to raise their forecasts for Friday's report.
Fewer companies announced plans to lay off workers and private businesses said they're hiring more people in June. Meanwhile, claims for unemployment benefits fell during the last week of the month.
About 374,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, 14,000 fewer than the week before, the Labor Department reported.
Posted By: Elynor Moss
Friday, July 6th 2012 at 2:43PM | <urn:uuid:8606ec50-817e-4c7b-a49e-0e7d7f7dfe34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leemossmedia.com/cgi-bin/blog.cgi?cid=8&blog_id=234607&reading=1 | 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 | 0.958125 | 399 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Talking To Viola Davis And Octavia Spencer On The Mississippi Set Of The Help
The action on camera the day I visited the set of The Help mostly revolved around the white characters, a group of privileged women gathering for a day of playing bridge, eating perfect little hors d'oeuvres and gossip. But those kinds of days in 1963 were only possible thanks to the African-American women who worked as the help, doing everything from ironing the tablecloths to babysitting the children while their mothers whiled away the afternoon. The fact that The Help focuses on both sides of that divide is what makes it such a special book, and will likely set the movie apart from most others that tackle the Civil Rights Era.
So as The Help's white stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone worked on the set, the African-American leads Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer took a day off camera-- and out of their gray and white maid's costumes-- to talk to me and a group of other journalists on the set. Davis had actually filmed a scene that morning at the 60s-era ranch house where the set was located, playing Aibileen, the long-serving maid to Elizabeth Leefolt, the character holding the bridge party. Aibileen and Spencer's character Minny are, along with Emma Stone's Skeeter, the three narrators of Kathryn Stockett's novel. We meet Aibileen developing a tight relationship with Elizabeth's toddler daughter, Minny struggling to hold down her tongue and work for the inexperienced young housewife Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), and Skeeter trying to live up to her mother's expectations to be a proper Southern woman while holding ambitions for something bigger. The three women's lives intersect when Skeeter decides to write a book about the real experiences of African-American women working as home help, and enlists Aibileen and Minny to both give her interviews and help recruit other women.
Davis, as the Oscar nominee for Doubt and a newly minted Tony winner as of last summer's set visit, was an obvious choice to be cast as Aibileen. Spencer, a character actress with roles in films like Bad Santa and Dinner for Schmucks, had a far more unusual route to playing her role. Check out my conversation with both actresses below; for the first part of my set visit report click here, and check back later for more from the set, including interviews with Bryce Dallas Howard and the movie's director Tate Taylor. The Help opens August 10.
Octavia SpencerSo Kathryn Stockett based the character of Minny on you, right?
Very, very loosely. Iíll give you the nuts and bolts of the story. I met Tate about fifteen years ago on A Time to Kill-- we were both PAs. We moved out to L.A. about six months later, separately, and we just remained friends. He and I became the best of friends and he was always telling me stories about living in New York with Kathryn and his other friend Laura. Maybe about 7 or 8 years later, we were in New Orleans on a vacation with a big group of friends and thatís when I met her for the first time. Needless to say my personality is not the best when i am hungry or hot. You can imagine it was hot and I probably was hungry. I know they were dillydallying and wanted to go shopping. At the time she was making all of the different characters and didnít know how she was going to go with Minny as far as her beautiful physique and her personality. So that part of Minny is essentially that part of Octavia that people sometimes see.
And how did it go from there?
It was kind of funny because when I first met [Kathryn] sheís like ďIím writing a book.Ē and Iím thinking, "Who isnít writing a book?" but she made me promise to read it. Then a couple of years later I saw her and she came to our set and made me promise to read it. She said, "I based a character loosely on you." When I read it --- Iím not a big fan of Gone with the Wind and I thought immediately, "Oh my god another Gone with the Wind. Iím going to kill her.' I literally got past that first page -- it was the first line or two of the book. I had a bachelorette party to attend that night, it was raining, the manuscript came and I hated her even more, but I said, "Iím going to sit there with that book" and I read it and I ended up staying up all night to finish it and called her the next morning and I was so relieved. How often do your friends do something thatís good? Never! It never happens.
We've heard that same kind of concern you had about a white woman writing in the voice of these black characters, and now Tate, a white man, is directing the film. Do you think of that as a complication too?
Weíve gotten so PC and weíve gotten so weirded out. If she wrote every black character with the same exact voice then there would be like a cause for concern, but she didnít do that and I think that gives it authenticity. It made me feel that I was walking in someone elseís shoes. I also think itís very lyrical and beautiful to have the differences in the dialect. Aibileen's dialect is more distinctive that Minnyís. Minnyís dialect is more distinctive that Yule Maeís and Yule Mae doesnít really have a dialect. I have a problem with the fact that people are making that an issue. Oh, a white girl and then they read the book and they say, "Oh. It's not Mammy [from Gone with the Wind]."
Is it hard for you to get back into the history of that era?
Itís still very hard because Greenwood has a lot of history -- and not good history. Iím still kind of reconciling that and Iím using it for Minny. What I love about the book is that it makes this time in history very palatable. Even though it is the A story, itís not the focal point. Itís about these relationships what these women form and the bonds. Itís really hard to go back and watch all of the footage. The biggest challenge for me [was] not being an abused woman and not being a person who had those types of limitations that Minny and Aibileen have. I also have a multi-cultural group of friends who are from all socio-economic backgrounds and Minny and Aibileen knew poor people. Minny especially did not trust or want to be a part of anybody else's world that didnít go through what she went through. That was a challenge for me: How to take a person out of 2010 and go back to 1963. It pre-dates me, so itís been a challenge.
Another big part of the book is the way the white women would think about how they felt about the help, but would never think about what those black women might have thought of them.
Right, right. Racism wasnít just here. It was all over the country. My analogy is: In the South, you are raised to hate the race but love the individual. In the rest of the country you love the race, but you hate the individual. People who have the most supposedly racist grandparents, you go to their house, and you donít even know. Itís like, "Oh my god. Your grandfather was a KKK?" Youíre going to like who you like and youíre not going to like who youíre not going to like. Believe me, Iím not trying to justify anything, because racism is there, but thereís also sexism and ageism. As we women know, there are so many other hurdles that we have to cross that I would love it if we could stop having the race conversation so that we can get women further on. You know a female president now that we have an African American president. Maybe we can get an Asian female, a gay person?
Are you jealous that you donít get to wear the pretty costumes, and are always wearing the maid's uniform?
I have one costume that Iím foaming at the mouth over. Itís my church costume. Every day, I canít wait to see what Bryce is wearing.
Viola DavisHow easy is it to go back in time wearing these costumes and being on a set like this?
It's a little easier because you're in Mississippi. It's a different world down here; it's a different energy so it's a different character in and of itself. It almost informs everything that you do since being here.
What kind of accent and dialect work did you have to do, not only playing someone from down here but someone from 50 years ago?
That is a work in progress because I was born in South Carolina, I was raised in Rhode Island, and my mother still has a thick Southern accent, so it's her voice that I have in my head - which is not a Mississippi dialect. So I'm caught between two worlds right now. [laughing] We have a dialect coach on set and she keeps me honest. I told her to always tap on my shoulder. I didn't want [Aibileen's] dialect to be as strong as it was in the book. I've been online doing all kinds of research and that seems to be the constant criticism, that Aibileen's accent was just too thick. And for me, I don't want anything to distract from the character. I don't want anyone to feel like they're out of a movie, you know?
So you made it more accessible?
I do believe that there are African Americans who have thick accents. My mom has a thick accent; my relatives have thick accents. But sometimes you have to adjust when you go into the world of film, TV, theatre, in order to make it accessible to people. It goes into race which goes into cultures, cultural differences and all of that, which can be very frustrating because you just want to be as authentic as possible. But I just felt I had to tone it down a bit.
Do you feel out of all the roles that you've done there's a little more pressure with this one because it's a story that hasn't been told?
Yeah, I do. I feel a lot of pressure because I feel like there's two stories going on. There's the story which is the experience of a lot of Caucasians growing up with their African-4American nannies and maids, and them being the surrogate mothers when their mothers were missing. But then there's the other story, and it's the story of these maids--my mother's story--and that story's very different, of who these women were when they went home, when the public persona and the mask were ripped apart. And sometimes that picture and that portrayal, that's the part that makes it dirty. That's the part that sometimes makes it not palatable. That's the story that I need to honor - me, personally, as an actor. So I feel a tremendous responsibility to the black community, to my mother, to all the women who were surrogate mothers and who worked for people who didn't know who they were and didn't care to know who they were, let's be honest. So, yes.
Is it difficult being somebody from 2010 going back in that world and having to stand there and play someone who doesn't say anything when stuff is being said around her? How do you convey those feelings without making it contemporary?
Well, exactly that. Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich. At the same time, at some point you have to break out of that because if you stay in that place, then do you ever really hear the voice? I mean, in the book you do because you get stream of consciousness. On film, you don't. You kind of get the feeling.
Did it help doing Fences on Broadway right before making this?
Yeah, I guess it did. It helped. You have to understand, Aibileen was born in 1911, so that's 53 years of really incredible history. And in terms of what was going on with the race relations, she was born in a time of reconstruction after slavery so what she's seen and what she's experienced is something very deep. I'm familiar with all of that through doing August Wilson's plays, actually. And that's the thing. You feel an incredible responsibility not to make it so sanitized. That's the problem I always had with Hollywood with race is stories about race are always sanitized. You've seen them time and time again, so what differentiates this story from all of the rest where two hours have gone by and you still have not heard the voice of the people that supposedly the movie is about, the indigenous culture, the voice that's never heard? And so if two hours have gone by and you still haven't heard that voice...it's difficult.
Reading the book, you get these twinges of disgust with human nature, especially with the language. Do you have any trouble separating yourself from this while you're working? Does it sometimes stay with you when you leave?
You do. You feel it. You the rage, you feel the frustration, you feel the repression. You feel absolutely the intense level of sadness of not realizing your potential, of possibly going to your grave without really ever actually fulfilling any of your dreams and hopes. That's the part that you really feel. I mean, because let's face it, now we have a chance to actually speak our minds more. Everyone does. We have a culture where people talk all the time about how they feel, even when it's politically incorrect. And so to be silent so much, absolutely. It's hard not to carry that rage when you leave the set.
But you're having some fun here, too?
Well, there's a Wal-Mart. I love Wal-Mart. You can put that down. I love Wal-Mart. My husband and I hang out there.
How are you dealing with the heat?
I've had heat rash already. I've been dealing with it. That's another character in and of itself too. Another feeling of that feeling of being repressed and suffocated.
Back to top | <urn:uuid:7225df53-6483-4df9-b4ad-ce0545730bcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Talking-To-Viola-Davis-And-Octavia-Spencer-On-The-Mississippi-Set-Of-The-Help-25649.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983373 | 3,040 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Marla kept hearing the words her daughter said to her shortly before she died: “Mom, I know this is going to be really hard on you, but I don’t want it to ruin your life.” Diagnosed at age seven with an adult form of leukemia, Marla’s daughter Nicole received a marrow transplant from her brother. But after just six years, Nicole relapsed and lost her battle with cancer at the early age of 14. It was a devastating loss. And it was the constant memory of Nicole’s words that enabled Marla to move forward.
In Nicole’s memory, her family founded an all-volunteer nonprofit organization, with a mission to help children waiting for a cure. Be The Match has been a beneficiary of Marla’s tireless efforts. Funds raised help add potential donors to the Be The Match Registry® and support transplant research to improve outcomes for patients. Marla has also supported our mission in many other ways. She sponsored Be The Match recruitment drives, supported our Be The One Run in Tampa, Florida, and signed up to be a volunteer marrow courier. “It is such a privilege to be entrusted to deliver what is literally someone’s new life,” said Marla. “I am so grateful to be a link in the chain of loving actions that began with someone who attended a marrow drive, registered as a potential donor, and ultimately decided to give a stranger the gift of life.”
As Marla’s motto reminds us, “One person cannot do everything, but everyone can do something.”
Joining the Be The Match Registry is one important step toward giving patients hope, especially if you are between the ages of 18 and 44. Research shows that younger donors provide the greatest chance for transplant success. While every member of the registry is critical to saving lives, registry members ages 18 to 44 are requested by transplant physicians more than 90 percent of the time.
There are many ways you can help patients. Consider making a financial contribution, raising funds, volunteering your time or helping us spread the word about the need for registry members between the ages of 18 to 44. However you choose to become involved, you give patients more hope for a cure. We need you! | <urn:uuid:0950ed1f-00bf-41ae-82f6-c2e670780996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bethematchblog.org/2012/09/daughters-dying-wish-became-mothers-motivation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964469 | 470 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Sri Lanka's powerful Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, also the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said his country looks at India in a "much bigger way" than China.
During an interaction with visiting Indian journalists, Rajapaksa admitted that the recent attacks against Sri Lankan citizens in Tamil Nadu has "hurt" their feelings, but said no one in his country had any "hard feelings" for India or its people.
"No. We have never (thought about it) because in our long history since the days when we moved from British shoulders all training (to army personnel) were done in India or in Pakistan," he said.
The minister was responding to a question whether Sri Lanka was reconsidering the training programme for its military personnel in India and possibly get them trained in countries like China in the wake of protests in Tamil Nadu.
Dwelling on the issue, he said it has been the practice for any new batch to be sent to India for training and that Sri Lanka has no plans to change the tradition.
"There can be various opinions, but we can't (shift the programme). We are very firm on that and we have confidence (that it will continue). We have not even thought about," he said when pressed further on whether Sri Lanka would stop sending its personnel to India.
He noted that starting from the Defence Secretary to Army commanders, everyone has been trained in India. "Everyone go to India first and only then they are sent to other countries like USA (for training)," he said.
Rajapaksa's comments assume significance in the wake of almost all political parties in Tamil Nadu coming on a single platform to oppose the training programme to Sri Lankan military personnel in India.
Initially, the parties protested the presence of Sri Lankan personnel in Tamil Nadu, but later widened their demand by asking the Indian Government to scrap the entire programme and send them back home.
However, India has made it clear that the training programme would continue.
On whether Sri Lanka was moving close towards China, he said: "We look India in a much bigger way."
Speaking about the attacks against Sri Lankan pilgrims in Tamil Nadu, Rajapaksa said that it "hurt" the feelings of Sri Lankan people because it had happened in India, which is regarded as a "big brother and a country which shows the way" for his nation.
"It hurt our feelings, we cannot hide that because we always think India as our big brother or who shows us the way and how should we work. India has taught us all good things. We never thought this will happen. But we have no hard feelings towards India or its people," he said.
The minister, who is in-charge of reconstruction of the war-torn Northern Province, also noted that most of the pilgrims who were attacked in Tamil Nadu were of Indian-origin Sri Lankans.
Asked whether such incidents will cast a shadow on Indo-Lanka ties, he replied in the negative and appreciated the Indian government's initiatives to ensure that such incidents are not repeated in the future.
"I believe that the people of Tamil Nadu understand that nobody gains from such incidents," he said. | <urn:uuid:d8a9efae-1912-45a1-9719-f0a96e40284b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://expressindia.indianexpress.com/latest-news/SriLankatocontinuetotrainitsmilitarypersonnelinIndia/1011277/ | 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 | 0.983792 | 659 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Film turned into photo lab led police to veteran educator.
A former South Los Angeles elementary school teacher was arrested after an investigation that began when a film processor provided authorities with nearly 40 photographs that depicted blindfolded children in a classroom with tape over their mouths.
Some of the images showed former teacher Mark Berndt with his arm around the children or a hand over their mouths, according to authorities.
California State Penal Code requires film processors to report suspected child abuse.
Berndt worked for more than 30 years at Miramonte Elementary School, but was fired shortly after the investigation began about one year ago, according to the LA County Sheriff's Department.
The 61-year-old man was arrested Monday at his Torrance home.
He remained jailed on $2.3 million bond.
He is accused of felony molestation involving 23 children ages 7 to 10 years old.
An arraignment date had not yet been set, but Berndt could make his first court appearance Wednesday in Norwalk, according to sheriff's officials.
The crimes were committed between 2008 and 2010, according to sheriff's investigators.
It wasn't until after Berndt dropped off the film at a South Bay photo lab, where technicians discovered the images and notified authorities, that the investigation was opened.
Berndt is seen in the photos, and a statement from the sheriff's department noted that "the photographs depicted girls with what appeared to be a blue plastic spoon, filled with an unknown clear/white liquid substance, up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest the substance. There are also photos of children with large live Madagascar-type cockroaches on their faces and mouths."
Investigators recovered a blue plastic spoon and empty container from the trash in the suspect's classroom. The items tested positive for semen, according to the sheriff's department.
About 100 similar photos were found at Berndt's home, according to the sheriff's department.
About 250 additional photos were recovered by Sheriff's Special Victims Bureau detectives from the film processing business. | <urn:uuid:53715841-11ed-45fe-aa3a-f60be913b65a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kveo.com/print/node/19313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981514 | 418 | 1.601563 | 2 |
GP practices have reported that a considerably higher proportion of their own records are accurate, complete and useful than those they have received via GP2GP electronic record transfer, in the first published study on the quality of GP2GP records.
A paper in the Informatics in Primary Care journal reports that GPs value GP2GP, but identify issues with record quality.
The researchers ran an online survey that attracted 147 respondents from 146 GP practices receiving records via the electronic record transfer system.
They found there was no significant differences between different GP systems and concluded that difficulties in mapping data structures between systems might underlie some of the perceived issues.
Beverley Ellis from the University of Central Lancashire and Dr Mary Hawking, a Dunstable GP, together with others from the University of Central Lancashire and the General Practice Research Database set up the pilot study to obtain insight on the quality of records received via GP2GP.
They found that the majority of respondents felt that between 75% and 100% of their own records were accurate but less than 20% felt that between 75% and 100% of records received via GP2GP were accurate.
Significantly higher levels of completeness was also attributed to records created by respondents’ own practices and the same pattern was repeated for perceived usefulness.
The authors added: “It is unlikely that this is purely a result of cognitive bias of illusory superiority.”
A total of 83% of practices reported that incoming records were always summarised by trained summarisers and 77% said the GP2GP record was also reviewed when the paper record came in.
Just over one in three practices (35%) said records were never checked before import to the practice record but 42% said this always happened.
Respondents were also invited to add free text comments about their experiences of GP2GP which the researchers said covered the themes of time spent on GP2GP records, problems with GP2GP, difficulties between systems and degradation of entries.
Comments included: “A huge amount of work to clean up the degraded entries”; “There needs to be an agreement on priority codes”; and “There is still a major problem with attachments/scanned not opening so cannot be read.”
More positive comments included: “Have taken a lot of the grief away- and speed on arrival is excellent”; and “Significant reduction in lost information as result of patient transfer.”
The researchers said the main themes of the comments related to problems arising from a lack of standardisation both in terms of data structure of records held in different clinical systems and in the way those systems were used in individual practices.
They said work on developing standards for the structure and content of records may provide a solution. They added: “Despite the perceived limitations very few respondents felt that a large proportion of GP2G records were fully inaccurate, incomplete or useless.
Practices seem to consider that having a record, even if the quality may be dubious, is preferable to waiting for receipt of the paper record and getting it summarised.”
Ellis told EHI Primary Care that the team was keen to conduct a larger scale national study including a larger survey to investigate the factors that lead to the perception of lower quality and welcomed feedback on their pilot study results.
© 2012 EHealth Media.
Register: To add a comment you must be registered. | <urn:uuid:ac100af8-35d4-41b9-91d4-d6a50fc08520> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ehi.co.uk/news/ehi/7957/study-raises-issues-with-gp2gp-records | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974485 | 702 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Current registration - F-BVFF
Aircraft Number - 215
Manufacturer’s Serial Number - 100 -015
Production Variant Number - Type 1 Variant 102
Maiden Flight - 26th December 1978: Toulouse, France
Air France delivery - 23rd October 1980
Registration history –
First Registered as F-WJAN to Aerospatiale
23rd October 1980 aircraft re-registered as F-BVFF and delivered to Air France
Final Flight - 11th June 2000 – AF4586 Charter
Hours Flown - 12,421 Hrs
Landings - 4,259
Supersonic Flights - 3,734
Current Location - Withdrawn from service and on display at CDG airport, Paris
Aircraft History –
F-BVFF was the first Air France Concorde to travel around the world on a Charter flight. It would complete 12 further trips in its operation life.
2000 – Jun 11th
This charter flight would turn out to be the last time F-BVFF flew. The aircraft was subsequently withdrawn from service for planned maintenance work. After the Paris crash the necessary upgrades were not completed before the announcement to stop Concorde services, and so it was never to fly again.
2000 to 2002
A month before the Concorde accident the aircraft was withdrawn from service to provide parts for F-BTSD, which was completing its D check. Once Sierra-Delta was back in service, work would start on Fox-Fox’s D check.
Work started on the check in April 2002, after the safety modifications were complete on F-BVFA. The aircraft was 60% of the way through its check when it was announced that Concorde services would stop. Work was stopped and the aircraft was cosmetically re-assembled. The necessary upgrades were not completed before this announcement to stop Concorde services, and so it was never to fly again. She was placed on display at Paris CDG. | <urn:uuid:20a9b253-2bb4-444f-ad3f-7c17e1144365> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://heritageconcorde.com/technical-2/the-concorde-fleet/concorde-f-bvff | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974666 | 409 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The skiing conditions in the Dolomiti Superski ski areas, including Alta Badia, are ideal: the slopes are situated at –"snow-proof" altitudes between 1400 and 3269 metres, and the very low air humidity ensures extremely powdery snow. The ski season goes from November to April.
With more than 1200 kms of slope Alta Badia and the entire ski area of the Dolomites is a true winter paradise, formed 200 million years ago in a primordial sea. Once upon a time, in fact, the highest and most famous peaks of the Dolomites such as the Sella massif, the Marmolada glacier and the Civetta mountain were all atolls.
The Dolomites, the most beautiful mountains in the world are waiting for you | <urn:uuid:a4abf345-b733-4b23-85f1-31efd846abcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.altabadia.org/en-US/skiing_area_alta_badia_dolomites.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940367 | 165 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Perhaps a post-Valentine's Day buzz was hanging in the air.
Or maybe some of our leaders just aren't as obsessed as others are with partisan grudges and institutional rivalries.
Whatever the reason, Tuesday could have been officially declared Team of Rivals Day in Indiana.
At the Statehouse, Indiana and Purdue universities -- old rivals of basketball games, past and future -- teamed up in the name of research, medicine and innovation. In Kokomo, meanwhile, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels joined with his 2004 election opponent, former Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan, in the name of government reform.
What's next? Pat Bauer and Brian Bosma sharing a picnic?
But the alliances that broke past partisan and campus divides Tuesday provided welcome Kumbaya moments to counter the continuing rancor in D.C. and the type of feuding that so often attracts attention here. Both the governors and the university presidents pitched much-needed ideas.
We'll start with the state's two largest universities, schools that are host to a sports rivalry that inspires so much passion you'd think there were only hard courts and football helmets in Bloomington and West Lafayette. On a day when red rose petals were scattered on the Statehouse steps -- remnants of Valentine's Day -- the two universities provided a different type of smooch, getting together in the name of a life sciences initiative that could bring decades of returns to Indiana.
"It's pretty obvious when you see where our strengths are that we will have more opportunities by working together than working separately," Purdue President France Córdova said by phone as she headed to Indianapolis early Tuesday.
With the state budget in tatters, funding for the joint life sciences initiative -- the Indiana Innovation Alliance -- has been threatened. So Córdova and IU President Michael McRobbie headed to the Statehouse to talk about the increased collaboration between the schools. "The fruits of that alliance," as McRobbie called it, were on display with booths showcasing programs that included cancer care and orthopedics.
The two presidents contend that by joining IU's clinical research and Purdue's engineering and related research, their universities become stronger economic and research engines. State funding is crucial to help grow this emerging alliance.
"In the health and life sciences, there is no Silicon Valley," McRobbie said. "Indiana can be such a place."
Meanwhile, Daniels and Kernan seem to have left their political rivalry behind. The two are working together on a wide-ranging government reform effort aimed at ridding Indiana of many outdated government structures. Tuesday, they headed to Kokomo to jump-start a series of bills aimed at putting a 21st-century touch on local government.
That push has faced stiff resistance in the legislature from entrenched political interests, underscoring the need for a new push from Daniels and Kernan.
"This is a definitively bipartisan endeavor," Daniels said Monday. "It really is party-neutral."
That's actually one of the problems. Although government reform is long past due, it draws strong opposition from Republican and Democratic insiders.
"It's going to take leadership from both sides," Daniels said. "We couldn't have been more fortunate than to have Governor Kernan (helping)."
He's right. And just imagine what else could be accomplished if more rivals started thinking less about politics and more about progress. | <urn:uuid:2c43eaa5-578e-4ac9-912b-6b6106511e58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indystar.com/article/20090218/NEWS08/902180347/1101/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967918 | 690 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I can’t help but think that Portland’s struggling economy calls into question Richard Florida’s theory of the creative class city. I read his book years ago, so admittedly it’s not fresh in my mind, but one of his central arguments was that cities that focus on livability would be those to attract the creative class workforce, and consequently be the economic engines of 21st century America. While Portland’s reputation for livability and its creative class ethos has fulfilled the first part of that equation, it hasn’t done much in the way of invigorating our economy. One could assume that it may even be hindering it – noting that the overabundance of overeducated, underemployed, socially-minded citizens here creates a great deal of competition for few jobs and therefore also depresses salaries. (Or, as Portlandia puts it, our city is where young people come to retire.)
Portland is the poster child for indicators run amok. Amassing talent is the game and the goal. What comes next after your city goes viral?
Understanding relocation choices for a niche demographic doesn't make you an economic development guru. Modelling migration isn't difficult. The patterns of moving still follow some basic rules articulated over a century ago. Fetish destinations come and go. What will become of Portland?
About a month ago, I was still bullish on Portland. Now, I'm not so sure. Starting with the glass-half-full perspective, a story about Denver and the upside of a big company leaving town:
Doug Dwyre, president of Denver- based Mocapay, is a former First Data employee who chose not to relocate to Atlanta. He eventually joined Mocapay, which integrates mobile transaction software and marketing into merchants' long-term business strategies. In May, it launched a mobile-payment system with Denver-based coffee merchant Dazbog.Dwyre said there was a direct correlation between First Data leaving and the upswing in mobile-payment companies in the state. Mocapay had 14 employees last year; it has 20 this year."It's unfortunate that First Data left Colorado, but it's good as far as fostering the entrepreneurial spirit of the folks who ended up staying in Denver," he said.
If you wanted to stay in Denver, then you had to think like an immigrant. I'll get back to the Colorado dividend in a bit. A glut of talent, for whatever reason, should spark more entrepreneurial activity. I figured that a major economic spillover from all that in-migration was just a matter of time in Portland.
I based that conclusion on my Boulder experience. Smart people flocked there en masse. Graduates from the University of Colorado hung around a few years to ski and rock climb in Eldorado Canyon. Boulder was (still is) rich in natural and human made amenities that make the community sticky.
I failed to appreciate that the regional economy was ready to absorb all that talent. Boulder is blessed with a major research university and a bunch of federal government laboratories. By comparison, the Portland boom is unsustainable. What is Portland going to do with all this excess Creative Class?
No doubt that Denver has benefited from a quality of place. Instead of moving to Atlanta, ex-employees ran through brick walls to stay. In theory, that's how catering to the Creative Class should help your city or rural community.
Then there is Pittsburgh ...
These days, "Pennsylvania is no longer part of the Rust Belt. Pennsylvania has diversified away from that manufacturing belt," said James Diffley, chief regional economist with IHS Global Insight in Eddystone."The diversification of Pennsylvania kept it from being another Ohio and Michigan," he said. Michigan's unemployment rate peaked at 14.1 percent.
"Diversification" has been the name of the Pittsburgh revitalization game. As for the good news in PA, it is more Pittsburgh than Philadelphia:
Forty-six of 50 metros experienced declines in job openings in June, 14 more than the previous month. The four metro areas that did not lose job openings saw insubstantial growth: Louisville (1.7 percent), Birmingham (1.4 percent), Detroit and Pittsburgh (less than one percent).
Pittsburgh is an island in a sea of economic gloom and doom, despite disregarding Richard Florida's advice. Yes, Pittsburgh is the anti-Portland. Pittsburgh is the antithesis of the Creative Class migration. Yet the Great Reset has favored Pittsburgh over Portland. | <urn:uuid:7550f30f-dbeb-4c59-aa84-474f109e3f5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://burghdiaspora.blogspot.com/2011/07/pittsburgh-versus-portland.html?showComment=1310514917581 | 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 | 0.964663 | 932 | 1.5 | 2 |
Army Manages Leading Breast Cancer Research
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2010 Every year since 1992, Congress has added millions of dollars to the Defense Department’s budget so the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, Md., can help scientists fight breast cancer.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Erika Haskins uses a ruler to measure a mammogram film to pinpoint areas that are more likely to develop breast cancer at Aviano Air Base, Italy, Nov. 1, 2004. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Scherrie K. Gates
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
The Breast Cancer Research Program is just one of the congressionally directed medical research programs that have managed $6 billion in appropriations through fiscal 2010. Funding covers such afflictions as Gulf War illness, prostate cancer, spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries, autism and genetic studies of food allergies. But the largest share of money -– and the first research to be funded by the program -– goes to scientists whose work targets breast cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment.
“We don’t invest any funds into raising breast cancer awareness or educational outreach,” oncologist and Navy Capt. (Dr.) E. Melissa Kaime told American Forces Press Service. “That isn’t the mission given to us by Congress. All of our funds go toward research and management of that research. And we really do try to complement other funding agencies and not compete, and so move the field forward in a unique way.”
In 1992, breast cancer patients and survivors marched on Congress with a compelling request for more research, Kaime said.
“They wanted research that was innovative, that was willing to take a risk and that was going to have an impact and leapfrog the field forward,” she said. To manage the program, the advocates had a choice among the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command and other research institutions.
“When the advocates met with our commanding general at the time, they found a very welcoming organization,” Kaime said. “This command has done biomedical research for many decades specifically focused on the needs of warfighters, … [including] military operational medicine, combat casualty care and military infectious disease focus areas.”
AMRMC’S commanding general also was enthusiastic about the advocates’ desire to have a larger voice in research, Kaime said, “so we’ve had a very happy partnership since that time.”
The Army brings to the program “a very organized and efficient way of managing the research,” she added.
Any scientist around the world can submit a research proposal for funding, and scientists and consumers work together in a two-tier process to decide which projects receive funding, she said.
“We listen to consumers, who we call the survivor-advocates, because they are the ones living with the disease,” Kaime said. “They are the acid test for every research project. We ask: ‘How is [the research] going to make a difference for them or future generations, and incorporate their viewpoints and passions in all of our programs?’”
The National Cancer Institute estimates that 207,090 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and nearly 40,000 will die. Also this year, an estimated 2,000 men will be diagnosed, and 390 will die.
The Breast Cancer Research Program tries to focus on leading-edge kinds of research, program manager Dr. Gayle Vaday told American Forces Press Service.
“The bulk of our awards are made in the early stages, where it’s harder for researchers to get funding through other federal agencies,” she said. “We try to give a new idea that opportunity. It’s high-risk, but the potential for gain is there.”
For example, Dr. Lance Liotta of George Mason University and Virginia surgeon Dr. Kirsten Edmiston received an early award for research that evolved into an ongoing clinical trial to test the ability of the antimalarial drug chloroquine to reduce the long-term survival and spread of a kind of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ, Vaday said. A standard treatment is to remove a tumor surgically from the breast, but it can take several days after surgery to find out if all the tumor cells are gone, she added.
Dr. Sarah Blair and colleagues at the University of California-San Diego received an award to develop an automated system that examines thousands of cells while a woman is still under anesthesia during surgery and separates cancer from noncancer cells based on the proteins they produce.
In 1993, the program funded an application from Dr. Dennis Slamon, then chief of hematology and oncology division at the University of California-Los Angeles, to develop antibodies against breast cancer –- an idea that was unheard-of at the time, Kaime said.
Slamon’s genetic studies ultimately led to the development of a drug called Herceptin that helps some of the women who have a fast-growing and deadly form of the disease.
“We don’t restrict proposals to specific topics,” Kaime said. “For this program we allow the good science to come forward. We don’t try to tell the scientific field that we must have studies on [specific topics]. We let very excellent science with innovation come to the top.” | <urn:uuid:37d61bac-ae49-4a7b-aa3e-99a111ef4911> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=61333 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948147 | 1,164 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Posted May 15th
Around the World
Getting to the root of what is right.
Justice is doing what God declares to be right and defending those being wronged. We believe God has called MISSION to be defenders of the defenseless and a voice to the voiceless. We will be protectors of those being wronged.
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
We stand with God as an advocate for the least, the hurting, the unrepresented and the oppressed. Acting justly is a key part of being a follower of Christ and we realize that God’s plan to heal the world involves us, His people. The MISSION is committed to doing justice, and unleashing kingdom people to radical acts of righteousness and leading sustainable change wherever we can.
Please click on the locations to the right for more information on doing justice around the world.
Interested in praying for the entire world in a year? Join the Global Prayer Group. Click here for details. | <urn:uuid:a7eaae4b-92bc-440e-ac5d-5092a66c9fd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mission68.org/connect/do-justice/around-the-world/ | 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 | 0.959803 | 229 | 1.804688 | 2 |
ATLANTA, March 9 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President George W. Bush will be remembered as a "great artist," his painting teacher says.
In an interview with WAGA-TV, Atlanta, Bonnie Flood of Cumming, Ga., said she spent a month with Bush in Boca Grande, Fla., giving him 6 hours of daily instruction, Politico reported Friday.
She told the Fox affiliate the former president started out painting dogs and graduated to landscapes as he became more comfortable with the medium.
Three of Bush's paintings became public when a hacker posted items gleaned from family email accounts. Two of the paintings appeared to be self-portraits -- one showing the lower legs and feet of someone in a bathtub and the other the upper back and head of a man in a shower, his face partly visible in a shaving mirror.
The third was a picture of a stone church.
Flood was more enthusiastic about Bush's works than most critics who reviewed them.
"He has such a passion for painting, it's amazing," Flood said. "He's going to go down in the history books as a great artist."
Bush is following in the footsteps of President Dwight Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, both enthusiastic painters.
Flood said she was unsure what to call Bush and finally settled on 43, which is how the 43rd president signs his work.
"When I really wanted him to do something, I would say, 'Mr. President, you know that you don't do it that way," she said.
|Additional U.S. News Stories|
DAMASCUS, Va., May 19 (UPI) --Police in Damascus, Ga., said the driver of a car that plowed into a crowd during a parade, injuring about 60 people, may have suffered a medical emergency.
WASHINGTON, May 19 (UPI) --Television actress Christine White has died in Washington, her representatives announced. She was 86.
MIAMI, May 19 (UPI) --The Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade said he wanted to make a Miami teen's prom "a memorable moment," so he surprised her by showing up at her senior prom. | <urn:uuid:6bed0bcd-32b6-4960-b285-def74753c106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/03/09/Painting-teacher-GW-Bush-great-artist/UPI-68941362861213/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988348 | 456 | 1.570313 | 2 |
January 9, 2012
"A steep drop in crime, but do you feel safer?"
The title of this post comes from the headline of this article run this past weekend in the Los Angeles Times, though the question might well be asked in just about every major city in the nation. Here is how the interesting piece gets started:
A newsroom has its own way of tracking a city's trend toward diminishing crime. Twenty years ago, a reporter tallying crime stats for our newspaper's weekly blotter might sift through dozens of killings on a single weekend. There were more than 1,000 homicides a year. Last year, there were fewer than 300 homicides — and many weekends with no killings.
Ten years ago, reporters working the streets kept mental lists of neighborhoods considered too dangerous to visit alone. Now, no neighborhood is off-limits. That sense of ambient criminal menace is gone.
Los Angeles —- like other big cities around the country — is in the midst of a crime drop so steep and profound, it has experts scratching their heads. Crime fell in 2011 for the ninth year in a row, to levels not seen in Los Angeles since half a century ago. The city had fewer crimes last year — and a million and a half more people — than it did when "Leave It To Beaver" made its debut in 1957.
The reasons are complicated and ripe for debate: better policing and more community involvement; fewer drugs and fuller prisons; an explosion in new technology; and the fading profile of violent gangs. The phenomenon ought to be scrutinized. We need to know what mix of forces has conspired to drive crime down, so we can — in an era of shrinking resources — plan and spend wisely to keep this going.
We also have to ask ourselves: What will this transformation mean? What will we do with all this safety in a city known not so long ago as the capital of drive-by shootings?
Some related posts on the great modern crime decline in California and nationally:
- Despite death penalty's practical demise and a prisoner release order, California crime hit record low in 2010
- Effective Washington Post commentary talks up great (and still puzzling) crime decline
- Amazingly great new FBI data: crime down yet again in start of 2011!
- Still more great news and data on the latest crime rates in the United States
- Remarkable drop in US violent crimes rates in 2010 according to latest BJS data
- Some speculations about the great crime decline in Florida
- "Falling Crime Rates Challenge Long-Held Beliefs"
- "Punishment Politics: Gubernatorial Rhetoric, Political Conflict, and the Instrumental Explanation of Mass Incarceration in the American States"
January 9, 2012 at 09:22 AM | Permalink
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Caveat: My knowledge of this area is very modest.
As it appears to me, comparing homicide rates "per 100,000 population" is useful but not the whole story.
The homicide rate was 4.8 per 100,000 in 1961, and again in 2010 (after reaching a high of 9.8 in '79, '81, & '91); nevertheless, this equates to 6,008 more persons murdered though the crime rate is the same! [[14,748 vs. 8,740]]
In 1961: 158 per 100,000 violent crimes or 289,390 within a population of 182,992,000;
in 2010: 404 per 100,000 violent crimes or 1,246,248 within a pop. of 308,745,538.
Greater than a 2.5x INcrease? So much for moral evolution.
For those of us born after the 50s—or 60s for small towners—we may not appreciate the security of being able to sleep without locking the doors or leaving the keys in the ignition. Our grandparents do.
Posted by: adamakis | Jan 12, 2012 10:33:05 AM | <urn:uuid:4bcf60f5-b8fa-4cbf-8686-a8072c3454a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2012/01/a-steep-drop-in-crime-but-do-you-feel-safer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934844 | 846 | 1.820313 | 2 |
By JULIE STAGIS, email@example.com
The Hartford Courant
9:59 PM CST, December 19, 2012
About 3,000 people gathered at Western Connecticut State University Wednesday night to honor those lost, support each other and begin to recover from last Friday's school shooting in Newtown.
Tears rolled down the faces of the young and the old, those directly connected with one of the 27 shooting victims and those connected only by proximity, as the names and faces of 6- and 7-year-olds — 20 of them — appeared on a large screen as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played in the background.
The tears fell again as the names and faces of the six women killed in the assault were shown as Amy Masse sang "You Raise Me Up" onstage.
Through faith and tribute, the thousands became one.
"We here in the O'Neill Center tonight are all alike," the university's president, James Schmotter, said in opening remarks. "We are alike in our pain; we are alike in our grief; we are alike in our quest to try to find some understanding of events that seem truly incomprehensible."
Schmotter said he was "grateful for everyone here who has come to be with our friends and neighbors, to remember and send every wish we have to our friends in Newtown, but most of all to be together with compassion, kindness and love."
The night was punctuated with music and art. The Rogers Park Middle School Chorus and Danbury High School Madrigals sang songs, including "Amazing Grace." Songwriter Kevin Briody playing a song about love of family. Artist Scott LoBaido painted, on the spot, an abstract American flag with a heart and candle depicted in the middle, which was presented to Newtown First Selectman Patricia Llodra.
Llodra received a standing ovation every time her name was mentioned.
Perhaps most moving were the speeches honoring the victims, the heroes, the strength of community.
Rogers Park Middle School teacher John Schlogl honored the teachers and staff lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School, especially Principal Dawn Hochsprung, who was once an assistant principal at Rogers Park.
Once stories began to circulate about Hochsprung's final acts, "many were surprised by her selfless act of heroism," Schlogl said. "I was not surprised. My colleagues were not surprised."
All educators aim to protect students, he said. "Your children are our children."
At Hochsprung's wake earlier Wednesday, her husband, George, asked Schlogl to share one thought with the crowd gathered at WCSU: "Dawn was a hero, and all the staff at Sandy Hook are heroes."
Rabbi Clifford E. Librach of the United Jewish Center in Danbury saluted the first responders.
"The light [God created on] the first day … has stood as the deepest and most enduring symbol of the Almighty," Librach said. "At 9:30 in the morning last Friday, the light of the Lord was eclipsed."
"The first responders saved the lives of hundreds as they encountered the ugly and unspeakable death of a sacred score of young innocent souls and six martyred heroes," he said. "It was through the fingers of the first responders that the light of God was restored."
Senior Pastor Clive Calver of Walnut Hill Community Church spoke of the future, saying the community will band together and "rise from the ashes" of the tragedy.
A sign at the bottom of his street in Newtown reads, "Newtown, you are not alone," he said.
"To all the other communities here, thank you," Calver said. "We aren't alone, and together by God's grace, we will begin again." | <urn:uuid:ce18005c-cff3-4a49-81a8-c2ea1eab42cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwch.com/news/hc-tribute-concert-newtown-sandy-hook-shooting-122-20121219,0,3469766,print.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970316 | 793 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The autoharp is a folk instrument that, like the dulcimer and the lute, has been largely superseded by other stringed instruments such as the guitar and the various fiddles. Autoharps can play a very limited number of chords and are primarily useful (if you are forced to play one) as accompaniment to voices or other more versatile instruments. I keep a really old one a friend gave me as a conversation piece and as something to do when I'm bored.
Au"to*harp (?), n. [Auto- +
A zitherlike musical instrument, provided with
dampers which, when depressed, deaden some strings, leaving free
others that form a chord.
© Webster 1913.
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Tomorrow, Secretary Vilsack and I will participate in the Future of Food, Food Security for the 21st Century conference, which is sponsored by The Washington Post. I am pleased to see the topic of food security getting such attention, as I believe it’s one of the biggest challenges we face now and in the next 50 years. As director of USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), I believe NIFA has a crucial role to play in addressing these challenges.
We are facing a “9 billion challenge,” in that the global population is projected to hit 9 billion by the year 2050. This challenge presents what I call wicked problems that require us to find ways to feed, clothe, shelter all people, and meet their energy needs, without wreaking havoc on the environment. Read more » | <urn:uuid:cacb0102-57f5-484d-86fa-37b4a83ddde7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.usda.gov/tag/future-of-food/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950288 | 171 | 1.742188 | 2 |
BBC iPlayer available on Freesat
Public broadcaster ready to start trials
By Carrie-Ann Skinner | PC Advisor | Published: 10:29, 27 November 2009
To receive iPlayer, Freesat viewers must connect their HD Freesat TV or HD box to their broadband router via an Ethernet cable or homeplug, and then press the red button to get to the BBCi menu. Viewers will also need an actual broadband speed of 1Mbps to watch BBC iPlayer or 2Mbps to watch in high quality. Freesat advised viewers to test their broadband speed first "because actual speeds can vary from those advertised".
The rollout will begin on December 7, although initially it will only be available to a select few who will need to input a special code to watch iPlayer. Freesat said it hoped "as many viewers as possible will be able to use the service by Christmas and without the need for a code".
Related Articles on Techworld
Around 450 hours of programming will be available each week, including popular programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing, Top Gear, EastEnders, and Gavin and Stacey.
Emma Scott, Freesat's managing director, said: "We're delighted to be able to offer BBC iPlayer to our viewers. All the HD receivers that have been bought and will be sold in the run up to Christmas will deliver BBC iPlayer so there'll no need to buy any new receivers.
"BBC iPlayer has been fantastically successful online so being able to offer viewers the ability to watch it in their living room on a subscription free TV service for the first time will be transformational."
ITV also said it was working with Freesat to make the ITV Player available on the satellite service in the first half of 2010. | <urn:uuid:54d9e184-35f5-4675-805c-954e8ecff437> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.techworld.com/personal-tech/3207529/bbc-iplayer-available-on-freesat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941505 | 366 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Loveland glass artist Dina Kalahar has lived in a wide variety of places but has strong ties to Loveland.
Her parents graduated from Loveland High School and her uncle raised cattle in the area. Her first work of art as a child was a coloring book -- but right off the bat she did not stay within the lines and even drew characters of her own.
She would also remove silverware from the drawers and to draw them including all of the details. Her love of horses prompted her to spent time creating images of these animals.
Kalahar has taken many varied paths during her life. During her days as a gymnast, she trained in Béla Károlyi's gym. Károlyi is best known for training nine Olympic champions as well as 15 world champions.
She also studied to become a nurse and a nutritional therapist. Her occupations include mural painter, lifeguard and swim instructor.
She visited the Alberta College campus in Alberta, Canada, where she fell in love with the art produced in the glass blowing department. She returned to her Boulder home and called around hoping to become an apprentice at a local glass studio, but discovered that opportunities were slim.
In 1998, she finally joined a studio where she paid half of her income until she had paid off the cost of her apprenticeship. From then on, she was financially independent.
Kalahar modernized her Loveland home with better windows. The old window frames intrigued her and it planted an idea for a work of art made of glass tubes. The tubes would appear to fly like the wind through an open frame. Glass bluebirds were added giving the viewer the impression that they were following the wind.
This led to the expansion of this idea on a grand scale for the June 22-24 "Glass.Fiber.Stone" exhibit at Loveland Feed and Grain.
The completed work of art appears to originate in a hole in the floor in one room, flow through an open window and curve gracefully around to disappear in a hole in the brick wall at the end of a second room. The piece took up about 70 feet and along its length, had 54 bluebirds. Although a viewer could purchase one of the bluebirds, it was installation art -- temporary, there to be appreciated then removed.
Kalahar has strong feelings about art with her objective to make people feel happy. The viewer and the artist have a symbiotic relationship -- the viewer reacting to the art and the artist absorbing what the viewer feels.
She is intent on creating an experience, but comments that the sale of a small piece from one of her installations would allow the viewer to take away part of the experience.
Blowing glass is very technical and involves the investment of a considerable amount of equipment. Forming the glass is done in a gas flame. There are tools used to shape the glass in its molten state. Once a piece is complete, the stresses within the cold and hot portions may cause it to explode. An annealing kiln eliminates these internal stresses by slowly cooling the finished piece.
As for her future, Kalahar views glass as a learning experience and comments that she has only touched its potential. What she likes is that it "eats light" -- that is, once light is trapped inside a strand of glass, it bends the ray of light.
As for humans, Kalahar says, "... they are a lot like glass -- fragile yet strong. You can bend glass before it breaks just like us. Working with glass allows the glass worker to discover things about themselves." | <urn:uuid:170ca5fc-003b-4c91-b8a6-03b466b26caf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reporterherald.com/loveland-art/ci_21338311/artist-dina-kalahar-shaped-her-future-after-discovering?source=rss_viewed | 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 | 0.982185 | 727 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The wildfire, which started June 9 is the second-largest and second-most destructive fire in Colorado history.
The fire, which grew to 87,284 acres, has not grown since Wednesday.
All evacuations were lifted today at noon and all roads were reopened including Highway 14 in the Poudre Canyon, officials said.
But there will be restrictions in some areas.
Only residents will be allowed into Pingree Park, Upper Buckhorn, Monument Gulch and Rist Canyon neighborhoods. Residents will be required to show identification at checkpoints.
Monument Gulch residents are asked to enter using Pingree Park Road instead of Buckhorn Road.
In the lower Poudre Canyon - Colorado 287 to Pingree Park Road - recreational access is limited to river access only. Trailheads, campgrounds, and picnic areas remain closed. Hiking and dispersed camping is prohibited throughout the lower Poudre Canyon.
In the upper Poudre Canyon, limited camping will be allowed Monday. Dispersed camping along Pingree Park Road is prohibited.
Fire danger remains very high.
Larimer County and U.S. Forest Service fire restrictions remain in effect and residents are reminded to be cautious and vigilant in camping areas. Battling the fire cost $38.4 million.
By Sunday, manpower assigned to the blaze will drop from 941 personnel to 150 local firefighters.
Authorities warned that containment means that the fire is not expected to grow outside its current boundaries but that the ground will likely continue to smolder for days or weeks until a rain completely extinguishes the fire.
"Things are looking good because of our suppression actions," said fire behavior analyst Julia Sultens. "However, fuel conditions are still as dry as they were when this thing took off. Any new fire may grow very rapidly."
For more coverage of Colorado wildfires, visit denverpost.com/wildfires. | <urn:uuid:3a48ae07-ead7-429b-949f-a0a035430342> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fortmorgantimes.com/fort-morgan-local-news/ci_20990209/high-park-fire-now-100-percent-contained?source=most_viewed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962229 | 387 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Source: Birmingham suspect owned bomb-making book
February 25, 1998
The FBI released these photos of Rudolph
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT)
MURPHY, North Carolina (CNN) -- Federal agents found a book on building bombs in a storage unit rented by Eric Rudolph, the suspect in the Birmingham, Alabama, women's clinic bombing who continues to elude authorities, CNN has learned.
In addition, new details are emerging about Rudolph's life: CNN has learned he had a connection with a movement that has been called "a racist religion of white supremacy."
Rudolph is a suspect in the January 29 bombing of the New Woman All Women Health Care Clinic, where abortions are performed. The bombing killed an off-duty police officer and critically wounded a nurse.
Federal agents found a book titled "How to Build Bombs of Mass Destruction" in a storage unit rented by Rudolph near Murphy, according to a source familiar with the search.
Rudolph's boyhood home in Nantahala, North Carolina
Agents spent four days in early February searching the storage unit, and hauled away several truckloads of Rudolph's belongings, including books. Many of the volumes were religious, according to the source.
On Tuesday, CNN confirmed that nails found in the storage unit matched nails used as shrapnel in a bomb that exploded at a suburban Atlanta women's clinic in January 1997.
Authorities found Rudolph's passport among his belongings and believe he is still in the United States, a source said.
Links to Christian Identity movement
A 31-year-old carpenter, the suspect had a direct link with a religious group that Klanwatch and the Anti-Defamation League say is part of the Christian Identity movement, CNN has learned.
Brian Levin, of the Center on Hate and Extremism at Richard Stockton College, said Christian Identity is a racist religion of white supremacy.
Nails found in Rudolph's storage shed match the type used in one of the Atlanta bombings.
"Identity adherents tend to be vehemently anti-gay,
anti-Semitic and opposed to abortion and interracial marriages," Levin said.
When Rudolph was 18, he moved with his mother and a brother to Schell, Missouri, where the family lived for about six months with members of the Church of Israel, the wife of the church's leader told CNN.
"Mr. Rudolph was here about 13 years ago. He was a teen-ager. We have not seen him since," said Mrs. Dan Gayman, whose husband founded the church in 1973.
Gayman said she and her husband "didn't know them before they came."
"We helped them out. She was a widow lady. She stayed here until they got on their feet," she said.
ATF: Sitting in the woods Rudolph's 'cup of tea'
Dozens of federal agents have spent almost four weeks searching the mountains around Murphy, where Rudolph spent most of his life. They suspect he could be hiding in the heavily wooded area.
"That seems to be his cup of tea, sitting in the woods," said Brian Lett, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Law enforcement interviews with people who knew Rudolph revealed that he dislikes big cities and prefers sleeping in a car rather than checking into a motel. Investigators said Rudolph also is known to usually carry a pistol. | <urn:uuid:c4c4011c-b9c4-41a8-b612-15debd6f8bba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/25/clinic.bombing/index.html?_s=PM:US | 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 | 0.978304 | 702 | 1.726563 | 2 |
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Matthew 5:6
That word need means many things to many people. I used to think it was a synonym for the word want. And although I still occasionally treat it as such, I now know the difference.
God has used the experience of truly needing food, as opposed to wanting something in my mouth, to teach me about other things throughout the years. This past year He showed me the difference between wanting to write because I felt unfulfilled versus needing to write because I was hungry to serve Him.
Throughout my career as a freelance writer I’ve had the opportunity to write many things. And I’ve become comfortable with several different disciplines, especially in the realm of non-fiction. But this year God’s call involved writing fiction. Something I’ve always dreamed of doing full-time, but have also feared attempting. You see, I have a certain track record with non-fiction, and I know I can succeed there. Now fiction, that’s another thing altogether. Taking that on means stretching, growing, and more importantly relying TOTALLY on God. | <urn:uuid:b90051d8-5961-4a56-be98-60d5a17dfe4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thewriteconversation.blogspot.com/2013/01/weekend-worshipunfulfilledor-truly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982278 | 248 | 1.515625 | 2 |
House of All Nations
"For money, wrote Balzac, "people fight and devour one another like spiders in a pot." In House of All Nations, the pot is an exclusive private European bank, and the spiders are a rich mixture of high-stakes gamblers, tax evaders, and shady speculators, all united by their love of money. They burn for it, hunger for it, and indeed would sell their souls for it had they souls to sell. Leading them on the chase is the cynical and mercurial director of the bank, Jules Bertillon, for whom every political or natural disaster is a potential shower of gold. The supreme manipulator whose only principle is money. Bertillon is a master of the devious maneuver, and his clients trust and even love him for it. In the end, he is the duper duped, but it is the clients who pay: for Jules, unprincipled to the last, has not been so foolish as to believe in himself.
"Set in the Paris of the interwar period, House of All Nations is a vast panoramic novel of the intrigues, swindles, and manipulations of this world on international fiance. "No one ever made enough money," says Jules Bertillon at the outset of this story of greed and power - and that is the leitmotif for the blackmailers, playboys, brokers, and bankers who swirl through this multilayered book. Intent on their personal gain, they play out the turns of fortune against a backdrop of worldwide economic depression and the rising tide of Fascism. Here are the thirties brought to life - the decadence and indifference, the selfishness and short-sightedness that would culminate in world war.
"First published in 1939, House of All Nations was greeted with great critical praise. "Combined with her Hogarthian humor, brilliant vocabulary, high-keyed imagination, the result is one of the most savage satires on 'the principle of money' since Balzac," said Time. The New Yorker acclaimed it as a book "full of rich comedy, crowded with Balzacian characters...a work of extraordinary talent."
They were in the Hotel Lotti in the Rue de Castiglione, but not in Léon's usual suite. Léon's medicine case in yellow pigskin lay open, showing its crystal flasks, on a Louis XV chair. The Raccamonds, man and wife, bent over this case and poked at it.
"He always travels with it: cowardice of the lion before a common cold, eh?" Aristide reflected.
Marianne sniffed. "He's afraid to lose his money, that's all."
The white door opened a few inches and an immense head, with long black hair carefully brushed over a God's acre of baldness, appeared in the crack. Clear brown eyes sunk in large sockets searched them, forgave them. "Hello, Aristide! Just having a bath," said the head. "Wait a few minutes, will you? Sit down, Marianne. Ring if you want anything. Excuse me." The door shut. In a moment, it reopened. "Excuse me. How are you, Marianne? So you want some tea, some - cockta', sherry? Ring on the telephone. I'll be with you in a minute."
From the Angus and Robertson hardback edition, 1974.
This page and its contents are copyright © 2003 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.Return to Christina Stead page.
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Christians Against All Animal Abuse
"Christ’s redemption is for the whole of creation!"
From Spring 2010 Issue
Sanhedrins do not change their spots
As for the poor animals, the form of intensive
breeding of sheep and exploitation of cows is a thorough disgrace.
Veterinarians employed by the government, give their approval to forms
of animal exploitation, which are utterly sick. And now I find that not
only are we in the UK evidently forced by EU stipulation to provide and
permit the ritual slaughter of conscious animals; but New Labour was
also allowed to continue, indefinitely, with the inhumane battery
incarceration of birds. And should you dare to refer to such horrendous
breeding establishments as animal Belsens, then you could have
the Jewish Sanhedrin for the UK coming down upon you like a ton
of bricks. Yes, like I experienced when simply comparing animal
experimentation upon laboratory animals as having similarities to Nazi
scientists who conducted lawful experiments on Jews and many other
defenceless victims in medical blocks of their concentration camps..
It was the Sanhedrin for Palestine that
brought about the crucifixion of Jesus! When its’ comparatively recent
British counterpart denounced me around ten years ago – a retired bishop
of Salisbury supporting them! – I felt I knew what it was to be betrayed
by a colleague. Ah, but then Jesus’s presence became very real. He’d
experienced similar. Well in fact it was far worse!
Mind you, I sense that Jewish indifference to animal suffering - and
also their deep offence at my analogy - was to be expected considering
the way their consciences have been desensitized through their perpetual
practice of ritual slaughter down the centuries!. What is more, with due
respects, a society or race, must sooner or later reap the kind of
treatment it sows. Other faiths refer to this as the law of Karma, while
Christianity refers to it as reaping what one has sown. The Buddhists
might term it reincarnation in to a lower life; I think Jesus would have
referred to it as entering the hell He warned us to avoid at all costs.
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Thank you for visiting all-creatures.org. | <urn:uuid:b9a4f79f-f964-4279-a054-33ba04b60be0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-creatures.org/ap/nl-2010sp-3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945977 | 521 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The film director Alfred Hitchcock adored the Grand Hotel Villa d’Este in Cernobbio and used to spend his summer holidays here from 1925 – when he shot a short scene for his first feature film, The Pleasure Garden in the hotel park – until 1970.
It is said he became absolutely paranoid whenever he saw a photographer. One day a fabulous wedding reception was put on at the hotel and, quite naturally, a number of photographers turned up for the occasion. Hitchcock was dining when they came in. He instantly spotted them, gave them a withering look and whispered to the maître: “I’ll leave right now if you don’t throw them all out!” But when he realised the flashes were not at all aimed at him, he calmed down, relaxed, and enjoyed the rest of his dinner.
He was so curious about things that, during one of his stays at Villa d’Este, he even asked to see the kitchens and wanted to know everything about the products and equipment in them.
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(1)A person is guilty of burglary if—
(a)he enters any building or part of a building as a trespasser and with intent to commit any such offence as is mentioned in subsection (2) below; or
(b)having entered any building or part of a building as a trespasser he steals or attempts to steal anything in the building or that part of it or inflicts or attempts to inflict on any person therein any grievous bodily harm.
(2)The offences referred to in subsection (1)(a) above are offences of stealing anything in the building or part of a building in question, of inflicting on any person therein any grievous bodily harm F1... therein, and of doing unlawful damage to the building or anything therein.
[F2(3)A person guilty of burglary shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding—
(a)where the offence was committed in respect of a building or part of a building which is a dwelling, fourteen years;
(b)in any other case, ten years.
(4)References in subsections (1) and (2) above to a building, and the reference in subsection (3) above to a building which is a dwelling, shall apply also to an inhabited vehicle or vessel, and shall apply to any such vehicle or vessel at times when the person having a habitation in it is not there as well as at times when he is.]
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Art Talk Monday
The moon is a surprised white face over the darkening river
Even before a pair of blue-gray wings swoops down
Between the O of its mouth and the O of a surfacing fish,
And the phone rings, and it’s you inBaton Rouge
Grilling a silver catfish and staring at the moon.
Julie Kane, “Moonrise overCaneRiver”,
from Rhythm & Booze (2003)
Much of Julie Kane’s poetry is about surprises, surfacings, and strangely appropriate coincidences—the kinds of moments that cause us to wonder if there might not, in fact, be something more at work than mere chance or choice. That’s not to say that her poetic world is magical or mystical in nature—in fact, it tends to strike one as insistently real and everyday; a world of normal people living normal, if sometimes painful and confusing, lives in places that we might walk past, or work in, or live in ourselves. What allows for its surprises is more often our own narrow expectations, the limits we place on our own thoughts, desires, or imagination, because life or experience has led us to believe that some things are impossible, even unsayable; that is, until the phone rings, and our vaguest, most unconscious thoughts are suddenly made real and present. Kane herself, who was recently appointed the newest Poet Laureate of Louisiana, has said of poetry, more generally, that it must, “bring to light what has previously been hidden from conscious awareness—states of consciousness, realms of inner and outer experience. I hold with the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas that if you bring forth what is within you, it will save you, but if you don’t, it will kill you.”*
Kane’s work, while it sometimes gestures towards the possibility of being killed by what remains unexpressed, more often than not finds salvation in those tiny, unexpected moments of awareness that come to us, like the timely phone call, partly by chance, and partly by a kind of willful imagining, a bringing into being of the thing we need most from the elements that we find all around us—a dark river, a catfish, a rising moon, a friendship. It’s because of the imaginative power of those everyday objects that place seems to play an important role in Kane’s work—in particular, its connection to the Louisiana landscape. Although not a native ofLouisiana (she was born and raised inBoston), her attachment to the state, its culture, and its people runs deep. She has written that, “A poet with an inborn sense of place needs a place to be from—its wildflowers and weather and landscape and history. I suspect that is why I’ve found it so hard to leave my ex-husband’s native state ofLouisiana.”* Not only has she not left it, she has adopted, adapted, and assimilated it into her poetic vision. Having lived for extended periods in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and currently, Natchitoches (where she teaches at Northwestern State University), Kane has experienced much of the uniqueness and diversity of Louisiana culture, and found in it a rich and seemingly endless vein of creative material—from the vibrant, jazzy, smoke-filled lounges and literary hangouts of New Orleans in the late 70s to the more quiet and meditative banks of the Cane River in more recent years. She has also explored her own and the state’s emotional ups and downs through poems revealing the devastation and loss of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, the economic and social hardships of life in the rural south, and, more recently, through upbeat and humorous light verses that demonstrate the capacity for survival and even joy in the face of so much loss.
It would be a shame to miss out on the experience of hearing Julie Kane’s poetry or meeting the poet herself during her visit to northernLouisiananext week. It is bound to be an evening full of surprises and revelations.
Julie Kane’s reading is sponsored by the Louisana Tech Department of English and the George E. Pankey Eminent Scholar Chair in English. The reading is free and open to the public.
*Julie Kane, Interview with Leslie Monsour, Eratosphere, 11-27-2008, http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=5776
This weeks Art Talk was contributed by Dr. John Edward Martin, Assistant Professor of English. | <urn:uuid:92f2f619-c1d4-410f-ae16-3de7309ca1f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nclac.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/art-talk-monday-22/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956021 | 959 | 1.75 | 2 |
There was a time when I would have been embarrassed to admit that I love libraries.
As a teenager the library was distinctly uncool, except as a place to check out members of the opposite sex while pretending to study for School Certificate. At least, that was the only socially acceptable excuse.
But deep down I loved the place: from childhood days of Margaret Mahy and Richard Scarry, to pre-teen years when "I have a project to research" was the only excuse capable of persuading Mum that I should be allowed to get off the school bus in Takapuna and hang out by myself for a precious hour or two. I still recall the burgeoning sense of independence and freedom. And believe it or not, most of the time I did actually go to the library.
These days I take my kids to the library most weeks, and usually come away with something for myself. There's almost always a book on the "new release" stand calling out "borrow me", even though I already have far too many on my bedside table.
Now, a love of libraries has inspired The Library Book, a collection of musings on the importance and meaning of public libraries from writers including Zadie Smith, Julian Barnes, Kate Mosse and Alan Bennett.
Many write that they would not have become writers, but for the sanctuary and inspiration offered by their local library during difficult teenage years.
The book was first published in the UK, where the future of tiny village and suburban libraries is in peril. It's a similar story in the US, where huge public spending cuts threaten the survival of libraries from New York to California.
In both countries, vigorous campaigns are underway to save public libraries. For one week last year, the shelves of the Stony Stratford library in Buckinghamshire stood empty of all 16,000 titles, after a Facebook campaign encouraged members to borrow their maximum 15 books. The protesters wanted to demonstrate the great void that would be left in the heart of the community if the library were shut down.
Here in New Zealand, proposed reductions in library services also face strong community opposition. A recent petition opposing the axing of Tauranga's mobile library service has gained over 1500 signatures, while last October, Hamilton City Council was forced to back down from a proposal to charge $2 per book borrowed.
The Library Book is a tribute to and celebration of that place in the community. "There really aren't many things in life that can enrich you for free yet ask for nothing in return," writes Nicky Wire, bass player and lyricist for the Manic Street Preachers.
Stephen Fry writes movingly of how discovering his library helped him to understand and accept his homosexuality. It also led him to many great writers, with a side-effect that his own appetite for knowledge caused him to "educate myself to a degree that was beyond anything a school could hope to achieve".
Others note that without well-funded libraries willing to take a chance on new writers, many would never see their work in print. As Lionel Shriver points out, a lot of books would simply disappear from sight within weeks of publication if not acquired by libraries.
There are tales of pointless bureaucracy, formative meetings, a mobile service that became a vehicle for illicit affairs and even a mobility scooter ram-raid. Whoever said the library was boring?
Not me, obviously. I think even I would be surprised by a print-out of my complete borrowing history over the last 30-something years. I've borrowed books on Baltic politics, Steiner education, Rita Angus, macro-biotic cooking, the AIDS crisis, Mary Queen of Scots, round-the-world sailing, meditation, architecture, crochet and all manner of cookbooks and health and fitness fads. And those are just the topics I can remember.
It's an odd mix, but I'm a firm believer that such eclectic reading has the capacity to expand our minds and enrich our lives. One of the bonuses of Auckland's transition to a supercity is that the library catalogues have merged. Auckland readers can now request books from any branch be delivered to their local library at no cost. Books zooming everywhere from Wellsford to Waitakere to Waiuku probably creates all sorts of inefficiencies, but with 3.5 million items on offer, the available range has expanded enormously.
So I write this blog in celebration of the public library, but I couldn't put it better than broadcaster and writer Catlin Moran. "A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold and rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate 'need' for 'stuff'."
The Library Book, published by Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99
Do you love libraries? Tell us why | <urn:uuid:b85d0bb4-d95b-4470-ac10-5952f571a4ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/books/news/article.cfm?c_id=134&objectid=10807585 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969146 | 1,051 | 1.507813 | 2 |
(Note: A shorter version of this commentary appears as a May 2006 Viewpoint)
Are federal laws inadequate to protect workers who seek to certify a union? Do employers use the federally mandated 42 days between a union’s petitioning for recognition and the certifying election to illegally turn the will of a majority of its employees against unionization?
These questions are raised in a recent study titled "Undermining the Right to Organize: Employer Behavior During Union Representation Campaigns," conducted by a research group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Funded by American Rights at Work, an organization aligned with labor union interests, the study finds the answers to these questions to be "yes."
Researchers reached this conclusion after examining the low success rate of unions seeking to organize new workers in the Chicago area, as well as the efforts of employers to defeat them, in 2002. Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, had cited this study as support for his contention that workers want unions, but aren’t given a real opportunity to choose such representation.
These are important questions. Unfortunately, the Chicago study sheds little light on the answers, as it suffers from several weaknesses and deficiencies. For starters, the interviews cited were either of anonymous workers or union organizers. No reference is made to interviewing employers. This diminishes the usefulness of the anecdotal evidence.
The use of data is also questionable. For example, the study claims that 30 percent of employers facing potential unionization of their workforce fired a worker engaged in pro-union activities. This could be true. But it doesn’t demonstrate that actual engagement in pro-union work is why these employees were fired, instead of some other, legally justifiable reason. Indeed, actual National Labor Relations Board cases arising in Chicago do not support the conclusion of the study. The unions did not even file an unfair labor practice complaint in 70 percent of the alleged cases. The study argues that this was because of the difficulty in proving such a claim, but another possibility is that many of the claims were unfounded.
Perhaps most importantly, the Chicago study fails to analyze alternative explanations as to why unions seemingly lose support between the time an election is called and when it occurs. Instead, the study simply reaches the predetermined conclusion that fault lies with employers and their misconduct.
One alternative explanation worth exploring is that the union never actually enjoyed the original support it claimed. Such a situation is plausible, given the structure of federal labor law.
The National Labor Relations Act establishes a two-step process for union certification. The first step is obtaining, through a petition or card drive, evidence suggesting that at least 30 percent of employees want to be represented by a union. If so, the second step is to hold a secret ballot certification election 42 days later. If a majority votes for union representation, the union is certified. Accordingly, a certifying election must be held even if the union did not initially have majority support.
According to the Chicago study, 91 percent of the unions enjoyed at least 50 percent support at the petition stage, and in "several cases," unions demonstrated more than 80 percent support. So, what happened at the election stage? Employer intimidation?
We can’t be sure because the Chicago study did not correlate petition support with actual election outcomes. We cannot tell the fate of the 9 percent of the unions that did not have majority support when they asked for an election, nor can we correlate the specific level of initial support with success in the certifying election. All we know is that about one-third of the petitions for an election resulted in successful certifications; about one-third were withdrawn pre-election for lack of support; and about one-third failed to achieve a majority vote. We can speculate, however, that a worker might sign a public petition at the request of a friend, but vote another way when protected by privacy.
Unfortunately, the Chicago study does not address this issue, but simply utilizes questionable anecdotal evidence to conclude that employer intimidation must be the culprit.
Comparing pre-election petitions with the results of secret ballot elections from anecdotal accounts is of limited value. The problem is akin to the unreliability of pre-election polling. The human experience is that it is much harder to tell an ideologically driven pollster whom you intend to vote for than to vote one’s conscience in a secret ballot. Likewise, it is much easier to vote "no" on a secret ballot then to tell a petition-pushing friend that you are not interested in union representation.
But the importance of the secret ballot in the union certification is shown by the value union members place on it. In June 2004, Zogby International and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy conducted a survey of union members to gauge their attitudes toward their union’s performance. According to the survey report, "majorities (ranging from 53 percent to 84 percent) prefer a secret-ballot process as the way for workers to decide whether to organize a union in their workplace; a strong majority (66 percent) think it should be illegal for a union and a company to agree in advance to bypass the secret-ballot union election when organizing a workplace." Unionized employees undoubtedly support the secret ballot for many reasons, including fear of reprisals from their employer. But it should not be forgotten that one reason may also be fear of union coercion during an organizing drive. Remember that not every unionized employee voted for a union.
United States law prohibits employers from interfering with or discriminating against employees seeking to organize a union. Stung by its lack of success in certifying elections, organized labor advocates the passage of federal legislation that would give a union the right to declare, on the basis of a petition-like drive and without a secret election, that the union enjoys majority support and must be certified. The Chicago study will undoubtedly be cited by labor in support of this measure.
Common sense counsels that we keep secret-ballot certification elections. The conclusion of the 2004 Mackinac Center report remains valid: "[Union members’ preference for private elections] suggests crafting practices and policies that guarantee workers’ ability to vote on union representation and respect the individual choices of workers to support a union or not." Anything else would undermine the fairness necessary for the right to organize.
Thomas W. Washburne is director of labor policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the Center are properly cited. | <urn:uuid:56a3b61a-0b86-4fa8-a950-5fe8bfe996cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7695 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962388 | 1,345 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Harvard university has been ranked number one for economics, accounting and law amongst others in the latest world rankings for social sciences, featuring top for all apart from one of the disciplines.
Stanford university come in top place for statistics and operational research, beating Harvard. The rankings show the best performers in the six disciplines; accounting and finance, economics and econometrics, law, politics and international studies, sociology and statistics and operational research. The Oxbridge universities are in the top ten for each subject.
London School of Economics (LSE) beat both Oxford and Cambridge universities for economics and econometrics in the rankings published by leading higher education and careers research company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). LSE are also placed ahead of University College London (UCL) for all of the disciplines.
The social sciences rankings are good news for UK universities with Oxford and Cambridge featuring heavily in the top ten for all the disciplines. Oxford university beats Cambridge at accounting and finance, economics, law and politics and international studies but comes in two places lower for statistics and operational research.
As part of the survey to compile the rankings, global graduate employers were asked to identify the universities they believe produce the best graduates overall and within a selected discipline. The results showed that graduates in business, accountancy and finance, and economics were the most sought after.
With the continuing focus on universities to bring value to the education market along with their increasing fees, graduate employability has become a growing worry for future students.
"Employability is by no means the only benefit of a university education, but with £9,000 per-year fees and 83 graduates now competing for every job, it is inevitably at the forefront of many prospective students' minds", says John O'Leary, Editor of the Times Good University Guide and member of the QS Academic Advisory Board. "The reality is that students will be paying the same amount for degrees that in practice have vastly different market values."
We have compiled these rankings and all the QS rankings so far into a spreadsheet which can be downloaded below. The university rankings feature country they are in and show the full 100 listed. Below is a table showing the top 10 in all six social sciences disciplines by subject. | <urn:uuid:42c963aa-2874-409b-bc79-4fe0c9a9c0d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/27/top-100-world-university-rankings-social-sciences | 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 | 0.939175 | 456 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Behavioral Targeting Taps Social Signals
Social signals give advertisers insight into consumer intent in the moment. Some might call that "real time." Advertisers can use that real-time signal to keep a finger on the pulse of what people do, when they do it, and why it's important to target consumers in that moment. It not only gives advertisers insight into a particular consumer, but her friends and connections, too.
Knowing that in-the-moment intent becomes more important than learning consumers' hobbies or the car they drive, according to Jeff Weitzman, CMO of Buysight (formerly Permuto), which focuses on remarketing, acquisition and real-time branding. The company collects real-time data about consumer shopping behavior, which it scores on intent to purchase products.
Weitzman says the new frontier for behavior points to real-time targeting. For highly transactional-driven advertisers, such as retailers and the brands that depend on retail to drive their own sales, general-interest audience categories aren't efficient enough. Outdoor enthusiasts may want to buy a waterproof parka and hiking boots, but when? If they bought those items yesterday, targeting them with ads today is too late. If they aren't looking for those items, the advertiser wastes time and money.
If consumers plan to go camping in two weeks and shopping for those things now, the advertiser needs to reach them now. Weitzman says it's about collecting real-time behavioral data, interpreting it appropriately, and buying the right inventory to deliver the right ad about the right product to the right person at precisely the right time.
Weitzman agrees with me that social will have a "tremendous" impact on behavioral targeting because so much revolves around real-time information. Although it works well alongside search marketing, display advertising will become the catapult for social-based behavioral targeting. | <urn:uuid:2aa1e88a-f085-4419-a0c2-27e90f036701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/139254/behavioral-targeting-taps-social-signals.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947745 | 388 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Armed Forces International News - May 2012
Indian M777 Howitzer Artillery Deal Cleared
Posted by Paul Fiddian - Armed Forces International's Lead Reporter on 14/05/2012 - 20:05:00
Indian defence ministers have cleared the country's purchase of 145 M777 howitzers from BAE Systems' Global Combat Systems division - potentially the Indian armed forces' first such acquisition in 25 years.
These ultra-light artillery systems would be supplied via the Foreign Military Sale program, through which the US makes indigenous weapons, services and training projects available to overseas militaries.
India is presently overhauling its armed forces, with multiple new technology acquisitions either concluded or in progress, nudging out the older systems currently in service. Although still not yet fully firmed-up, its Dassault Rafale combat jet order is a truly massive contract-in-waiting and, in March 2012, SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) labelled India 2011's top global arms importer.
M777 Howitzer Artillery System
The M777 howitzer artillery system was a landmark technology when first introduced in the mid-2000s, setting a new weight precedent in being lighter than any of its predecessors. With a five round-per-minute firing rate, it can launch 155mm ammunition across a 30 kilometre range - each projectile passing down the barrel at a speed of 827 metres a second - and it's currently in service with the US and Canada, making its combat debut at the end of 2007 in Operation Enduring Freedom.
Extensive use of titanium makes the M777 over 40 per cent lighter than the preceding M198 howitzer and it's also smaller in size, making it much more battlefield-deployable. That same size reduction also aids with storage and reduces the number of armed forces personnel needed to operate it to just five - almost 50 per cent fewer than required before.
Indian M777 Deal
The Indian M777 deal hasn't yet been entirely approved - clearances from the Ministry of Finance and the Cabinet Committee on Security are still required. However, the Indian Defence Ministry clearance represents a major step towards acquisition and the deal, if it goes ahead, has a value of $660m.
The clearance announcement follows an extensive series of Indian Army M777 trials, which yielded positive results.
Image copyright US Army
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PIPC is required to follow extensive guidelines for the management of its parks under the Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP), which was updated in 2003, and which REQUIRES public comment and SEQRs for any proposed development in its parks, just like private development: http://www.nysparks.com/agency/scorp.
(If that doesn't work, try the PIPC Site Map and look for SCORP under the Inside our Agency heading).
Much has changed in the twenty or thirty years since the discussion of a trailhead was floated for Awosting. As Rob suggested, Sam's Point will likely become the next primary entrance in Minnewaska's expansion, where the infrastructure already exists, and its natural features are far more inviting than Awostings. What is attractive about Awosting primarily is its unfragmented habitat (at least it was until Mr. Bradley began clearing roads). It's not a parcel containing blue-ribbon views, except perhaps for the area between Mud Pond and Verkeerderkill Falls, though it does contain several waterfalls (is Mr. Bradley's house not set beside one of them?). With improvements, it can certainly get you to the views above the Dwaar Kill and Palmagat, but I suspect after all of the scrutiny that has been and will continue to be focused there, PIPC must proceed very carefully should they choose to make improvements: indeed, SCORP invites extensive scrutiny.
Shevchenko was incorporated into the park last year, a parcel on the western ridge nearly as large as Awosting which had been discussed as another potential Minnewaska entrance; to date, no improvements have been proposed for this tract. Ditto for the entrance to Stony Kill Falls. The DEC acquired the 4,000 acre Witch's Hole above Napanoch Prison a couple of years ago, and nothing's been done to improve access there - a very long hike in north via the Smiley Road from Ellenville or southwest via the Smiley Road from Minnewaska.
What I'm suggesting here is that with over 6,000 protected acres added to the ridge in the past several years, the pattern has been for ridge managers TO DO NOTHING to improve access nor demonstrably increase the number of visitors to the ridge via these new parcels. Awosting may be more attractive for access because it flanks the busier eastern front. But again as Rob has suggested, neither capitol improvements nor the impetus to increase access to the ridge have been in the offing by ridge managers on these large, semi-wild parcels, except at Sam's Point.
If anyone wishes for Awosting to remain undeveloped like these other semi-wild parcels, I would suggest contacting PIPC should this deal move to closing. | <urn:uuid:646530e7-6a51-4da0-ad40-1440f532591f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gunks.com/ubbthreads7/ubbthreads.php/topics/17102/Re_to_preserve_or_not_to_prese | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966842 | 579 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Jason Miczek / Reuters
Demonstrators march on the Bank of America headquarters in in Charlotte, N.C. during a protest timed to coincide with the company's annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday.
Hundreds of protesters converged on the Bank of America shareholder meeting in Charlotte, N.C. on Wednesday, dozens of them entering the proceedings to criticize the behemoth financial institution’s policies on mortgages, worker rights, tax avoidance, banking fees, foreclosures and energy financing.
Organizers said there were so many reasons to dislike the bank that it was relatively easy to pull together a large group, some from as far away as Portland, San Francisco and New York.
"It was a convergence," said Jen Soriano, a member of UNITY Alliance, a group under the umbrella protest organizer called 99 Percent Power.
"Whether it is workers who have been laid off, homeowners and also tenants who have been evicted from foreclosed homes … or people who live in coal country in the Appalachia whose home in a broader sense are being destroyed by mountain top removal mining …," Soriano said. "Bank of America is pretty much the worst of the worst in terms of banks."
About 750 people marched from three directions to the Bank of American corporate headquarters, and six people had been arrested by 3 p.m. ET, according to the Charlotte Observer.
Some of the protesters — organizers estimated more than 100, but there was no way to confirm that — had purchased one share of Bank of America stock so they could enter the meeting and make their complaints directly before the bank’s CEO Brian Moynihan.
Thirty 99 Percent Power activists spoke during the 90 minute meeting, according to the group.
Unlike similar proceedings at a Wells Fargo shareholders meeting a few weeks earlier, the protesting shareholders were not forced to leave, but instead allowed to voice their objections to the bank’s policy — many related to its financing of coal related projects.
The Bank of America is the top financier of the U.S. coal industry "from cradle to grave," according to Kerul Dyer, communications manager for the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network. According to the group, in the past two years, Bank of America has poured $6.7 billion into funding companies engaged in a range of coal-related activities, including mountain-top removal to access coal in the Appalachian Mountains, energy generation and building coal export terminals.
"As the leading financier of coal, Bank of America funds birth defects, disease and death when it lends money to coal companies,” Bob Kincaid, president of the Appalachian Health Community Emergency. "I intend to see that Bank of America and its shareholders confront these brutal realities and demand that the bank stop financing this assault on our communities."
A Bank of America spokesperson said the bank finances a broad range of energy projects, including a renewable energy initiative launched in 2007, through which it has invested $17.9 billion, including money spent on two of the world’s largest solar power projects.
"In 2011 alone we invested $3.65 billion in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other forms of low-carbon energy," said Brittany Shehan, a spokesperson on the company's environmental policies. "Environmental groups would have it be a bank issue; it’s really a national issue."
Coal — which has adverse environmental impacts but is relatively inexpensive — is used to generate about half of the electricity consumed in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"Any way you slice the numbers there are so many other companies that have a stake in this value chain. Coal is a part of our economy and a big part of our energy supply," Shehan said. She did not confirm the coal-investment number provided by environmental critics.
The environmental groups also protested Bank of America’s funding of companies that extract coal by mountain-top removal using explosives.
Shehan said that the bank in 2008 adopted a new policy on mountain-top removal. But the policy to "phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of extracting coal is through mountain top removal" does not rule out all finance of the companies engaged in the practice.
The bank was also under attack over its lending and foreclosure practices, as it has been since the start of the mortgage crisis. The protesters from 99 Percent Power called on the bank to halt foreclosures and offer principal reduction for homeowners whose properties are underwater.
Bank of America is the second largest U.S. bank holding company as measured by assets.
The bank on Tuesday announced that it had sent letters to more than 200,000 customers "who may be eligible for forgiveness of a portion of the principal balance on their mortgage" under the terms of a recent settlement among five major banks, 49 state attorneys general and the federal government.
In a news release, it said that customers who qualify for the program will save an estimated 30 percent on their mortgage payments.
Event organizers said they would have 1,000 protesters, but Estes said Wednesday's crowd in Charlotte was closer to 750, the Charlotte Observerreported, citing Charlotte-Mecklenberg police Maj. Jeff Estes.
"There's been no property damage, and nobody was injured," Estes told the Observer. "We're pleased with the outcome."
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- Principal: Errors get Nevada high school ranked 13th in US | <urn:uuid:3cc35a42-db62-47b9-8a92-ac234b6b2afc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/05/09/11620102-charlotte-protesters-bank-of-america-is-worst-of-the-worst | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962748 | 1,186 | 1.65625 | 2 |
NCTA staff, growers and retailers are available for interviews on a variety of subjects -- either on-camera or over the phone.
For assistance with scheduling an interview, please call Rick Dungey at 636/449-5071 or send us an e-mail
With the 2012 holiday season approaching, we can provide the following story/segment/interview ideas about Christmas Trees:
White House Christmas Tree: The 2012 NCTA Convention & Trade Show will be held this August in Sacramento, Calif., during which judges, attendees and consumers will be selecting the Grand and Reserve Champions in the National Tree and Wreath Contests. The Grand Champion of the National Tree Contest will have the honor of presenting the Blue Room Christmas Tree to the White House this holiday season. Stay tuned for more information on our winner and the presentation.
Tree Care: Keeping a Real Christmas Tree fresh is fairly simple if consumers learn to separate proper tree care information from bad advice, old wives tales and urban legends. Every year, NCTA answers hundreds of questions about how to care for a Real Christmas Tree. Misinformation about proper tree care can reduce the enjoyment of a Real Christmas Tree. Unfortunately, many well-intended, but poorly informed, sources spread ineffective home remedies that have no scientific basis. An NCTA spokesperson can go through the simple steps recommended by the association with your viewers, listeners or readers.
Tree are Renewable, Recyclable, and "Green": Consumers can quickly, easily and conveniently learn how, when and where to recycle their Real Christmas Tree after the holidays. Tree recycling programs are very common, but also localized. Many communities have found creative ways to use Christmas Trees post-harvest: from common chipping programs to marshland reclamation to beach restoration. Because farm-grown Christmas Trees are a 100 percent biodegradable plant, they can be recycled in many different ways – none of which you could do with a plastic tree, which is totally non-biodegradable. For every tree harvested, one to three new seedlings are planted on average.
Innovations in the Real Tree Industry: Some consumers are looking for a more convenient way to enjoy a fresh Real Tree during the holiday season. Christmas Tree professionals are responding by providing services that offer alternatives to the traditional way of buying a Real Tree. Real Trees can be purchased by catalog or online at grower websites, and delivered direct to the consumer. Some businesses even offer rental of Christmas trees. Other convenience services include baling trees (making transporting and bringing into the home easier), shaking trees, and drilling the stumps to make it more stable in certain kinds of tree stands. NCTA experts can provide many tips and suggestions to your readers, listeners or viewers.
Trees for Troops: The Christmas SPIRIT Foundation, the charitable branch of NCTA, will be sponsoring the Trees for Troops program for the 8th consecutive year. Since the program began in 2005, Trees for Troops, with support from FedEx, has delivered more than 100,000 Real Christmas Trees to military families across the nation and around the world. The program will kick off with an international shipment after Thanksgiving, and Trees for Troops Weekend will be held on Dec. 1-2, during which consumers may purchase and donate trees to be delivered to military families. Christmas SPIRIT Foundation staff and volunteer participants can speak about the reach and impact of the program, as well as how consumers get can involved.
These topics can all be covered in either a short 4-7 minute straight question and answer segment or a longer in-depth segment with questions from listener call-ins. We also have 15 second sound bites for radio newscasts available to download from the NCTA Press Room
in .mp3 and .wav format. Biographies of interviewees and common questions that work well in a talk radio format will be sent after interviews are confirmed.
If you want to explore these or other topics as possible interview segments, please contact Rick Dungey at NCTA at 636/449-5071 or send an email to email@example.com | <urn:uuid:689088e3-7412-4877-8604-9b935f01db56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christmastree.org/dnn/NewsMedia/Interviews.aspx | 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 | 0.930361 | 838 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Lowri McNabb has kindly shared her amazing idea for using Echo Park patterned papers to create jewelry. Please read through her post on how you can create your own version. And be sure to visit her blog for many additional, creative ideas!
This collection had some really wonderful color combinations, making it perfect for a fun summer project for you and/or the kids.
First, using a sharp knife or scissors, cut your paper to the shapes shown below. I like to cut an 11.5" template from an old cereal box and then draw multiple images by tracing onto scrapbook paper lightly with a pencil. Then use a knife or scissors to cut out (your kids may be able to do this depending on age, but you DO need to be reasonably accurate).
Keep on rolling using the occasional spot of glue until you reach the end, and you are done! You can see several examples of each bead below. You don't have to worry at all about them all looking identical. They won't!
You can then thread them onto string or elastic. They look really great with some plain acrylic beads separating them, especially in these bright colors.
If you have any questions about this tutorial, please post a comment in the comments section below.
We love this idea! Just by using different papers from a variety of Echo Park Paper collections you change the look and feel of your bracelet or necklace. Keep watching for additional ideas from our amazing design team! | <urn:uuid:315821fe-3816-4c94-a0d3-7c9c167b9107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.echoparkpaperblog.com/echo-park-paper/2012/07/paper-beads-with-design-team-expert-lowri-mcnabb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932879 | 296 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Those pretty paper bowls on the cover are what caught my attention, and they looked so easy, so I thought I'd throw some of my own together. I have to tell you though, I think this project looks easier than it really is because I'm not totally happy with the end result. But take a look below and let me know what you think...
Here's what you need:
|Add a few things: a disposable plastic container to mix glue in, |
some newsprint to keep your work surface clean, and
a rubber spatula (trust me)
1) I covered my work surface with some old newspaper so that I wouldn't get glue all over everything. Then I took my two sheets of heavy duty scrapbooking paper to work with me and sent it through the big paper shredder so that I'd get a pile of evenly cut strips.
2) Cover your mixing bowl with plastic wrap, making sure that the entire outside surface is 100% completely covered. You don't want glue all over your good mixing bowls.
3) Next take your white glue and mix it with water in a disposable container. The book says that it's very important to follow the recipe of 2 parts glue 1 part water and not to guess. Of course, I guessed, which may have been my first mistake, but who wants to measure out glue in their good measuring cups?!?!?
Just keep adding glue and paper until your bottom is where you want it, adding paste on the top of the paper as well.
5) Start adding longer strips to the sides, overlapping and creating interesting patterns with your strips.
6) As I got going I realized that because the glue was so thin it was dripping right down onto the newsprint and I could just imagine the entire thing getting stuck there. So I put a vase underneath to get it off the table.
This worked well because it made it easier to rotate.
7) Just keep adding more and more glue and more and more paper strips. I kept going back and forth between worrying that the strange watered down glue mixture was either not going to hold anything together or that they whole thing would be so stuck I'd never get my mixing bowl back.
My pessimism won out and I gave some parts a coat of pure unwatered down glue. And yes, it's possible that this was my next mistake.
In any case, I continued until the whole thing was covered and I was actually getting quite excited by what I was seeing. Next, you just let it dry. Mine took less than 24 hours, even with all of the extra glue on it.
8) And now for the hard part...getting your mixing bowl back from the glue gods. I'm not sure if I wrapped my plastic too tight, if my paper was too thick, or I just used too much glue but I ended up having to use a rubber spatula to pry the papered plastic off of my glass bowl.
It wasn't like it was a McGyver type of conundrum but I was worried that the paper strips would tear and then KABLOOM the whole thing would blow. Kidding, that's right I did say NOT McGyver, so no, nothing would've happened if the paper had torn except maybe a few expletives that are not meant for little cat ears.
9) If you're able to pry the whole thing off now you have to get the plastic wrap off of the paper. This was another worry I had, how would it not stick?!!? It's glued down to paper!
Can you see it? I got most of it off but I still need to do some snipping. I'm not crazy about it~
But, like I said, last night while I my fingers were already covered in glue I figured I'd experiment a bit and tried another smaller bowl using paper doilies.
At first glance it looks pretty neat. But here's another view:
In trying to pry it off of the mold it ripped and tore apart. When I was making it I was so pleased that the thinner paper was going on so well and creating this beautiful lacey effect. But the thin paper turned on me and became my enemy in the end. Boo hoo~
I had dreams of making loads of these bowls, maybe using ribbons or strips of fabric or maybe even something organic like leaves or flower petals. Now I'm not so sure I'll give it another go. I know, I know, try try again but I have so many other things I want to make that I think I'll actually be pleased with, so a third try on this one might not happen.
I may give the book another chance yet and try one of the other fun looking projects...we'll see.
For now, I give you my version of a paper bowl, which is probably not half as bad as I think it is right now. I just have to let go of my vision of millions of beautiful paper bowls all over my house. (Probably a good thing in the end.)
Has anyone else out there tried projects from this book? Made paper bowls? Any tips or tricks? I keep wondering if this would work with Mod Podge. I wonder if the plastic would become a permanent part of the bowl though. Darn it, so many questions and ideas.... I may have to give this another try in the end~ | <urn:uuid:62f41f3c-6135-4f81-bcf3-0f7524c4e66e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://etcetorize.blogspot.com/2011/07/paper-bowl.html?showComment=1312511011725 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982932 | 1,113 | 1.71875 | 2 |
LOS ANGELES — Last month, law enforcement officers and school administrators launched an effort to crack down on sexting in one Cincinnati-area high school. Hundreds of students are suspected of distributing nude photos of their classmates via cellphones and the Internet. Just 10 girls will face discipline — the ones whose images have circulated most widely.
Officials may think they're tracking the sexting problem to its root by punishing the girls who snapped and sent the photos in the first place. But they're really just reinforcing the lopsided sexual standards of the adolescent selfie market. In a typical American high school, there are just as many guys posing for penis pics as there are girls lifting their shirts. But once those photos hit the schoolwide distribution system, girls' photos travel further.
A new study, published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, illuminates that dynamic. Researchers surveyed 1,000 black and Latino 10th graders in a southeast Texas school district about their sexting habits. Among black teens, 27 percent of girls and 23 percent of boys said they had snapped a nude photo of themselves and passed it along. Among Latino teens, 20 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had done the same. So selfies in this school district are split pretty evenly along gender lines. And though this study focused on minority teens, researchers said their sexting numbers lined up with rates recorded among "white private high school students" as well as more diverse groups of minors.
It's in the distribution of these images that boys and girls' behavior begins to diverge. When an explicit photograph hits their phones, the teen boys in the study were almost twice as likely as the teen girls to have forwarded it beyond its intended audience. And boys were much more likely than girls to have received one of these errant sexts from an oversharing peer.
That nonconsensual distribution could be fueling the perception that teen girls are sexting more aggressively than boys. A 2009 Pew report on sexting among American teens didn't register a statistical divide in sexting behaviors among boys and girls, but it did record teen-agers' perceptions of a gender rift. "This is common only for girls with 'slut' reputations. They do it to attract attention," one boy told Pew. "Sexting's not common, but it does happen because girls want everyone to know they 'look good,' " said another.
And then there's the female perspective: "If a guy wants to hook up with you, he'll send a pictures of his private parts or a naked picture of him[self]. It happens about 10 times a month."
When girls sext, they're accused of publicizing their sexuality to attract attention; when boys do it, they're assumed to be courting a sex partner one on one. That double standard persists even though, according to the study, boys were almost twice as likely as girls to publicly post their own nude photos online.
All of this should make the high school rethink its approach to dealing with sexting at school. Punishing 10 girls for a schoolwide phenomenon only reinforces the idea that girls who sext should be publicly shamed, while boys who sext — and share — are empowered to keep their selfies safely in their pockets.
If the school really wants to mitigate the damaging consequences of sexting, it ought to crack down on nonconsensual forwarders, not self-exploratory photographers. Take the case of the sole boy who's been caught up in the school's sexting scandal: He stands accused of "masturbating on his family's cat and on a relative's toothbrush, videotaping that relative brushing his teeth and sending the images to friends." He now faces a felony for "disseminating sexually explicit material to minors," but the activity he filmed was not a sext — it was an assault. | <urn:uuid:55af8415-24ec-40a7-a58e-58755061463d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pressrepublican.com/fyi/x273863655/Slate-Boys-forward-more-sexts-than-girls | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971055 | 799 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Partnerships for Innovation
In the days leading up to super storm Sandy, ORAU peer review project managers developed proactive plans to minimize the impact of the hurricane on peer reviews that were already planned for the metro D.C. and Philadelphia-areas. From the safety of attendees to the financial mitigation of protective contract clauses, ORAU and its subcontractors saved more than $35,000 for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Demonstrating an unwavering commitment to process integrity, Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) realizes that a standardized peer review process can add confidence, as well as a measure of accountability, to program and procurement officials’ decisions. That is why we have developed a comprehensive review program to ensure the quality, value and objectivity of conducting peer reviews.
We have coordinated reviews for the physical sciences, medical and health research, and multiple disciplines related to homeland security. Our top scientific and technical experts offer independent and objective review of scientific information related to:
To learn more about the capabilities behind our recent success, here is our signature six-step process for peer review management:
ORAU provides customized solutions for designing and managing the peer review process.
We identify qualified reviewers in our established professional networks based on our customers’ requirements and preferences.
You tell us what you need and we’ll manage the logistics of the peer review to meet those needs.
In addition to PeerNet, we also provide access to the intellectual and managerial talent of multiple scientific peer review specialists.
ORAU manages and facilitates workshops and other meetings as an additional means for research discussions.
We take pride in finding ways to continuously improve our peer review process in order to make things better and easier for our customers.
Photo courtesy of DOE
Since 2009, ORAU’s Scientific and Technical Resource Integration group has provided peer review services in support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Vehicles Technologies Programs Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting.
In FY12, ORAU’s support expanded to include new information management capabilities, such as a password-protected portal through which DOE program managers could access and approve presentations. The portal sent automatic reminders to the managers letting them know the presentations were uploaded and available.
Managing the logistics of this complex meeting involved the coordination of more than 380 reviewers and 450 projects representing hundreds of millions of dollars in funded research. Presentations were given in 30-minute intervals during 10 concurrent topical sessions and were spread across two separate hotels for four consecutive days.
In all, ORAU peer review experts analyzed more than 225,000 data points to ensure that reviewers were appropriately assigned in such a way that avoided potential conflicts of interest but also capitalized on reviewer subject matter expertise. | <urn:uuid:de2aac33-8da0-4e80-8be7-cbd61390b975> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orau.org/scientific-peer-review/capabilities/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940555 | 569 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Remember how free we used to be? We were encouraged to make our own decisions. And it was ok if we made bad ones? Because if we made bad ones, we paid for them and learned to not do them again. We weren't always rewarded for doing the right things, but it made us feel good about ourselves. It worked just fine. We made our own choices.
Well... most of them.
Mom always made us play outside. If it wasn't raining, we were not to be indoors.
What, you thought I was talking about society? No, I was talking about kids. We were outside. ALL. THE. TIME. We knew when to come home. If you lived in town, it was before the street lights came on. If you lived in the country, before the sun finished setting. And did we have fun back then!
A lot of you younger kids have no idea what I'm talking about. Stop and think. What are some of your greatest childhood memories? I bet you don't have a lot of them. Why? Because your childhood was wasted with video games, TV, internet, or an overprotective parent.
We had magical childhoods. I remember every winter, running around on the road (yeah, in the country we say road, not street) watching the snow fall. Watching it cover the stones and tar. Watching it cling to what was left of the cornstalks in the fields. Chasing the snowflakes in the wind. And the first second there was enough snow, down the hill we went on our sleds.
How many folks today would let their kids take a sled onto the road these days? Or even allow their kids outside while it snows?
Or how about the summer rains? You're outside. You've been running around all day. It's hot. Real hot. No bother going inside, because there's no central air. Run into the garage or basement and grab a freezer pop to try to cool off. Then the glorious sound of thunder. The smell of rain moving in (yes, rain has a distinct smell if you ever pay attention). Then the sound of the pitter patter of those giant drops of rain. You didn't run back inside. You didn't take cover. You ran TO the rain! It felt great. It was amazing how big some raindrops could get. You would run around like the kid down the block did earlier when he got his new sprinkler. And when the grass got wet enough... oh yeah... natural Slip-n-Slide! Run across the lawn, and slide on your belly! As long as the grass was wet enough, it worked great. You would end up soaking wet, grass stained, and it felt great to do so!
But not today.
Today, parents won't let their kids out in the cold, in fear of them getting sick. Or fear of a predator stealing them away. Of course, they would have to pry them from the electronics first. I can't think of any parent I know that would allow their kids to get their clothes grass-stained. They're all new, after all.
Not us. Our clothes were beat up. They were beat up for a reason. We had our play clothes, our school clothes, and our Church clothes. Today, they're all the same.
If you're not a parent and have no idea what I'm talking about, go to a local playground and watch. Ok, you might want to borrow someone's kid so you don't look like a creeper for this experiment. But just watch. Watch how parents have to follow their kiddies around, even though instead of stones or hard dirt, they now have nice, cushy underlayments for the playgrounds. Watch how they get upset if another kid bumps into theirs while running around.
That didn't happen with us. If we fell, we fell. We would learn to hold on better next time, or that we just weren't strong enough for the monkey bars yet. If some kid bumped us, we didn't cry and our moms didn't coddle us. We usually ignored it or even used it as an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the other kid and actually make friends. Now, parents pick out friends for their kids.
You just don't see kids riding around on their bikes anymore. Even though kidnappings by strangers hasn't really gone up, just the media coverage of it has. If you do see kids riding bikes, they're usually punks heading up to the shopping center to hop curbs. But hey, at least they're outside.
So parents, set your kids free. Don't just allow them outside, but force them outside. For heaven's sake, recall those magical moments from your childhood. Give your children those same moments. | <urn:uuid:2b5c1b9c-92fe-45cb-a605-acd7afa2ec30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.momaroo.com/767874214/set-them-free/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983453 | 1,001 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Note: The TESOL Certificate Program is not a degree or major; it is an enhancement that students can receive with additional coursework.
The TESOL certificate program allows students in any discipline at NMU to develop their English language abilities beyond the baccalaureate level, such that they can teach English to students who have not learned it as their first or native language.
Students have the opportunity to work closely with faculty scholars and practicing language teachers in advanced seminars to master the fundamental knowledge and methodologies for teaching English as a second language to adult learners. They are also expected to become competent in a modern language other than English because competence in another language helps one to better understand and articulate the structure of English, anticipate and address the problems a non-native English learner is likely to have, and function in a foreign cultural setting.
TESOL is a growing area of opportunity, with employment options in a wide variety of academic and non-academic settings worldwide. It enhances the ability of graduate students in any discipline to teach English and to adapt their field-specific knowledge to international contexts and occupations where the knowledge of English is a precondition for access.
Each student's program culminates in an internship experience teaching English as a second language.
Courses taken toward the TESOL certificate can also fulfill requirements of appropriate majors or graduate tracks.
Candidates design, in consultation with the director of graduate study and their adviser, a plan of study that includes a minimum of 20 credit hours. It has the following requirements:
Regular Admission: We seek students who are already proficient in the English language. Applicants are required to comply with the regular admission requirements of the Office of Graduate Education. They may be simultaneously enrolled in any graduate program at NMU. In addition, admission may be granted to
Conditional Admission: Applicants who do not meet regular admission criteria may apply for conditional admission, in which case they must complete specific courses prior to conversion to regular admission status. These courses, such as courses to improve proficiency in English or another modern language, do not count toward the minimum 20 credits of course work required for the certificate.
For department information or additional degree requirements, click here
|Total Credits Required for Degree||20|
|EN 515 English Grammar and Usage (4 cr.)|
|Choose one from the following:|
|EN 507 Advanced Writing Theory (4 cr.)|
|EN 510 Teaching Composition (4 cr.)|
|EN 595 Special Topics (1-4 cr.)|
|when on an adviser-approved TESL/TEFL topic| | <urn:uuid:01192a82-37c3-499f-9480-9dbc221b8ecf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nmu.edu/gradbulletin1213/node/16?processtype=self&action=degtype&phase=phase5&elementid=98&subaction=2031 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936161 | 536 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Distracted Driving Safety Alliance (DDSA) was invited to testify by the National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) at today’s hearing on in-vehicle electronics and driver distractions. Here is the DDSA’s testimony, applauding NHTSA for its attention to a very important issue – distracted driving – but urging it to allow high-tech innovators and manufacturers the latitude to continue creating a safer driving environment by avoiding unnecessary regulation.
The Distracted Driving Safety Alliance
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Hearing on
Visual-Manual Driver Distraction Guidelines
For In-Vehicle Electronic Devices
Marc-Anthony Signorino, General Counsel – Distracted Driving Safety Alliance
March 12, 2012
I want to thank you for inviting the Distracted Driving Safety Alliance (DDSA) to testify this morning. First off, I’d like to extend our congratulations and appreciation to Secretary LaHood, Administrator Strickland, Associate Administrator Susan Gorcowski, Kristin Kingsley and the entire NHTSA staff for their steadfast commitment to increasing driver safety, as well as their work in putting together this hearing. We are very supportive of this process and will continue to help in any way possible.
Administrator Strickland, I also bring you warm greetings from the DDSA’s partner in youth education, Zac Ziebarth, Director of Curb Distracting Driving. He asked me to say hello, and to tell you you’re always welcome to come to Arizona State University to talk about the dangers of distracted driving.
The DDSA’s mission is to be the voice of a broad cross-section of industries committed to ending distracted driving. The DDSA is committed to working with stakeholders from all sectors – industry, government, labor, advocacy groups and consumers – to bring an end to distracted driving. In doing so, we reaffirm that distracted driving is a behavioral issue and that education, best practices, and technology are all valuable solutions in changing peoples’ driving behaviors to eliminate deadly distractions. The DDSA’s activities are centered on the following core beliefs:
- Technology can be a valuable solution to the problem of distracted driving;
- Government, industry and consumers all share a responsibility to curb distracted driving in a responsible manner that stops bad behavior without banning innovation; and
- Engaging and educating young people about the dangers of distracted driving early on will set the tone for a safer future. As such our educational program, Curb Distracted Driving, with which you are familiar, is poised to encourage thousands of new and future drivers on their roles in safer driving.
I’m certain you’ll hear ample evidence from scholars, statisticians, and manufacturers on the science behind the development of the guidelines. Our comments are aimed specifically at the policies surrounding this effort. As such, we have a number of comments and recommendations for NHTSA to consider as it moves forward not only with the first phase of guideline development, but with the process as a whole.
We applaud NHTSA’s recognition that the state of the art in technology is constantly changing, and that voluntary guidelines, as opposed to a regulatory approach, is the most appropriate method to address the dilemma of distracted driving given the complexity of the issue. The technologies we’re looking at today are more than likely going to look drastically different tomorrow.
We also commend NHTSA’s commitment to put real science behind these guidelines, as opposed to anecdotal evidence. That said, the field of scholarship in cognitive distraction is increasing, and NHTSA is correct in its mission to encourage and listen to this scholarship. While there are a number of studies on driving behavior and cognitive load, much research is still needed as the issue is very much a moving target. For instance, the current pool of new and novice drivers are digital natives, and as such will have over time a much different relationship with technology than today’s veteran drivers.
NHTSA is to be applauded for basing the proposed guidelines on those developed by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers as a starting point; the industry has already put much thought and effort into developing best practices, and building upon that strong foundation is an earmark of good government. The consideration of both the European and JAMA guidelines is also very welcome.
Given the convergence in technology we’re seeing, with multiple industries coming together to enhance the driving experience by increasing both safety and convenience, it’s inevitable that innovation will outpace the policy process. We encourage NHTSA to consider the voluntary guideline process as the optimal approach to address the issue of reducing driver distractions, revisiting the guidelines regularly to accommodate new innovations and trends that help or hinder the driving experience.
We do have recommendations, however, to ensure the guideline development process takes into consideration the complexities that arise when many disparate industries – autos, software, communications, network managers, handheld devices, and other manufacturers – work together to create a complex, integrated product as evidenced by today’s cars.
It’s understandable that NHTSA attempt to address the issue in bite-sized pieces – first OEM equipment with visual-manual driver interfaces, then portable and after-market devices, and then auditory-vocal interfaces.
We urge NHTSA to understand that as all three of these elements are becoming increasingly intertwined, the policies and guidelines we develop must take this into account. These guidelines are expected to impact future vehicle design. To effectively accomplish the goal of phase one, visual-manual, it is imperative we consider how the use of both portable devices and auditory-vocal interfaces are integrated with visual-manual systems now and not at some later date during phase two or three.
The technologies in all three phases are becoming interdependent and will soon be indistinguishable from each other. While expediency is critical, we need to project where driving technology is going not five years out, but one year out. As innovation evolves so fast, today’s problems will tomorrow be moot.
For instance, voice today plays a critical role in allowing drivers to engage in secondary tasks, and development is ongoing to allow it a role in primary driving tasks surrounding safety. The manual-visual guidelines must consider how voice will be integrated when they are developed.
Also, internet connectivity in cars is increasingly common, and that connectivity will be achieved through the driver’s cell phone. As an example, with the touch of one button and just my voice, I can ask my phone to find me good barbecue via Yelp, make a reservation on Open Table and send invites to my friends, all coordinated on my calendar via Outlook. That’s coming to your car very soon – and that’s a good thing. Any activity we can move off a solely hand-held platform and into an integrated, voice-activated application will be one step closer to a safer driving experience.
Because of this, we strongly recommend NHTSA includes in its phase-one guidelines that voice-activated capabilities be a standard feature in all cars by 2015, and that all manual-visual inputs be supported by voice-activated capabilities soon thereafter.
There are many benefits to this approach. First and foremost, you’re eliminating unnecessary manual-visual tasks. This will also promote the use of non-manual-visual secondary tasks. By introducing voice at its most basic level within the automobile, consumers will be further accustomed to performing other tasks by voice that they’d otherwise perform manually – including phone use, navigation input, comfort controls and music selection.
Another recommendation we have recognizes the growing prevalence for mobile applications that create an additional safety layer in the vehicle by performing voluntary lock-out services – where a parent or a fleet manager can hand their kid or employee a cell phone that locks out all but emergency calls when it senses it’s moving faster than 5 mph.
Because of this, we also recommend that NHTSA includes in its phase-one guidelines the allowance of voluntary lock-out applications, whether via mobile application or third-party hardware device, to interface with in-vehicle electronic devices.
As a last point, we ask NHTSA consider the Law of Unintended Consequences. For instance, the DDSA is completely supportive of restrictions that prohibit the use of visual-manual text messaging, as well as internet and social media browsing while the vehicle is in motion. It just makes sense. However, the guidelines also prohibit the inputting of specific addresses for navigation, as well as 10-digit phone dialing while in motion. That makes sense, too. Yet, without an integrated voice-activated control system included in the in-vehicle technology package, we have strong concerns that drivers will simply turn to their cell phones or tablet devices for navigation or 10-digit phone dialing.
Additionally, the latter two actions can safely be performed by someone sitting in the passenger seat – without forcing a driver to exit a highway or toll-road to accomplish such a task. The guidelines acknowledge this dilemma, but mandates a lock-out. A flat out ban in the guidelines will discourage innovators from developing a workable solution, and encourage drivers to find ‘work arounds,’ such as resorting to their mobile device while the car is in motion.
These are not the results anyone here wants. We urge flexibility in guideline development that can allow for appropriate technology solutions to such dilemmas – in this case one that allows the driver to be locked-out of these tasks, but accommodates passenger input.
In conclusion, the DDSA commends NHTSA for its foresight and flexibility in developing these guidelines based on, and in conjunction with, industry best-practices – and urges continued flexibility to allow for the lightning speed of innovation. As such, we urge NHTSA as it moves forward with the first phase of its guideline development to include voice-activated systems and the integration of third-party safety options.
Thank you. We’re looking forward to submitting our written comments. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. | <urn:uuid:021c4f24-a3b4-4360-b85d-be1ede891526> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://distracteddrivingsafetyalliance.org/category/press-room/press-releases/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944816 | 2,078 | 1.765625 | 2 |
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Our fight against brain tumours inspired calendar
A WORCESTER artist who fought a brain tumour has helped create a calendar to raise money for a charity which helps people like her.
The 2013 calendar has been designed and photographed by two women, both of whom have had tumours diagnosed and undergone surgery to remove them.
Freelance artist and illustrator Bridget Dowty, aged 47, of Worcester, and Stefania Distante, 36, a photographer from Bishops Cleeve, near Cheltenham, met as members of a charity support group and became friends.
They hope the calendar will raise funds for Hammer Out, the South-West based charity that supports brain tumour patients, their carers and families.
Ms Dowty had a brain tumour diagnosed 10 years ago and also underwent surgery. She said: “I was fortunate that my tumour was benign – many people are not so fortunate – and after surgery and despite some serious complications, I made a complete recovery.”
Ms Dowty recently completed a Vodafone World of Difference placement, a scheme which enables volunteers to donate themselves to their chosen charity.
She said of Hammer Out: “I feel so lucky, and Hammer Out is a great charity.
“As my partner says, ‘They do good things for good people when they need it most’ and I want to help make more people aware of their work, to reach more people who need their support and also receive more support themselves to keep growing.”
Ms Distante found out just six weeks before her wedding day in 2006 that she had a fast-growing brain tumour.
Six weeks after her wedding day she underwent surgery in Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital. Although surgery went well, recovery took a long time.
She said: “Three years after surgery I was still suffering from chronic migraines, headaches and daily mental exhaustion, I then underwent testing which confirmed a permanent neurological deficit.
“Essentially the tumour had been removed but had also caused some permanent ‘collateral damage’.”
The symptoms are so severe that she was forced to give up her financial services career to achieve the quiet lifestyle she needs to better manage the mental exhaustion and pain levels that she has to deal with.
She became passionate about photography – particularly landscapes and wildlife – and now regularly provides shots for a regional magazine. In 2010 she was honoured to be chosen as photographer for the 2011 Help for Heroes calendar.
The Hammer Out calendar, which costs £5, can be ordered via the website hammerout.co.uk or by calling 01454 414355. | <urn:uuid:dd687e20-61fd-4b67-96ee-46095c1d7871> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/local/10136679.Our_fight_against_brain_tumours_inspired_calendar/ | 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 | 0.978942 | 572 | 1.625 | 2 |
President Obama signs more than 20-Executive Orders, saying it is time to make a real and lasting difference to stop gun violence. By signing 23 Executive Orders, the President, is in effect, side stepping Congress to take action on his own, enacting tougher penalties for those who lie on back ground checks and ordering the C.D.C. to study the effects of gun violence.
The President even admitting it will be difficult to get the main part of his gun control plan through a sharply divided Congress. Crackdowns such as a ban on military style assault weapons and a 10 round limit on magazine clips can only be enacted by Congressional approval.
The House Speaker, Republican John Boehner, saying he does not see any new legislation on gun control. All but assuring, there is a major showdown looming between Congress and the President over major gun control reform.
KTTV FOX 11 1999 S. Bundy Dr. Los Angeles CA 90025 | <urn:uuid:5e944241-fef3-451f-aa2c-107d33082829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxla.com/story/20609171/president-obama-to-congress-you-must-act-now-for-gun-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946817 | 189 | 1.671875 | 2 |
1. I've noticed that it is common in Harry Potter fan fiction (I've been reading some since someone encouraged me to) to have Fred and George Weasley complete each others sentences. While I think it is fine on occasion it gets rather annoying seen too frequently and really isn't the way I remember it from the books. In the books they both did complete sentences just alternating between them on occasion (they were complete sentences not finishing the sentences). The thing is of the fan fics I have read I don't recall seeing Harry and Hermione do so; which I find to be strange since they actually did so on occasion in the books for example in Deathly Hallow p250 of the UK/British edition they did so.
2. In the last book the main trio live out of a tent for awhile and have trouble scavenging food being hungry and eating wild mushrooms. Why didn't they just go to a muggle store and buy some food? I really don't get that. Even if they didn't have any muggle money they could have still robbed someone’s house for food and memory charmed the person since they don't really seem to have moral qualms about altering the memories of muggles what with lots of people doing so during the World Quidditch Cup, common practice to hide magic from muggles, and how Hermione did so to her parents. They needed food and muggles have lots of food which they could have gotten and if they felt guilty for stealing they could have done something in exchange for it like used magic to repair some broken things at the person's house or something. Even if they were trying to avoid using magic they still could have stolen some since they needed it.
3. Fidelius charm. The Fidelius charm is a magic that hides a location. I was wondering about it and can't really figure out how you'd place it on a place with no address. #12 Grimmauld place can easily be written down but small cottage with no address in the woods next to a mountain 23 miles from the nearest road not really easy to write down. I was also wondering if a seer would be able to see the secret or could the secret be taken from someone's mind via the magic that gives access to memories? Also if Dumbledore knew the secret about Harry's parents house (which does seem to be the case since it was stated that he placed a charm on it) how is it he didn't know who the secret keeper was and if he did know why did he let things happen the way they did? I still don't really get why Harry's mom wasn't the secret keeper and just stayed in the house at all times with Harry until it was safe or other plans could be made. It is shown that the secret keeper can live in the place in which they are the keeper of the location.
4. Hogwarts seems to be a pretty crappy school for learning. Beyond just the bad teachers (defense against Dark Arts has consistently had bad teachers). I've seen mention in fics of characters going to a muggle University after graduating. The problem I have with that is that Hogwarts is very much a specialty school on magic and doesn't teach the things needed to be admitted to a university (Science, math, muggle history, literature, etc.). Even the muggle studies class probably is way out of date and just wrong judging by how little people like Mr Weasley know about muggles and his job requires he have knowledge about muggles (Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office - a job you'd think would go to a muggle born not a pureblood since they have more knowledge on muggles).
5. The Horcruxes trip Harry made with Dumbledore makes no sense to me at all. Seriously none at all. Harry suddenly freezing up when approached by Zombies when he didn't in early books when approached by Dementors which are worse than zombies. Dumbledore somehow came to the conclusion that he could drink a cauldron of something that couldn't be touched. The boat which could only carry one magical person being able to carry Dumbledore and Harry because Harry was underpowered when people were impressed about previous actions which make it very clear that he was quite powerful for example throwing off the imperious curse which almost no one could do (which was part of why it was an unforgivable), his powerful Patronus Charm which impressed a lot of Wizengamot members, etc. Lots of other things don't make much sense either but that seriously annoyed me the stuff that happened afterward makes even less sense the Death Eaters really suck at tactics.
6. I found the whole Elder wand thing to be incredibly stupid and diminishes Dumbledores abilities since it implies that he only became so powerful because he had that wand. The whole defeat someone and disarm them that they can no longer use their own wand because it belongs to them now also makes very little sense.
7. Ron being able to speak parseltongue was, I'm not sure what that was other than terrible. I can suspend my disbelief a lot but not that far. Being able to mimic a magical language so easily even one word is just unbelievable and if it was so damn easy I'm surprised that the Chamber of Secrets hadn't been opened by accident a few hundred times.
8. Why didn't Harry learn more about his family and possibly extended family? He seems to know next to nothing about them when it is something he is clearly shown to want to know and shouldn't have very much trouble finding somethings about them by talking to people who went to school with them if no other way and yet he knows a lot more about Voldemort than any of his own family members. It seemed that only Snape ever really spoke about his parents at all and he was very biased. Why didn't others give him pensive memories or talk to him about his parents or other relatives?
9. The Weasley's are poor. We are told this often in the books and that they tend to be made fun of because of their threadbare clothing. We are shown some pretty damn useless though impressive magic such as turning animals into inanimate objects why can't they use magic for tailoring? Reparo works on Harry's glasses for a long time but there is no spell for fixing clothes? On the subject of clothes. Why didn't anyone take Harry shopping for clothes? We are shown he has money and can afford it (small hills of gold whereas the Weasley's are so poor that the amount shown in their vault is so small that they really have no point in having a vault) and yet we get lines like "'taped shoes, worn, baggy T shirt and torn, oversized jeans" as a description for his clothing in later books. Someone, anyone, should have taken him to go buy clothes (a decent pair of shoes if nothing else) and he should have convinced Ron to let him buy Ron some as well just so that Ron wouldn't be made fun of for his clothes.
10. I've seen fics that use pensives for court cases and other times when showing memories could be helpful. I find this strange since we are shown that it is possible to alter the memories put in a pensive; Slughorn did so. It is possible that Snape or Dumbledore did so and were just much better at altering the memories. I personally found it suspicious that Snape just happened to leave memories in the pensive that show Harry's father in a bad light. A thing to also remember is that memory is mutable and people do and can create false memories. People generally do not remember things the way they actually were just look at eyewitness accounts and see how different they can be and people have a tendency to make themselves look better in their memories. Then there is other things like Polyjuice potion which can create false scenarios. Sure you remember the person doing so but was it actually that person or someone using Polyjuice?.
11. Why do I keep seeing mention of a Weasley temper in fics when Arthur doesn't seem to have much of one and Molly who does have one is only a Weasley via marriage (formally Prewett).
12. The subplot in which Hermione and Ron were made perfects annoyed me greatly and I am glad that it is cut from the movies (or so I heard I haven't watched the movie in which that would be in yet). The reason given way later (near the end) in the book is that Dumbledore thought that Harry had enough responsibility to be going on with. Not making Harry a perfect would have made the students less trusting of Harry since it implies that Dumbledore doesn't trust him. I kind of hate Dumbledore, I don't think he is evil, just pretty damn stupid, insensitive, and a whole bunch of other things. I know the real reason the author did so was to improve Ron and put some conflict in their relationship but I still hate it. I don't think Ron was deserving of the position (much less Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson since they - including Ron - did use their powers as perfects for their own amusement and personal gain) and Harry had every reason to be upset with that. Dumbledore should have given him the position (everybody else had thought so and was surprised Ron got it). Harry could have turned down the position if the author really didn't want him to have it and if it was too much for Harry he could have later given up the position; Dumbledore should have at least asked instead of doing what he did (but Dumbledore is a bit of an asshole practically making Harry's life bad forcing him to live like a prisoner in that he isn't given choices in a lot of things). | <urn:uuid:772bd5e5-bed2-4d96-bccf-920ac4cd7aed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ranmarelated.blogspot.com/2010/10/few-more-comments-inspired-by-harry.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989729 | 1,967 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Accessories Of Dress - Umbrellas And Parasols
( Originally Published 1924 )
In selecting an umbrella for service, which is of course the first intent of this accessory, one should give first thought to the wearing quality of the covering. Usually a mixture of silk and linen gives a longer and stronger proof of the umbrella's ability to shed water. It is well to select an umbrella which can be hung from the wrist by a strap, cord, or ring, and be sufficiently clear of the pavement.
Sunshades or parasols form colorful backgrounds for the head and shoulders or add a bright note to the lower part of the figure. As a really charming accessory to one's street apparel, they have received consideration.
If it is color reflection one desires in choosing her parasol, the law of simultaneous contrast should be kept in mind.
Some sunshades are short and clubby and gay in design; some are flat and ribbed like a Japanese parasol; some are white, painted with a huge brilliant flamingo or with a small flock of wild geese with their irridescent plumage. One of these latter sunshades would be very pleasing with a snowy crÍpe frock. One parasol is like an old-fashioned nose-gay, painted from the point to the lace-edged border. Sometimes hats and parasols match.
A lace or net lining softens the reflection of the top color as the light passes through the parasol and falls on the face. With a lingerie dress one carries a frilly parasol made of rows of Valenciennes lace.
A parasol of red Georgette, covered with rows of black faille ribbon, gave a Spanish touch to a costume.
The effectiveness of black and white is well carried out in sunshades ; some are white covered with floral or conventional patterns in black. Some are made of black chiffon over black; some are white covered with black Chantilly lace.
The handle, of course, should be a part of the parasol's beauty; it may be of tortoise-shell, carved ebony, ivory, jade, amber, or highly polished wood. | <urn:uuid:fe698b44-d9e3-491f-9a38-d68e08be6039> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldandsold.com/articles23/dressing-well-50.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93101 | 448 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Officials in New Orleans say they are imposing a dusk-to-dawn curfew as Hurricane Isaac continues to lash the city on the seventh anniversary of Katrina.
Police cars have been patrolling the nearly empty streets since Isaac began bringing fierce winds and heavy rains to the city Tuesday night. The curfew was set to start Wednesday night and would last until further notice.
Rescuers in boats and trucks plucked a handful of people who became stranded by floodwaters in thinly populated areas of southeast Louisiana. Authorities feared many more could need help after a night of slashing rain and fierce winds that knocked out power to more than 600,000 households and businesses.
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:9252f0d2-c1c5-4713-8ec7-bfb5b1b4537a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsmax.com/US/Isaac-Orleans-curfew-hurricane/2012/08/29/id/450237 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960282 | 154 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Ethiopia to send Skype users to the slammer
Call the lawyer... on a landline
The Ethiopian government has outlawed Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Those who disobey and continue to use programs such as Skype face up to 15 years in chokey.
The law, passed last month, is said to help provide more national security.
National security? Don't make me laugh. It's undoubtedly an effort to protect the telecommunications monopoly enjoyed by state-owned Ethio Telecom.
The new law means the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology has “the power to supervise and issue licenses to all privately owned companies that import equipment used for the communication of information”, presumably to prevent devices with pre-loaded VoIP apps crossing the border , the Africa Review reports.
Smart Alecs who try to bypass the law through services within their Facebook accounts will also be snagged, as a ban on “audio and video data traffic via social media” has been implemented too.
It signed in by accident, I swear...
There are no specifics on how the government will impose such restrictions, but the prospect of a 15-year stint in the clink will surely be enough to scare many folk into submission.
And with Ethio Telecom's filter system, it might succeed, just as it has in the past when blocking blog sites that host anti-government views .
It wouldn't be the first time a country has blocked VoIP services in order to protect the profits of telecoms providers, either. ® | <urn:uuid:9ff42c33-3bc9-4d31-9fd8-7d7c9bdf9dc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/15/ethiopians_face_jail_for_using_skype/print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953554 | 316 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Deputies Believe Domestic Dispute Prompted School Shooting At IDEA
NORTH OF EDINBURG - Hidalgo County deputies are investigating a school shooting at IDEA Quest Academy.
"Twenty-two year old, newly hired school teacher, here at IDEA Quest Academy, was shot at least one time by her estranged husband," said Sheriff Lupe Trevino, Hidalgo County.
It happened just after 6:30 a.m.. Preliminary reports tell us, the teacher, Apreal Gonzalez was confronted by her husband Rodney Villapardo.
Deputies believe, after an arguing, Villapardo shot Gonzalez with a 3-57 magnum in the parking lot of the school and then fled.
Trevino said that a school bus mechanic was the first one to come to the Gonzalez's aid. The mechanic rushed Gonzalez to DHR for treatment.
Gonzalez was later transported to McAllen Medical for surgery.
"She is expected to make a full recovery, I know she is with family right now, receiving medical attention," said Tom Torkelson, IDEA Founder and CEO.
As for the shooter, "We have arrested the husband, he was arrested at the corner of 907 and 107, he essentially turned himself in," said Trevino.
The total number of shots fired is still unknown.
"We will know after with forensic and evidence gathering, and once we inspect the pistol and when we talk to him. We will get a better picture with exactly how many shots were fired. But we don't believe it was more than three and at least one," said Trevino.
Fortunately, because of the early hour, no students were on campus during the shooting.
"We canceled classes for the day, and we re-routed students over to another campus and contacted parents and let them know they could come and pick up their children," said Torkelson.
It was this kind of fast thinking, the sheriff's department commends.
"I believe that the school personnel reacted appropriately. They called the authorities immediately," said Trevino.
Authorities will be questioning Villapardo sometime today to better determine his potential charges.
"I think we have an attempted murder, and we have an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and I think the aggravated assault may be a higher degree than an attempted murder so, he is facing some very serious charges," said Trevino.
Trevino said Villapardo will be arraigned in the next 48 hours. | <urn:uuid:763e6169-24da-4219-aea6-7c46cb895cbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kveo.com/news/deputies-believe-domestic-dispute-prompted-school-shooting-idea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98555 | 520 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Things to Remember When Doing Your Tax
Taxes are one of the things in life that never change. What can change about taxes, however, is how you pay it. Do it smartly and you’ll save time, effort and, more importantly, money. But to make those savings, you need to be properly informed. Today, we give you some tips in preparing your taxes. After all, every dollar you save is another dollar for your goals.
1: Save your tax agent’s time
Try to stay organised with your tax record throughout the year and make sure they’re complete. To check if you’ve missed anything, compare your current tax records against the ones last year. That way, you would save your tax agent time, which in turn would minimise your bill.
2: Try salary packaging
Salary packaging is an approach approved by the Australian Tax Office for restructuring your income, allowing you to purchase items out of your pre-tax salary instead of your after-tax salary. But first, ask your company about their salary packaging policies. Items you can salary package commonly include cars, laptops and mobile phones. There are even some companies that allow employees to salary package household utility bills.
3: Work-related tax deductions
Did you know that you can get up to AUD300 in deductions for work-related expenses even without receipts to back it up? A few possible deductions include:
- Up to AUD150-worth in eligible laundry claims, which can still be deducted even if you’re already over the AUD300 limit.
- Education expenses for studies related to your discipline can be deducted. Yet, if the study gave you additional qualifications in a different discipline, you can’t get the deduction.
- If you’re a homeowner, you can get a deduction for cooling, heating, lighting and depreciating your office equipment or professional library. There’s a catch though: You need to keep some sort of diary to keep track of your hours worked at home. You need to accumulate at least four weeks’ worth to validate your claim.
4: Non-work related deductions
You can also claim full or partial tax deductions for non-work related costs, such as:
- Fees for your accountant for preparing and lodging your tax return.
- Bank fees or interest payments on funds borrowed for buying investment assets.
- Fees for your financial planner specifically for advice on income-producing assets.
- Charity donations and membership fees for unions and professional associations.
5: Super tax deductions for the self-employed
If you’re self-employed, then know that your superannuation contributions from pre-tax income are fully tax deductible. However, there are some limitations:
- You have to be less than 75 years old.
- Excluding “certain limited circumstances”, there’s a contributions limit—if you’re under 50, it’s AUD50,000 a year. If you’re over 50, it’s AUD100,000 a year.
- You can’t earn more than 10 per cent of your income from other employment.
Tip #6: Savings for couples
Place your savings in an online high-yield savings account with no bank fees. Open this account in the name of the partner with the lower income so that the interest’s tax is lower. | <urn:uuid:ef4c50b4-0dd1-482f-8a63-38d0b54bc549> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taxrefunds.com.au/tax-refunds-articles/things-to-remember-when-doing-your-tax/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947199 | 707 | 1.71875 | 2 |
For some young entrepreneurs, success comes and goes. For others, it just keeps on coming.
That was the case for 24-year-old Jeff Nobbs. Two years after launching Extrabux.com from his dorm room at the University of Southern California in 2006, Nobbs and his co-founder entered the cash-back and coupon shopping site into the university's business plan competition -- a move that won them $25,000 and a stamp of credibility to raise more funds.
Extrabux, which gives participating customers from 1 percent to 30 percent cash back on their purchases, now works with some 2,500 retailers including Walmart, Walgreens, Nordstrom, Victoria's Secret and Kate Spade. The San Diego-based company has also raised more than $800,000 from family, friends and angel investors. It's profitable, cash-flow positive and with 150,000 members worldwide, it's on track to generate more than $4 million in revenue this year. That's a 400 percent uptick over 2011 levels, claims Nobbs.
"When you're a young entrepreneur, your competition a lot of times is more seasoned entrepreneurs," Nobbs says. "We spent a lot of time when we were at university just learning everything we could about the e-commerce space."
So how exactly did Nobbs turn his campus startup into a goldmine? The name of the game is social shopping -- sales generated through social-networking platforms, discount-shopping sites and related media -- and it's hot these days. Consulting firm Booz & Company last year estimated that the global "social commerce" market will grow from $9 billion this year to $30 billion in 2015, with the U.S. share rocketing from $3 billion to $14 billion over the period. And those figures are estimates for the purchase of hard goods only, not services.
Nobbs, who earned a bachelor's degree in business administration, with a concentration in entrepreneurship, also credits word of mouth. Since shoppers can get extra cash back for referrals, each new member winds up referring another member on average, he says. "The business model is almost viral by nature."
But of course, launching Extrabux hasn't all been easy. "In 2006, when we were looking for our first big retailer partners, it was sort of the chicken and egg problem," Nobbs says. "Which comes first?" Big retailers required Extrabux to generate more traction, but it was difficult to generate that traction without big retail partners, Nobbs adds.
And while Extrabux never really landed a single big fish, over time the company managed to attract some guppies, which then began to reel in bigger and bigger retailers.
It was also tough to attract users at first, says Nobbs. "We've bootstrapped this business, with minimal financing, and so bringing eyeballs to the site without much of a marketing budget was also very challenging." But on Cyber Monday in 2009, Good Morning America cited the portal as the latest money-saving shopping tool. And that morning, Extrabux was one of the top search terms on Google, plus the mention led to more media exposure, Nobbs adds.
Today, Extrabux users do all the work, Nobbs says. "Once we hit that tipping point, marketing became a result of providing a great customer experience," he adds. "Our users now do the marketing for us."
What do you think is the secret to growing really fast? Leave a comment and let us know.
This story originally appeared on Young Entrepreneur | <urn:uuid:f5ede262-0b89-4b0f-99eb-d4e8df5bcbd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/224839?cam=Dev&ctp=Carousel&cdt=23&cdn=224839 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966437 | 733 | 1.585938 | 2 |
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Tropical Storm Debby was gaining strength Sunday as it hovered in the Gulf on Mexico, hitting the northeastern Gulf coast with high winds and heavy rain, the National Hurricane Center reported.
The projected path of the 2012 hurricane season’s fourth named storm remained uncertain.
At 11 a.m. Eastern, the National Hurricane Service reported Debby was 190 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, moving northeast at 6 miles an hour with sustained winds of 60 mph. A topical storm becomes a hurricane when its sustained winds reach 74 mph.
Tropical storm warnings were in effect along the Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the mouth of the Suwanee River in Northwest Florida.
Tropical storm-force winds were reported extending 200 miles out from the storm, reaching land in some areas, and Debby was projected to produce 5 to 10 inches of rain, with 15 inches possible, along the coast.
Rain combined with wind and tidal movement could produce the threat of storm surges up to 5 feet in Louisiana, the hurricane center said.
The storm’s path remained unclear Sunday.
“Little motion is expected during the next 12 to 24 hours,” the hurricane center said. “A gradual turn toward the west is forecast thereafter. The forecast track will keep the center of Debby meandering over the northern Gulf of Mexico during the next few days.”
If Debby stays on its current course, the service projects southeastern Louisiana and neighboring Alabama will bear the brunt of the storm when it comes ashore late next week.
Debby is the earliest fourth storm on record, surpassing Hurricane Dennis, which became the fourth storm of 2005 on July 5, the Miami Herald reported. | <urn:uuid:5ab8cc0c-6276-4b19-ac72-db668a288ab2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketwatch.com/story/tropical-storm-debby-strengthens-in-gulf-of-mexico-2012-06-24?siteid=rss&rss=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95898 | 365 | 1.570313 | 2 |
An allegation that Jesus Christ’s body has been found is an interesting story. The fact that some big-name moviemaker is behind it adds to the spice and makes it a very legitimate story. But the silliness of the headlines, the hypothetical evidence, poor background information (likely fed by Cameron’s PR machine) and the hype factor all add up to give people who take religious issues seriously just another reason to ignore the media. And that’s too bad.
The story at this point is an embarrassment to reporters. It’s why they have a bad name in religious circles. As Amy Welborn said, “It’s nonsense, but you know what … Easter is coming!!!”
When did a filmmaker turned amateur historian become a reliable source for questions related to archeology? Well, since his facts were based on “sound statistics,” as he put it. We all know what they teach journalists in training about statistics (“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than illumination” — Andrew Lang).
The documentary is running on The Discovery Channel on March 4. Yes, this is the same channel that airs documentaries that make you want to believe we are visited frequently by UFOs.
One of my favorite quotes comes from an Associated Press piece by Marshall Thompson that draws on interviews the filmmakers did with various television stations:
Cameron told NBC’S “Today” show that statisticians found “in the range of a couple of million to one in favor of it being them.” Simcha Jacobovici, the Toronto filmmaker who directed the documentary, said the implications “are huge.”
“But they’re not necessarily the implications people think they are. For example, some believers are going to say, well this challenges the resurrection. I don’t know why, if Jesus rose from one tomb, he couldn’t have risen from the other tomb,” Jacobovici told “Today.”
The range of a million to one? What kind of statistical basis is that for any serious discussion, and what is Jacobovici trying to tell us with that cryptic statement about the implications? It confuses me. Things like that should be explained.
Another problem with the AP piece is including this comment by Cameron:
Cameron said his critics should withhold comment until they see his film.
“I’m not a theologist [sic]. I’m not an archaeologist. I’m a documentary film maker,” he said.
So let’s all follow Cameron’s advice and not write about the film until it comes out? Um, no. He’s not a theologian or an archaeologist, but just a documentary filmmaker. Then why are news organizations reporting his words as gospel truth (pardon the pun)? This is a highly scripted media campaign that is relying on all the free publicity provided by eager reporters looking for a story to write. The final paragraph of the AP report, relating to the experts who heavily criticized the documentary, is especially ironic:
None of the experts interviewed by The Associated Press had seen the whole documentary.
Did Thompson see the film?
press release news article comes from our friends at Newsweek, who were tipped off to the news much earlier than the rest of us, giving them time to put together a 2,100-word piece documenting the controversy.
Reporters Lisa Miller and Joanna Chen cite all the usual naysayers but frame their words as equal to that of the moviemakers, whose credibility in these matters is self-admittedly lower.
Time magazine’s Middle East blog post on the matter is lame:
Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you ‘The Titanic[,]‘ is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he’s sinking is Christianity.
The New York Times is no better:
Raising the Titanic, Sinking Christianity?
The media pack will likely follow this story to its airing in March. We will have gained little from it other than the knowledge that the media can be conned by clever PR tactics into writing a set of dubious stories that do little to sort out established facts from amateurish speculation. | <urn:uuid:38c84c30-011f-458d-a17d-65fb5ab4f4f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/2007/02/james-cameron-to-christians-its-over/?cat=51 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960365 | 894 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Cragin v. Powell - 128 U.S. 691 (1888)
U.S. Supreme Court
Cragin v. Powell, 128 U.S. 691 (1888)
Cragin v. Powell
Argued and submitted October 26, 1888
Decided December 17, 1888
128 U.S. 691
APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
When lands are granted according to an official plat of their survey, the plat, with its notes, lines, descriptions and landmarks becomes as much a part of the grant or deed by which they are conveyed, and, so far as limits are concerned, controls as much as if such descriptive features were written out on the face of the deed or grant.
It is not within the province of a circuit court of the United States or of this Court to consider and determine whether an official survey duly made, with a plat thereof flied in the district land office, is erroneous, but with an exception referred to in the opinion, the correction of errors in such surveys has devolved from the earliest days upon the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the supervision of his
official superior, and his decisions are unassailable by the courts except in a direct proceeding instituted for that purpose.
When the General Land Office has once made and approved a governmental survey of public lands, the plats, maps, field notes and certificates having been filed in the proper office, and has sold or disposed of such lands, the courts have power to protect the private rights of a party who has purchased in good faith from the government, against the interferences or appropriations of subsequent corrective resurveys made by the Land Office.
One who acquires land knowing that it covers a portion of a tract claimed by another will be held either not to mean to acquire the tract of the other or will be considered to be watching for the accidental mistake of others and preparing to take advantage of them, and as such not entitled to receive aid from a court of equity.
This was a proceeding under a local statute of Louisiana for the purpose of ascertaining the boundary line between coterminous proprietors. The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
MR. JUSTICE LAMAR delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellees, Christian L. Powell, Joseph O. Ayo, and Ludger Gaidry, on the 1st of November, 1880, brought an action of boundary, in the state court, against the appellant, George D. Cragin, praying for a judgment of the court to fix the boundaries between certain lands, the property of appellees, and the contiguous lands belonging to appellant, and that he be ordered to deliver to appellees possession of the lands claimed and set forth in their petition. On the 12th of July, 1880, the cause was removed into the circuit court of the United States on the ground of diverse citizenship. The answer of appellant sets up that he and his grantors, who had acquired the lands from original patentees, had been in public, peaceable, and continuous possession of the lands
included in his deed by well defined boundaries for more than thirty years, and without notice of the claims of any person whatsoever, and that it is unnecessary to fix or establish any boundaries as prayed in the petition.
On the 2d of May, 1881, on motion of counsel for appellees, the court appointed a surveyor for the purpose of ascertaining and fixing the boundary lines between the properties of the respective parties litigant, and ordered him to report his proceedings within reasonable time. By mutual consent of parties, Benjamin McLeran was selected by the court as such surveyor.
On June 6, 1881, McLeran filed his report of the survey made by him and its results. From this report it appears that the township and sections in which the lands of the parties are located were officially surveyed in 1837 by one G. W. Connelly as part of the public domain, and that the plat of such survey was filed in the United States land office of the district; that he considered this survey of Connelly so incorrect, and the traces of its lines and corners so difficult to identify, that he was unable to locate any proper line between the lands in question except upon the basis of a resurvey of the entire township in accordance with certain corrective resurveys of adjoining townships, which had been made in 1850 and succeeding years by one Joseph Gorlinski, a deputy United States surveyor. In this view, and guided by the theory of these corrective surveys, McLeran proceeded to run a line which he considered the proper boundary between the lands in question, and recommended its adoption to the court
"as substantially such a line as would have been run had the whole township been resurveyed at the time when Deputy Surveyor Gorlinski was resurveying the adjoining townships."
With this report he filed two maps -- No. 1, a map of his own survey, and No. 2, a map designed to exhibit the discrepancies between the Connelly survey and the survey of Joseph Gorlinski and that of McLeran himself. These discrepancies are:
(1) By the Gorlinski and the McLeran surveys the township lacked half a mile of being six miles square, the eastern tier of sections thereof losing fully one-half of the area given by
them in the official plat, which official survey establishes a full township as prescribed by law.
(2) By Connelly's plat, "a bayou known as Bayou Four Points" is located on appellant's lands, while by McLeran's map that bayou is located on the lands of appellees. In his supplemental report, McLeran says "it appears that Bayou Four Points was erroneously reported by the original survey." The report also says:
"The ridges on either side of the bayous are composed of a rich, black, loamy soil, . . . and when put under cultivation become the best sugar-producing lands in the south. The far greater portion of the township consists of a marsh, . . . worthless for cultivation."
The line recommended by McLeran places the lands of the appellees where those of the appellant are located by the official survey, and thus gives to the former the rich ridges along the bayous now in the possession of the latter.
The appellant was required to show cause by the 19th of November, 1881, why the report of McLeran should not be approved and homologated as being a true and correct survey in the premises. Thereupon the court, upon motion of the appellant, and against the opposition of the appellees, ordered that the cause be placed on the equity docket and proceed as in equity. Opposition to the report was afterwards duly filed, alleging that if approved the appellant would be deprived of lands to which he held title through mesne conveyances from United States patents, and of which he and his grantors had held possession for thirty years and upwards.
An amended answer by appellant and replication by appellees having been filed, the cause was put at issue. The court, upon the pleadings and evidence, confirmed the report of the surveyor and rendered a decree fixing the boundary line between the two estates according to the prayer of the original petition.
The primary object of the action of boundary, under the Civil Code of Louisiana is to determine and fix the boundary between contiguous estates of the respective proprietors. The provision of the Code in article 845, and other provisions under title 5 of the Code, that the limits must be fixed according to
the titles of the parties are held by the Supreme Court of Louisiana to apply to cases in which neither party disputes he title of his antagonist. Sprigg v. Hooper, 9 Rob. (La.) 253; Zeringue v. Harang, 17 La. 349; Blanc v. Cousin, 8 La.Ann. 71. The title to the property is not allowed to be litigated in this action, whose purpose is to fix a line or boundary between adjoining claims. When, therefore, in the course of the proceedings in this case, the surveyor appointed to survey and fix a boundary between the respective properties of the parties made a report, alleging mistakes in the official survey, and recommending a line, the effect of which, if adopted, would eject the appellee from the lands held by him under a claim of valid title, the court below ordered the case to be placed upon the equity side of the docket, thus bringing, it was supposed, within its equitable cognizance the essential rights of the parties, unaffected by the special limitations governing the action of boundary.
To determine the grounds upon which this Court is asked to reverse the decree of the court below, it is necessary to advert in some detail to the facts as shown by the record.
In 1844, the United States issued to one Bach patents to certain portions of sections 10, 15, and 22 of township 20 south, range 17 east, in the southeast district west of the river, according to the official plat of the survey of said lands returned to the General Land Office of the United States by the surveyor general.
The appellant is the owner of the lands thus patented to Bach, and for many years he and those under whom he claims have been in possession of the lands, which, according to the official survey, were embraced in said patents.
In April, 1878, one Samuel Wolf purchased from the State of Louisiana portions of the same sections 10, 15, and 22, and also portions of sections 14 and 23 of the same township, all adjoining the lands of the appellant. These lands last described were given to the state as swamp lands under the Act of the 20th of March, 1849, and were noted as such on the official plat referred to above. In 1879, Wolf sold this property to Powell, one of the appellees, who in May, 1880, sold
an undivided half to the other two appellees, and in the same year they brought this action of boundary.
In support of the decree of the court below. it is urged by counsel for appellees that
"there is nothing in the patents or title on record to show, by word or otherwise, any distinct calls designating their location; nothing given descriptive of the property, except the township, the section, and the range; nothing to describe the lands patented or conveyed either as high lands, swamp or overflowed lands, or as having upon them any watercourse or bayou."
He admits, however, that the plat in evidence contains upon its face the names of certain bayous, as "Bayou Cailliou," "Grassy," "Sale," and others, but says
"that the original patents and conveyances, apart from the plat, are silent upon the subject, except that the defendant's title calls for land on Bayou Grand Cailliou."
In this view, which seems to be the one on which the court below must have acted, the learned counsel is mistaken. It is a well settled principle that when lands are granted according to an official plat of the survey of such lands, the plat itself, with all its notes, lines, descriptions, and landmarks, becomes as much a part of the grant or deed by which they are conveyed, and controls, so far as limits are concerned, as if such descriptive features were written out upon the face of the deed or the grant itself.
The patent of the State of Louisiana to Wolf was of the east half of southeast quarter of section 10, east half of east half of section 15, etc., "containing 635 58/100 acres tidal overflow, according to the official plat of the survey of said lands in the state land office." By that plat, the portions of the sections patented to Wolf were noted as tidal overflow, and as such they had been certified to the state by the General Land Office and the Interior Department. By the same plat, Bayou Four Points was noted as running through those portions of sections 10, 15, and 22 which had been patented to Bach, who doubtless entered them and obtained patents for them because of the high lands so noted on this bayou.
Equally unsound is the contention on behalf of the appellees that
"the land was sold and patented not as pointing to any
bayou, nor with reference to the character of the land, whether as swamp or high land."
The statutes of the United States make it the duty of the surveyor general to note "all watercourses over which the line he runs may pass, and also the quality of the lands." Rev.Stat. § 2395, subdiv. 7. And they provide that a copy of the plat of survey shall be kept for public information in the office of the surveyor general, in the offices where the lands are to be sold, and also in the office of the commissioner of public lands. They further provide that
"the boundary lines actually run and marked in the surveys returned by the surveyor general shall be established as the proper boundary lines of the sections or subdivisions for which they were intended, and the length of such lines, as returned, shall be held and considered as the true length thereof."
Rev.Stat. § 2396, subdiv. 2.
The surveyor, McLeran, insists, not only in his original report of his survey but also in his second explanatory report and in his oral evidence, that this governmental survey is incorrect -- some of it more incorrect than the rest, but especially erroneous in the length of its lines, and in the location of Bayou Four Points on the portions of the sections patented to the appellees. The plat, he reports, is totally inconsistent with that of the governmental survey, and should have been rejected by the court below.
Whether the official survey made by Connelly is erroneous, or should give way to the extent of its discrepancies to the survey reported by McLeran, is a question which was not within the province of the court below, nor is it the province of this Court to consider and determine. The mistakes and abuses which have crept into the official surveys of the public domain form a fruitful theme of complaint in the political branches of the government. The correction of these mistakes and abuses has not been delegated to the judiciary, except as provided by the Act of June 14, 1860, 12 Stat. 33, c. 128, in relation to Mexican land claims, which was repealed in 1864, 13 Stat. 332, c. 194, § 8. From the earliest days, matters appertaining to the survey of public or private lands have devolved upon the Commissioner of the General
Land Office, under the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior. Rev.Stat. § 453. The Commissioner, in the exercise of his superintendence over surveyors general and of all subordinate officers of his bureau, is clothed with large powers of control to prevent the consequences of inadvertence, mistakes, irregularity, and fraud in their operations. Rev.Stat. § 2478; Bell v. Hearne, 19 How. 252, 60 U. S. 262. Under the authority of specific appropriations by Congress for that purpose, the resurveys of public lands have become an extensive branch of the business of the General Land Office.
In 1848, the Surveyor General of Louisiana urgently recommended a resurvey of certain townships in the district of Louisiana, and of all lands fronting on Bayou Cailliou, in Terre Bonne, which had been surveyed by F. G. Connelly and other named surveyors. It was in accordance with this recommendation that Gorlinski made the resurveys above referred to. But the Commissioner of the General Land Office very soon put an end to this system of resurveys, and in a letter to the surveyor general, which throws no little light upon the subject, he says:
"The making of resurveys or corrective surveys of townships once proclaimed for sale is always at the hazard of interfering with private rights, and thereby introducing new complications. A resurvey, properly considered, is but a retracing, with a view to determine and establish lines and boundaries of an original survey; . . . but the principle of retracing has been frequently departed from where a resurvey (so called) has been made, and new lines and boundaries have often been introduced, mischievously conflicting with the old, and thereby affecting the areas of tracts which the United States had previously sold and otherwise disposed of."
It will be perceived that McLeran's survey not only disregards the old original survey, making new lines and boundaries, but does so in contravention of the order from the land office that those resurveys should not be extended into this township.
That the power to make and correct surveys of the public lands belongs to the political department of the government,
and that while the lands are subject to the supervision of the General Land Office, the decisions of that bureau in all such cases, like that of other special tribunals upon matters within their exclusive jurisdiction, are unassailable by the courts except by a direct proceeding, and that the latter have no concurrent or original power to make similar correction, if not an elementary principle of our land law, is settled by such a mass of decisions of this Court that its mere statement is sufficient. Steel v. Smelting Co., 106 U. S. 447, 106 U. S. 454-455, and cases cited in that opinion; United States v. San Jacinto Tin Co., 23 F. 279, aff'd in 125 U. S. 125 U.S. 273; United States v. Flint, 4 Sawyer 61, aff'd in United States v. Throckmorton, 98 U. S. 61; Henshaw v. Bissell, 18 Wall. 255; Stanford v. Taylor, 18 How. 409; Haydel v. Dufresne, 17 How. 23; West v. Cochran, 17 How. 403; Jackson v. Clark, 1 Pet. 628; Niswanger v. Saunders, 1 Wall. 424; Snyder v. Sickles, 98 U. S. 203; Frasher v. O'Connor, 115 U. S. 102; Gazzam v. Phillips, 20 How. 372; Pollard v. Dwight, 4 Cranch 421; Taylor v. Brown, 5 Cranch 234; McIver v. Walker, 9 Cranch 177; Craig v. Radford, 3 Wheat. 594, and Ellicott v. Pearl, 10 Pet. 412.
The reason of this rule, as stated by Justice Catron in the case of Haydel v. Dufresne, is
"that great confusion and litigation would ensue if the judicial tribunals were permitted to interfere and overthrow the public surveys on no other ground than an opinion that they could have the work in the field better done and divisions more equitably made than the department of public lands could do."
It is conceded that this power of supervision and correction by the Commissioner of the General Land Office is subject to necessary and decide limitations. Nor is it denied that when the Land Department has once made and approved a governmental survey of public lands (the plats, maps, field notes, and certificates all having been filed in the proper office) and has sold or disposed of such lands, the courts have power to protect the private rights of a party who has purchased in good faith from the government against the interferences or
appropriations of corrective resurveys made by that department subsequently to such disposition or sale. But there is nothing in the circumstances of this case which brings it within any such limitations.
The appellee Powell is a surveyor who, in the year 1877, while employed by appellant to make a survey of his plantation, thought he discovered an error in the public lands whereby it would appear that his lands were not in fact situated on Bayou Four Points. From his own evidence, it is shown that he induced Wolf to obtain the patent from the State of Louisiana for the land which he, the said appellee, purchased from him. When he purchased this land from Wolf, he knew that the tracts to which he was laying claim had been possessed and cultivated by the appellant for a long period of years.
An advantage thus obtained a court of equity will not readily enforce. At was said in Taylor v. Brown, 5 Cranch 234,
"The terms of the subsequent location prove that the locator considered himself as comprehending Taylor's previous entry within his location. . . . He either did not mean to acquire the land within Taylor's entry or he is to be considered as a man watching for the accidental mistakes of others, and preparing to take advantage of them. What is gained at law by a person of this description equity will not take from him, but it does not follow that equity will aid his views."
For the reasons above stated, the decree of the circuit court is reversed with directions to dismiss the petition of the plaintiffs below at their costs. | <urn:uuid:d41186ce-70f3-4552-bdae-18476163dc87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/128/691/case.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97096 | 4,381 | 1.8125 | 2 |
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