text stringlengths 211 577k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 371 | file_path stringclasses 644 values | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.93 1 | token_count int64 54 121k | score float64 1.5 1.84 | int_score int64 2 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DNV has been awarded the contract to class the Petronas LNG FPSO (FLNG). The unit will be built by DSME in Korea and is destined for the Kanowit field offshore Sarawak, Malaysia. It is expected to be the world’s first floating liquefaction unit in operation when completed in 2015.
The Petronas FLNG will be 300m long and 60m wide and will be moored 180km from shore. It is designed to produce 1.2 million tonnes a year (mtpa) of LNG, boosting Malaysia’s total LNG production capacity from 25.7 mpta to 26.9 mpta.
The scope of the DNV contract includes the floating structure, mooring arrangement and natural gas liquefaction technology.
Among the challenges of the project are:
- cryogenic storage tanks that are tolerant to sloshing
- topsides that include gas pre-treatment and liquefaction processing equipment and
- ship-to-ship offloading equipment suitable for LNG transfer at sea.
The FLNG unit negates the need for a costly or technically problematic offshore pipeline to transport the gas back to land-based liquefaction plant and includes liquefaction technology, designed for use on a floating facility.
“The ability to process and offload LNG offshore will increase the viability of significant gas reserves in Malaysia’s remote and stranded fields and beyond that, we foresee a number of these very high investment projects being built throughout the world as a means of developing gas fields and transporting the gas economically to market,” says Conn Fagan, Vice President of floating gas project business development at DNV.
“There is currently a high demand for LNG,” says Mr Fagan. It can be a cost effective solution for supplying the energy needs of rapidly growing cities such as those in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as providing flexibility of supply for consumers currently reliant on pipeline gas. This demand, coupled with the presence of large offshore gas reserves, some in remote locations, has made the floating LNG production unit an interesting technical and economic option.
“DNV is at the forefront of FLNG technology and we are building competence around the world to support Petronas in this project and other clients who are entering the field,” says Mr Fagan. “This is cutting edge technology for the oil and gas industry and it will have a dramatic impact on the nature of upstream business around the world.”
Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, September 26, 2012; Image: petronas | <urn:uuid:f8419d90-c0ba-432a-91b5-edcd435d65a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shipbuildingtribune.com/2012/09/26/dnv-to-class-worlds-first-floating-liquefaction-unit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93381 | 540 | 1.625 | 2 |
Monaghan Township Hall is located at 202 South York Road, Dillsburg, PA 17019; phone: 717-697-2132.
When incorporated in 1745, Monaghan included what is today Dillsburg and Franklintown Boroughs as well as Carroll and Franklin Townships. Many of the earliest settlers were Scotch-Irish who emigrated from the County of Ulster, Township of Monaghen, and thus the name of the township. Family names of some of the earliest settlers were: McMullen, Dare, Park, and Elliot. The township is known for its many apple and peach orchards. Berry farming is also widely practiced. Population generally declined from 1880 until 1970 when the trend reversed. As of 2000 there were more than 2,000 residents in the township. [Monaghan Township, Brief Township History, www.monaghantownship.com, accessed September, 2012.]
Copyright © 1997-2012 • The Gombach Group • Julia Gombach, Publisher • www.gombach.com • 11310 | <urn:uuid:921c320f-7876-4807-b4c0-4347fab828af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingplaces.com/PA/York_County/Monaghan_Township.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953022 | 217 | 1.75 | 2 |
How El Paso Ended Up With America's Best Smart Growth Plan
Earlier this week, the city council of El Paso, the nation’s 19th-largest city, unanimously adopted a detailed comprehensive plan built around the principles of smart growth and green development. With significant economic importance and a rich cultural history, but plagued with sprawling recent development patterns coupled with alarming rates of land consumption and carbon pollution, the city constructed Plan El Paso over the past two years. It is among the best, most articulate comprehensive plans I have ever seen.
In January of last year, I reviewed Connecting El Paso, a precursor to the new comprehensive plan that focused on four key transit station areas. I called the document “a comprehensive guide to smart growth design and implementation” and predicted that it would be a winner when the year’s planning awards were handed out. Sure enough, in December the Environmental Protection Agency honored the draft of Plan El Paso with a national award for achievement in smart growth, judging the effort as the year’s best example of outstanding “programs, policies and regulations.”
The plan has actually gotten better, and certainly more detailed (it runs some 900 pages in all) since I reviewed its predecessor. Early on, the new document makes clear that it is time for a bold new vision and commitment:
In recent years health problems such as obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, and the maladies associated with social alienation have become a normal response to a built-environment that does not allow walking or facilitate human interaction. The young and the elderly of El Paso, especially, have been left behind by urban forms that necessitate driving long distances. The plan proposes strategies to bring more of the activities of daily living within walking distance and a framework of transportation alternatives including transit and bicycle systems. Encouraging walkability helps create healthy life styles. Building complete places that enable neighbors to know each other will help create and retain close-knit communities.
The plan recognizes the indispensability of beauty, not as something separate and apart from life like pictures in a gallery, but beauty in homes, neighborhoods, civic buildings, streets, and public spaces. In this way Plan El Paso aims not to return to a vanished time, but rather to grow a choiceworthy contemporary City based on cherished and enduring values. The plan revives the idea that additions to the built-environment must be functional and long-lasting but also delightful and attractive. Plan El Paso recognizes that design matters.”
From those premises, the plan gives priority to reinvestment in downtown; transit-supportive infill development; revitalization of older neighborhoods; balanced transportation options; strategic suburban retrofits; sustainable economic development; respect for nature; and much more. It also gives special recognition to the challenges and opportunities presented by El Paso’s location as an international border city and home to a large military installation, Fort Bliss.
Current San Jacinto Plaza and future vision
The undertaking involved substantial public engagement. Plan El Paso "deputized the entire City as citizen planners" with a series of hands-on public planning workshops comprising over eight weeks of intense community exercises and discussions to generate the plan vision. This process was followed by over a year of regular meetings with a citizen advisory committee to refine the draft plan. A project website that also welcomed discussion received over 30,000 visitors, and the process received bilingual coverage in local and national media.
In a guest column in the El Paso Times, city manager Joyce A. Wilson summarized both the effort and the accomplishment:
Through one of the most expansive planning processes in a generation, Plan El Paso gathered the ideas and aspirations of thousands of El Pasoans. Over 20 citywide meetings were held in various neighborhood centers and libraries, approximately 150 stakeholder meetings involved many of the region's most vital agencies, nonprofits, and businesses in the process, and a website (www.planelpaso.org) synthesized the plan's major ideas and policy recommendations . . .
Plan El Paso offers ideas for the revitalization of our urban core. Other policy recommendations include increasing our tax base through traditional neighborhood design, preservation of our open space while planning for future infrastructure needs, increasing our transportation options in an era of increased oil demand and price, improving recreational amenities, developing walkable schools, and continuing our successful relationship with Fort Bliss.
My experience has been that an informed public generally makes very good decisions about their community’s future, and that’s what happened here with the city’s planning "deputies." They understood the need to live and work closer together, protect historic neighborhoods, and stop sprawling. Plan El Paso repeatedly acknowledges that its best ideas were locally generated.
Rapid transit corridors, with concentrated development in dark red
There is special attention paid to walkable development around the city’s transit stations (or stations-to-be), but the plan’s immense detail is testament to the recognition that every neighborhood is different, requiring a different approach to restoration and, where appropriate, growth. Each street and corridor presents distinct challenges and requires tailored solutions. They are all there.
Plan El Paso will now be implemented through annual work programs and budgets, development approvals, capital improvement plans, and economic incentives. The document is not itself a legal instrument, but it clearly recommends the use of progressive tools such as the SmartCode and LEED for Neighborhood Development, as the city crafts zoning and other legally binding measures to give the plan effect. Carlos Gallinar, El Paso’s comprehensive plan manager, told KVIA-TV reporter Darren Hunt that “wheels are already in motion to set six-month, one-year and five-year guidelines for the plan.”
Here are some examples of how the plan takes advantage of LEED-ND:
Non-military development [near Fort Bliss] will be eligible for annexation into the City of El Paso provided it meets the LEED for neighborhood Development smart location standards ...
The City shall use LEED-ND as the basis for developing street connectivity standards for all new subdivision and land use development and redevelopment ...
Promote LEED-ND (LEED for Neighborhood Development) in order to rate proposed developments. Provide incentives to developers for creating LEED certified communities.
The plan also highlights green building practices and linked parks and green space, while giving special attention to the sensitive environmental attributes of arroyos, common in and around El Paso and other parts of the southwestern U.S. The plan includes a new central park for the city (top image) on the site of an old rail yard.
When reviewing the precursor Connecting El Paso, I expressed a quibble regarding the relative absence of affordable housing strategies. I’m happy to say that my previous concern has largely been cured by Chapter 6 (“Housing”) of the plan, which contains extensive affordability analysis along with strategies. Compared to much of the country, El Paso is generally affordable, but measures are necessary to ensure that housing remains affordable to the right people for the right reasons in the right places, with attention and care to planning.
Under Texas law, the plan’s ability to influence development patterns outside city borders is nothing if not complicated. That’s a common problem with policy adopted by cities, but in El Paso there is some authority for the city to affect external land use indirectly. Among the strategies highlighted by the plan for limiting sprawl beyond the formal jurisdictional limits are (1) the city’s right to approve land subdivision in an “extraterritorial zone” reaching (with some exceptions) five miles beyond the city limits; (2) annexation; and (3) control over the extension of municipal water and sewer lines. Under policies preferred in Plan El Paso, expansion of the development footprint would be allowed only if proposed development parcels are contiguous to the existing city limits, do not transgress active farmland unless farming is maintained, and are built according to smart growth principles.
The process of constructing Plan El Paso was led by the terrific planning firm Dover, Kohl and Partners, whose work I have praised before. Both they and the city deserve recognition and high praise for setting a new standard for outstanding city planning. West El Pasoan Keith Pannell summed it up to KVIA-TV’s Hunt: "Anything they do to make the city more agreeable for people to live has my vote,"
Here’s a short video about Plan El Paso:
All photos are courtesy of Plan El Paso. This post originally appeared on the NRDC's Switchboard blog. | <urn:uuid:e2b4de81-1fa7-4369-90c5-f9efb0a7d6c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2012/03/how-el-paso-ended-americas-best-smart-growth-plan/1440/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933784 | 1,758 | 1.84375 | 2 |
BRITISH police have launched a new mobile phone app which allows members of the public to track down wanted criminals close to home by plugging in their postcode.
Thousands of photographs and CCTV images of unidentified suspects have been uploaded online in an effort to assist officers searching for wanted individuals.
Users simply enter their postcode into the application, known as Facewatch id, to access the images relevant to their neighbourhood.
If they can then identify any of those sought they can contact police through the technology to provide confidential details about the suspect.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, responsible for Specialist Crime and Operations in London, said he expected the app to lead to increased arrests.
“The general public can support us in this - both by providing us with images - and then helping us to identify those who are responsible for committing crime," he said.
“I would encourage as many people as possible to use the app to view these images and send in information.”
The service currently only covers London but will be rolled out to across the whole of the country over the coming months.
Some 2,000 images of people the MPS would like to identify are already on the system and photographs from City of London Police and British Transport police for London are to be added soon.
Simon Gordon, chairman of Facewatch Ltd, the developers of application, said the software was available free to any police force in the UK.
He added: “By using the very latest technology we have created a simple, easy to use and highly relevant way for the public to assist in the huge job of managing the capitals CCTV image database.”
Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, head of the Visual Image Identification and Inspection Office of the MPS, said: “The Facewatch id application will help the police to catch more criminals and by showing that CCTV is working it will help to stop crime as well.” | <urn:uuid:5471385f-b013-43b4-993d-58b75f025efd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/find-a-criminal-living-near-you-with-new-app-26844319.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963798 | 397 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Mobility on Demand: Winner of the The Buckminster Fuller Challenge
A team from MIT just won the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, a competition that awards a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.
The team devised a Mobility-on-demand system that works a lot like bike sharing programs that we have covered extensively, but has a greater variety of vehicles. The system has racks of super lightweight and compact electric bikes, scooters, and cars at closely spaced, convenient locations around an urban service area. The vehicles automatically recharge while they are in these racks.
To use, people walk to the nearest rack, swipe a credit card, pick up a vehicle, drive it to a rack convenient to their destination, and drop it off.
One of the more innovative aspects of this system is that different locations have varying pickup and drop off values. In other words, a busy hub on the network that has many users will be cheaper to rent or drop off a vehicle from. A more peripheral location will be expensive to rent from but more affordable to drop the vehicle off. This ensures that the vehicles are properly distributed in the network.
The team is hoping to use their prize to first implement a pilot of the system on MIT and Harvard’s campus, which will take an anticipated 2 years. Within 3 years, the team hopes to distribute the system in a number of cities worldwide! You can find out more about this great achievement here: 2009 Winner | The Buckminster Fuller Challenge. | <urn:uuid:465ad78c-2da4-44b6-9c22-9e570f673c82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://planningpool.com/2009/05/transportation/mobility-on-demand-winner-of-the-the-buckminster-fuller-challenge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946257 | 320 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Chances are you remember the rumblings in the news about the American Psychological Association and their groundbreaking discovery that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is harmful to girls' self-image and healthy development.1 When I heard it on the news, I stared at my TV in total disbelief and mumbled, "Nah! Ya think?" The study took aim at everything from sexually salacious ads to the tarted-up Bratz dolls popular with young girls. Every forum of media was fair game, including video games, song lyrics, magazines, and the round-the-clock bombardment of sexual images found on television and the Internet.
Sexualization was defined by the task force as occurring when a person's value comes only from her/his sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, i.e., made into a thing for another's sexual use. While the overall finding of the study may not come as a surprise, it should serve as a wake-up call for parents who have somehow rationalized that it's a battle not worth fighting. Take a look at some of the fallout the study confirmed:
According to the task force report, parents can play a major role in contributing to the sexualization of their daughters, or they can play a protective and educative role. The study acknowledges that parents may actually contribute to the sexualization of their daughters in a number of ways. One way is to convey the message that maintaining an attractive physical appearance is the most important goal for girls. As abhorrent as it is, we have all heard rumblings about parents who even go so far as to pay for plastic surgery for their daughters, whether it's a nose job at sixteen or a boob job for graduation. It certainly leaves their daughters clear on where mom and dad stand on the importance of vanity.
Before we look at ways to protect our daughters from sexualizing messages from the media, we must first examine ourselves to see if perhaps we have propagated this damaging message. If outer appearance is important to you and out of balance, chances are you have passed the same mind-set onto your daughter. Hopefully, after reading this section you will have a better grasp on why God tells us that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" and further wants us to "know that full well" (Ps. 139:14). It may even be necessary to go to your daughter and apologize for the part you may have played in emphasizing outer appearance to an unhealthy degree. I have certainly had to own up to this in the past with my own daughter.
Next we need to put our daughters on a media diet. While it would be impossible to shield them from every damaging influence, we can certainly draw a line in the sand when it comes to the worst offenders. Below, you will find a list of the worst offenders and tips on how to limit your daughters' consumption and exposure to the damaging lies they generate.
A University of Minnesota study found that teenage girls who frequently read magazine articles about dieting were more likely five years later to practice extreme weight-loss measures than girls who never read such articles. The study further found that "girls in middle school who read dieting articles were twice as likely five years later to try to lose weight by fasting or smoking cigarettes, compared to girls who never read such articles. They were three times more likely to use measures such as vomiting or taking laxatives." Coauthor of the study, Patricia van den Berg offers this advice to parents: "It possibly would be helpful to teen girls if their mothers didn't have those types of magazines around."1
One has to wonder if the primary agenda of the fashion magazines is to create a level of dissatisfaction among their female readers regarding their overall body image in an effort to keep them running back for more and more advice on how to achieve this impossible beauty ideal. As they absorb this message that their worth and value stem from their outer appearance and their chief aim is to please the opposite sex, parents are left to sweep up the mess in the years to come. As a longtime opponent of fashion magazines and their message of objectification to our young women, I would love to see parents put them in the same dangerous category as drugs and alcohol. It's time to ban this harmful filth from our homes and begin the detox process if we or our daughters have bought into the lie.
When I was growing up, the word slut was whispered under one's breath and used sparingly. If you were labeled a "slut," your reputation was sealed.
Today, the word is commonplace in every teen's vocabulary. Since when did it become a compliment to be called a slut? Good girls are called sluts. Bad girls are called sluts. Church girls are called sluts. If your daughter is in high school or older, chances are, she's been called a slut. And unless you step in and do something about it, she will probably just smile and shrug it off as a term of endearment.
How did such a word become so acceptable? Could it be the hip-hop/rap culture that cranks out song after song depicting women as "hoes" whose lifelong aspiration is to serve their "pimps"? Of the thirty-two songs with an "explicit" rating in 2004, twenty-seven were in the hip-hop/rap genre.2 These are the songs being played over and over again on the pop radio stations, MP3 players, and at school dances. And we wonder why it's become acceptable and even in vogue to be called a "slut."
If we are to counter the culture's lie that our daughters are nothing more than objects, it's time to ban our children from buying and listening to songs that objectify women and take a stand when schools, and other cheer/dance organizations, allow the imitation of these objectifying dance moves. You might consider banning songs that fall into the rap/hip-hop genre or requiring preapproval. If a song comes onto the radio and lyrics clearly objectify women, turn it into a teachable moment before you change the station.
I highly suggest that parents block channels like MTV, VH1, and other like-minded cable channels that are known for their constant objectification of women. Additionally, sit in and listen to the shows your kids are watching to ensure they are appropriate, and take advantage of sites like pluggedin.com and www.screenit.com to review movies before allowing your children to see them. Also, the Parents Television Council (www.parentstv.org) rates the most popular shows among kids and compiles a "best and worst shows" list based on the content. They also have a fabulous feature where you can select a popular show and read the corresponding review.
When it comes to objectionable Web sites, I highly recommend that parents install Web filters and monitoring software to add as many layers of protection as possible. It will be impossible to protect them 100 percent of the time; and as they get older, they can access these channels/shows at friends' houses. This is why it is of utmost importance that parents take advantage of critical moments and point out the media's objectification of women as well as discuss the fallout that can result.
Whether it's popular clothing retailer Abercrombie and Fitch's screen-print tees with messages like "Who needs brains when you have these" or the 1.6 million dollars spent on thong underwear by girls aged seven to twelve, clearly we have a problem.3 Victoria's Secret now has a line aimed at tween, teen, and college girls. It used to be that you didn't set foot into Victoria's Secret until you had a ring on your finger. Nowadays girls as young as middle school are stopping in to pick up a birthday present for their best friend. Mercy, what happened?
As parents we must help our daughters realize that their clothing is like a label. When they wear skin-baring fashions, it often sends a message to others about their character. When we (parents) allow our daughters to dress in a revealing manner, we play a part in sexualizing and objectifying them. Not to mention, many girls are not yet able to make a connection between what they wear and the reaction it may generate among the opposite sex. The APA study found that "girls are experiencing teen pressures at younger and younger ages. However, they are not able to deal with these issues because their cognitive development is out of sync with their social, emotional and sexual development. Let girls be girls."4
In Shaunti Feldhahn's book For Young Women Only, she cited the results of a survey where guys were asked questions pertaining to the way girls dress. The study found that when girls dress in such a way as to call attention to their bodies, 85 percent of guys said that they would have a temptation to picture her naked (either then or later). The survey further confirmed that the majority of guys thought she was dressing that way because she wanted them to picture her that way. Her survey of girls found that in reality only less than 4 percent of girls dress in a revealing fashion in an attempt to get guys to fantasize about them.5
It is up to us to have this necessary conversation (over and over again) with our daughters and remind them that clothing sends a strong message; and it may, in fact, be a message that misrepresents who they really are. When it comes to sporting the perfect outfit, we need to let our daughters know that there is nothing wrong with dressing fashionably as long as it meets God's standard of dress — "modestly, with decency, and propriety" (1 Tim. 2:9).
While I don't watch (or endorse) Desperate Housewives, I've seen enough pictures of these women to know that they have all had Photoshop makeovers, ahem, not to mention, a few other costly makeovers as well. With slews of images like that, is it any wonder women of all ages are resorting to Botox injections, plastic surgery, and break-the-bank skin care regimes that promise to take ten years off their lives?
Sometimes the challenge seems insurmountable when it's everywhere we look. Redbook magazine was criticized for putting 39-year-old country music star Faith Hill on the July 2007 cover and photo-shopping the picture to lengthen her neck, slim her arms and thighs, trim her waist, and airbrush away her wrinkles. Redbook, for heaven's sake! My grandmother used to subscribe to Redbook because it wasn't considered a fashion magazine. In The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used against Women, author Naomi Wolf said, "Magazines, consciously or half-consciously, must project the attitude that looking one's age is bad because $650 million of their ad revenue comes from people who would go out of business if visible age looked good."6
How do we even begin to tackle this topic with our daughters and give them a more realistic picture of the natural aging process? How can we convince them that "gray hair is a crown of splendor" (Prov. 16:31) when many of us, myself included, are rushing to our hairdressers and paying them to cover it up, one gray hair at a time? Ouch! I for one am not feeling so led to give up my highlights, occasional manicures, and magical eye cream, so it's important to find a balance. Are you at peace, for the most part, with the aging process, or are you kicking and screaming about every gray hair and facial wrinkle?
We need to make sure our daughters realize that the images they are seeing in the media of models and celebrities who appear to have found the fountain of youth are not real. Most have been prepped for the photo session by hair and makeup artists, Botox, plastic surgery, and even after all that, will likely be airbrushed beyond recognition. We need to set a positive example for our daughters and make friends with the aging process. That doesn't mean we have to let our hair go gray and wear it in a tight bun atop our heads and fill our closets with holiday sweaters and Naturalizer footwear. There is nothing wrong with beautifying the temple as long as it's done in good taste and is not your primary focus. If our daughters are constantly subjected to our grumblings as we journey through the aging process, it will leave them with the impression that life is somehow less appealing in the latter years. Let's quit this nonsense of being shocked and surprised when our bodies begin to show some wear and tear. Some (if not many) of the most beautiful women I know are over fifty and put the polished and airbrushed models and celebs to shame. The over-forty cast of Desperate Housewives couldn't hold a candle to these women when it comes to true beauty. Will you be one of them
Mothers, did you know that only 2 percent of women would describe themselves as beautiful?1 Are you in that small sampling? Is your daughter in that small sampling? After discussing in depth the lies both we and our daughters have been told regarding the narrow definition of beauty, we are left with the task of redefining beauty. Only then can we pass along a healthy definition to our daughters.
What exactly is beauty? The Dove Campaign asked women and found that:
Interestingly, the study found that two-thirds of women strongly agree that physical attractiveness is about how one looks, whereas beauty includes much more of who a person is. Women rate happiness, confidence, dignity, and humor as powerful components of beauty, along with the more traditional attributes of physical appearance, body weight and shape, and even a sense of style.3
Now, stop for a minute and think about it. When you hear (or say) the phrase, "She is beautiful," is it made in reference to what is on the outside or the inside? I find it sad that popular culture and the mass media have hijacked the authentic definition of beauty. Beauty is defined by God and God alone. He sets the standard for beauty and gives us clues throughout Scripture as to what defines a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, the secular definition of beauty given by women in the Dove survey failed to recognize the key component that determines a woman's happiness, confidence, dignity, and humor. That key component, of course, is faith. Just as the Proverbs 31 passage concludes, "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" (Prov. 31:30). Faith in a loving and forgiving God will be the root of any and all manifestations of beauty. Physical beauty will fade over time, but true beauty (virtue) is timeless.
As parents, that's where we come in. Only by pointing out the lies of culture and continually reminding our daughters of God's definition of beauty (virtue) will we stand a chance of protecting our daughters from the culture's inevitable brainwashing. We must be faithful in reminding them that beauty is not defined by a number on the scale, a premanufactured clothing size, an hourglass shape, washboard abs, slender thighs, big boobs, a J-Lo butt, pouty Angelina Jolie lips, a pair of designer low-rise jeans, a cleavage-baring top, a new sassy haircut, a clear complexion, an antiwrinkle cream, or a surgical procedure. While some of the above may garner catcalls from men, they don't impress God in the least.
If we are to engage successfully in the worthy conversation, "You are more than the sum of your parts" with our daughters, we must first do a self-check and make sure we believe it ourselves. For those of us who have been thoroughly brainwashed by the culture over the years, this will be a difficult challenge. And, I dare say, that would likely be the majority of women reading this book! In fact, while in the course of writing this book, I conducted an informal survey of adult women and asked, "Are you satisfied with your body/appearance?" Only a handful of the women answered yes to that question.
While I realize that many women struggle to achieve a healthy weight range and, therefore, may not be satisfied, I was even more concerned with the answers that followed on the next question. "If your weight fluctuates beyond your desired weight range, does it affect your overall happiness?" Even among the women who had previously answered that they were currently satisfied with their body/appearance, most admitted that should their weight fluctuate, like the others who answered the survey, it would impact their overall contentment/happiness. While I hope that this book will help you better engage in the necessary and ongoing conversation with your daughters regarding body image and appearance, I pray that the truths presented will aid you in breaking free from the culture's lies.
In a world that beckons our daughters to grow up far too fast, it's never too soon to begin the conversation with our daughters regarding true beauty in the eyes of God. In the next article I have compiled some key Scripture verses related to appearance and beauty and an example of how you might explain the meaning behind each verse to your daughter. Some are verses I have referenced in preceding chapters, but they bear repeating! Wouldn't it be nice if our girls grew up with the following verses tucked away in their hearts?
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
What it means: You are created in the image of God, and God doesn't make junk! Like a snowflake, every person is unique. No two are the same. God sees you as a masterpiece; and when you look in the mirror, He wants you to "know that full well." Try this beauty tip: Every morning when you look in the mirror, say Psalm 139:14 and smile. You might even tape the verse on your mirror as a reminder!
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
What it means: The world focuses on what people look like on the outside. God focuses on what people look like on the inside. Do you put more time and effort into being pretty on the outside or the inside? As you get older, you will meet Christian girls who spend more time trying to find the perfect outfit, get the perfect tan, find the perfect lip gloss, and have the perfect body. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty, we need to make sure it's in balance. God would rather see us work on becoming drop-dead gorgeous on the inside. You know, the kind of girl who talks to Him on a regular basis (prayer) and reads her Bible.
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
What it means: Beauty fades with age, so if you are more concerned with your outer appearance, you will be unhappy when the wrinkles come and the number on the scale goes up. In fact, did you know that your body may show the beginning signs of aging as early as age twenty? That is why God wants us to "fear" Him. That doesn't mean to be afraid of Him but rather to be in awe of Him and all that He has done. Let me put it to you this way. If you stand two girls next to each other and one is Miss Teen USA whose beauty is limited to physical beauty, and the other young lady is a more average-looking girl who loves the Lord more than anything, she is the more beautiful girl in the eyes of God.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.
What it means: This does not mean it's wrong to braid your hair or wear nice clothes and jewelry. The verse was written to warn women not to follow the customs of some of the Egyptian women who, during that time period, spent hours and hours working on their hair, makeup, and finding the perfect outfit. God would rather see women work on becoming beautiful on the inside — the kind of beauty that lasts forever.
Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.
What it means: Exercising and staying in shape is a good thing, but God expects us to stay in shape spiritually by reading our Bibles, praying, and going to church on a regular basis. In other words, there will be plenty of people who put their time and effort into staying in shape but who are out of shape spiritually. If they don't know Jesus Christ, their perfect bodies won't get them through the gates of heaven.
I would be willing to bet that most compliments paid to infants and toddlers are in regard to appearance. Of course, this is understandable considering we can't really highlight an infant's sparkling personality or good deeds accomplished. Chances are we heard, "What a beautiful baby," on numerous occasions when our daughters were just infants. And chances are, we have said it countless times to others. While our infants are unable to absorb the message, it won't be long before they do. My daughter, now eighteen, was often complimented as a baby for her blonde curls, blue eyes, fair skin, and teeny-tiny frame. She hardly looked old enough to walk when she took her first steps, and many claimed she looked like a little porcelain china doll. And trust me, by the age of two, she had taken note of each and every compliment.
The appearance-based compliments (from others and myself) continued through her toddler years. Until an occasion when she was four years old, I didn't realize there might be a downside to the praises. It was picture day at her preschool and I had dressed her up in a beautiful dress with a matching hair ribbon that held back her sweeping long blonde curls. As she was walking into the door of the classroom that morning, her teacher said, "Paige, you look so pretty!" Paige's response without even missing a beat was, "I know. Everyone tells me that."
Yikes! Of course, this was long before I was writing about the dangers of misdefined worth, not to mention I was hardly qualified since I was clearly part of the problem. From that day forward, I tried to emphasize her character qualities and de-emphasize her physical beauty. If she grew dependent on the compliments, what would become of her self-esteem when she entered the gawky, adolescent phase? You remember it, don't you? Pimples, bad hair days, and a body that often seemed out of control — truth be told, many of us are still in recovery from those days!
We must be careful to find a healthy balance when it comes to complimenting our child's appearance, especially in the early years. On the one hand, our girls naturally want to be told they are pretty. If we don't tell them, it could leave them craving male attention in the years to come. On the other hand, we don't want to go overboard and send a message that worth is based on what they look like. This, in turn, could set them up for disappointment when the compliments diminish over the years.
As your daughter moves through grade school, she will begin to absorb the culture's message regarding beauty. Whether she is being influenced primarily by the media or her friends, one thing is for certain: she is hearing a buzz about what constitutes beauty in the world's eyes. It will be especially important in these years to have open communication with your daughter regarding these messages. Take advantage of teachable moments, whether they are ads you come across or a comment made by a friend. Remind her of 1 Samuel 16:17 and how God looks at the heart while the world looks at appearance. Continue to remind her of this passage as she moves through grade school. If she struggles with weight, emphasize a healthy diet and exercise and make sure you are practicing it yourself. Rather than nag her about eating too many sweets or snacks, try to reduce the temptation by minimizing them in your home. Lead by example. Whatever you do, never shame her about weight, even jokingly.
If your daughter seems to be overly attentive in these years to appearance and body image issues, you might want to look closely at her immediate circle to see where the influence is coming from. Is it a friend? Is she exposed to messages in the media that she is too young to process? (For example, is she allowed to watch PG-13 movies, watch shows on TV or listen to music that supports a narrow and unrealistic definition of beauty?) Could you or your husband be focusing too much on appearance and sending her the wrong message? If you see warning signs, do what you can to reverse the damage, even if it means seeing a counselor or nutritionist. Many eating disorders take root in these years and, if not addressed, will only get worse.
Again, emphasize virtue and character qualities over appearance. This doesn't mean you go overboard and tell her appearance doesn't matter. The message should always be temple maintenance: healthy weight range, good eating habits, exercise, positive grooming habits. Because girls are developing earlier, your daughter will be exposed to many shapes and sizes during these years. It's important that you don't make comments about other girls (or your daughter) in these years that could leave them feeling inferior or worried about their own development process. As they move into the latter years of grammar school, begin necessary conversations with them about the process their body (and their friends' bodies) will go through as they move from girlhood to womanhood.
When I surveyed adult Christian women, one of the questions I asked them was: "What sort of message did you receive from your mom and/or dad regarding weight/body image when you were growing up?" Many women shared that even today they could still remember exact phrases and the sting they felt over comments made by their parents during their middle and high school years.
"Are you sure you want seconds?"
"Have you checked the calorie count in that cookie?"
"You might want to lay off the ______."
"You're never going to get a husband if you keep eating like that."
Comments such as the ones above, made even in jest, will have an impact on our daughters. Even if your daughter needs to lose weight, it's best if the pediatrician breaks the news rather than her hearing it in the form of constant nagging by a parent. And for the record, if the pediatrician isn't worried, you shouldn't be either. Again, a better approach would be to emphasize nutrition and exercise and lead by example. Practice it; don't preach it.
For most of our daughters, the change in body shape will be most drastic in the span of years from twelve to eighteen. Most girls will have their womanly shape by the time they graduate high school. Many girls are caught off guard in these years when their bodies transition (almost overnight, it seems) from girlhood to womanhood. We must make sure they know that this is normal and part of God's design to prepare them someday to bear children. Never assume that they will naturally absorb that truth by osmosis!
One thing I have made an effort to do with my own daughter is to educate her to the reality of her weight and shape changing over the years. While I have gained weight over the years, I am still in a healthy weight range so I point that out to her. I pray that as she witnesses my confidence, she will have a healthier attitude in the years to come. Even if you are not currently within a healthy weight range and are in the process of losing weight, you can still model a healthy attitude regarding weight and nutrition.
If your daughter is in the twelve to eighteen age range, make sure your comments related to appearance, weight, and body shape of your daughter (and others) are scarce. If you are preoccupied with these things, chances are, your daughter will be as well. Allow your daughter to hear you compliment women who are truly worthy of being labeled beautiful — those who are virtuous. Limit your daughter's exposure to the key offenders I mentioned [earlier]; and when she is exposed to lies, take advantage of teachable moments. Most importantly, keep the conversation going over the years and remind her often, "You are not the sum of your parts." | <urn:uuid:860561eb-06ab-446f-aff6-f0605b0b0500> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/sexuality/preventing_the_sexualization_of_your_daughter/what_is_beauty.aspx?p=1&series=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974231 | 5,973 | 1.625 | 2 |
The old adage of “sticking to your guns” is one that many perceive as a characteristic that aligns with steadfast leadership. There are certain circumstances where this style of leadership should prevail, however in more general terms, and across industries, fields, and disciplines, it tends to be a misunderstood weakness.
I was recently reading an article in Bloomberg Businessweek by David J. Lynch on how the Ivey League, and more specifically Harvard, has added to Mitt Romney’s success in the presidential leadership race. One line in the publication, a quote by Mitch Kurz, read; “shifting positions on issues to adapt to new conditions derives from the unsentimental brand of analysis he learned at [Harvard Business School]“.
What struck me so deeply about this sentence was the context it was placed in: politics. The political world is fraught with people “sticking to their guns”, through thick and thin, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The term “flip-flopping” on issues in politics is synonymous with the “kiss of death”. I found that it was unusual that others were praising Mitt’s ability to adapt to the conditions as it were. (more…) | <urn:uuid:dbe86845-1646-4840-a514-a6742486cb7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orchardcommunications.ca/tag/opportunity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975555 | 260 | 1.5 | 2 |
Its Venture Capital Jim, but not as we know it….
Business Week recently published an article on advice for start-up trying to attract venture capital and it made interesting reading on a couple of fronts.
First of all as I am sure a lot of you are aware the pool of venture funds has got smaller, a lot smaller additionally the opportunity for concept or speculative deals is near enough impossible to fund and finally on the plus side, if a business asks for less (sub 5m) and manages to succeed in a bear market, it has a very good chance of survival.
In my view there is little or no change here from how VC’s have always operated and for those unaware a short economics lesson of VC life:
Since the time when the Sex Pistols and the Clash were in the music charts and punk was a radical idea, Venture Capital firms had a model that worked. First off there was a large fund for investment – normally around 100m and then a bunch of businesses would be invested into at entry level for less than 5m each and within 3-5 years the best would be sold off or taken to market generating a 10-20 time return, which covered the failures in the pack and the investment time. Easy money, and for the next 30 odd years the industry made billions surviving the .com boom..
Then along came clean tech and the thinking was again that here was a money pit waiting for excavation only this time the deal is a bit more complex….very complex, to the point where VC’s are scrambling around desperately trying to find a model that works.
The problem is – apart from a massive decline in funding that the VC’s can smell the money and see the potential but it’s the level of risk that is making them gag. Getting a VC to buy into a start-up or early funding is a problem due to the fact that they don’t know what is working yet, so they wait for a “mature” business to come along with contracts and proven delivery. But then part of the old model is now out of kilter in that they are no longer a cheap buy and the returns are not a traded market but balance sheet. Add to the issue that the investment is normally in excess of 10mm and suddenly the model of 1976 is in pretty bad shape and the VC’s get twitchy.
So what’s the answer? The VC has a role to play and as the banks are less than interested in supporting a business needing hundreds, never mind millions they need and want to step up to the crease. I can see in the future a new wave of VC that spends more time on understanding the market and good due-diligence before making an investment decision. This means that investment business will need to be stronger and better thought out in their delivery and have a strong management team committed to delivering it. I can also see the numbers of businesses invested in reducing dramatically, with the “expected to fail” model being kicked into touch. That would mean less cash and more equity with more time and help being offered by the VC to ensure that they become a success beyond fiscal management, however the thought of VC businesses advising on sales and marketing is a scary thought!
A punk VC business? Or perhaps a fad to see the VC through a tough period of investment jitters? All I know is that any start-up looking to generate VC dosh will need to be ahead of the game, have big IPR and a team to wipe the floor with the competition – as the cash gets tighter and risk becomes more prevalent it’s the only thing a VC will take seriously.
|Tags: Venture Capital||[ Permalink ]| | <urn:uuid:4bbe957d-ae0b-46d4-876d-e9552c19544c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.cleantechies.com/2009/01/12/its-venture-capital-jim-but-not-as-we-know-it/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976796 | 766 | 1.671875 | 2 |
In the past, I've mentioned supersets being effective simply because they save you time - and that results didn't depend on your heart rate (even though it gets jacked with supersets). But recent research suggests another reason for the effectiveness of supersets - and that's the increase in Growth Hormone in your body.
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: bodybuilding, burn fat, cardio, exercise routine, fat loss, growth hormone, high intensity, interval training, intervals, lose weight, obese men, resistance training, turbulence training, weight loss, workout
One of the questions that gets batted around it seems like my entire life is, "Are whole eggs bad for you"? It seems it depends on what year you ask the question because the research has gone back and forth on the subject, but recently, new research has finally found the definitive answer, yeah right!
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: BFFM, burn fat, burn the fat, burn the fat feed the muscle, egg white, egg whites, fat burning, fat burning foods, fat burning nutrition, fat burning superfoods, fat loss, loose weight, lose weight, muscle building diet, superfood, Tom Venuto, weight loss, whole egg, whole eggs
Could you teach me how to gain muscle fast? As a skinny guy muscle building expert, I get approached these questions daily in my office. Every single hard gainer I consult with wants to know how to gain muscle fast and how to do safely and effectively.
Categories: abs, arms, back, legs, muscle building, shoulders, Uncategorized, women's fitness Tags: bodybuilding, build big muscle, build mass, build muscle mass, exercise programs, exercise routine, female athlete, female bodybuilding, female fitness, gain muscle, hard gainer, heavy lifting, increase strength, muscle building, muscle building tips, muscle growth, skinny guy, vince delmonte, weight gain, workout routine
It seems that many people are not only curious about what foods a natural bodybuilder eats to maintain single digit body fat, but they also want to be taken by the hand and told exactly what foods to eat themselves while on fat-burning or muscle building programs. That’s why I decided to put together four separate “top 10” lists of healthy foods that burn fat and build muscle.
Categories: back, cardio, ebook, fat loss, muscle building, nutrition, supplements, Uncategorized Tags: bodybuilding, bodybuilding foods, fat burning, fat burning foods, foods that burn fat, muscle building, natural bodybuilder, natural foods, nutrition, Tom Venuto, weight loss foods
It never ceases to amaze me how incredibly misguided the vast majority of the population is in the gym. Everyone is desperate for that wide, powerful and muscular physique, yet very few understand how to properly channel their efforts to get there. | <urn:uuid:1fc75b64-25c3-424a-9814-bf4d8d096939> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://webmusclefitness.com/category/uncategorized/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939613 | 596 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Re: "opportunity to ponder the merits of freestanding, fully enclosed shelters."
Yes, that comes up a lot when the wind is an issue.
Two of us were camping near the AT in an area with lots of widowmakers in the area(some kind of tree plague). We didn't realize that a tropical storm was coming through the area untill it was too late.
We were forced to pitch camp in an open solid flat rock area to avoid the falling tress.
We both had floorless pyramids and had to use deadman anchors made of rocks and branches.
We knew the importance of having very solid anchor points when using mids in wind.
It was very difficult to pitch in a wind when you can barely stay on your feet and debris is flying everywhere.
We couldn't talk because of the noise and sleep was hard with the flapping walls and what sounded like a jet engine on top of you.
It was still going full force when we finally left in the morning.
We hiked by a camp a little further down the trail. All had heavy freestanding domes, collapsed on the occupants, with many broken poles and ripped fabric.
It looked like we did better than them, but we could have been worse off if we hadn't anchored with the 100 pounds of rock.
The others may have been fine if they had taken the time to add additional ties along the side of their domes. | <urn:uuid:93cdd1ca-ad04-40a1-8559-b6dcb1aece44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=58833 | 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 | 0.985773 | 299 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Gov. Phil Bryant says the 2010 federal health care overhaul is slowing Mississippi's economy because business owners are confused about how much it will cost to meet demands of the law.
Bryant, a Republican, spoke Wednesday at Mississippi College during a conference about the Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare.
The governor repeated his opposition to expanding Medicaid, which the U.S. Supreme Court says is optional under the law.
State Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney is moving forward with one part of complying with the law. He's working to create a health care exchange where people can shop online for health insurance.
Last week, Chaney met one deadline by submitting documents to the federal government, showing minimum levels of coverage that would be available under the Mississippi exchange. | <urn:uuid:525eed99-a41e-47c2-b8e3-1d3a6bbd5a87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/news/mississippi/headlines/Bryant-Federal-health-law-hurts-Miss-economy-173723861.html?site=mobile | 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 | 0.961111 | 153 | 1.5625 | 2 |
“The Pact for Mexico is not only alive, it is vigorous,” PRI national party chief Cesar Camacho Quiroz said at the ceremony, denying reports it may be faltering.
In some ways, the latest move marked the PRI’s continuing effort to raze some of the structures that it had erected to rule Mexico during its 71-year unbroken reign that ended in 2000. Past PRI governments looked at Televisa as a political tool to help it retain power, and TelMex and cellular service concessions were sold to businessmen the PRI saw as friendly.
In announcing the urgency of the telecom reform, Communications and Transport Secretary Gerardo Ruiz Esparza cited a study conducted in 2012 by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that said Mexico economic growth was 1.8 percent lower because of the estimated $129 billion in overcharges and lost economic opportunities wrought between 2005 and 2009 by telecommunications companies.
Among the measures included in the reform, Mexico would:
_ Allow foreign companies to increase from 49 percent to 100 percent their stake in most telecommunications operations in the country.
_ Give foreign companies the right to own as much as 49 percent of firms transmitting on radio waves in the nation; they currently are prohibited from owning any portion of such a company.
_ Require satellite and cable TV companies to retransmit broadcast television signals, unlike now when they can try to strangle competitors by keeping them off the air.
_ Set up a new regulatory body, the Federal Telecommunications Institute, which would have authority to break up telephone and TV companies with more than 50 percent of the domestic market. The new body also would be allowed to revoke broadcast licenses at will and write new regulations that would favor smaller companies over larger ones.
“With clear and open rules, with authorities who limit concentration, with very established obligations in quality, cost and continuity of service, the telecommunications area will better fulfill its role of invigorating the economy,” Ruiz Esparza said.
Jesus Zambrano, president of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution, said the proposed new watchdog agency would have authority to ensure fair and unbiased use of the air waves, thus potentially keeping media giants from meddling in politics.
“No longer will we have on television, on the radio and on the Internet deceitful, lying, crooked publicity. There won’t be electoral propaganda disguised as information,” Zambrano said.
Other political leaders said that enshrining the new reforms in the country’s constitution would prevent companies from endless lawsuits to gain an upper hand.
“It is worth remembering that the Constitution brooks no lawsuit, trial or appeal. When the Constitution speaks, so speak the sovereign Mexican people,” said Luis Alberto Villarreal, chief of the center-right National Action Party bloc in the Senate. | <urn:uuid:67be921a-179c-4850-82cc-366818be921e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/11/3280348_p2/mexico-moves-to-open-up-telecom.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96071 | 591 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Site Building is the art, skillset, and knowledge of building Drupal websites using core and contributed modules. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a newcomer, Drupal's modules and browser-based administration allows you to create rich, powerful features without writing a single line of code. The Site Building Track focuses on expanding conceptual understanding of what's possible with contributed modules and the Drupal UI, and showcases best practices and recipes for anyone using creating Drupal sites.
Coding and Development
The Coder track is designed to facilitate communication between developers that write code for their projects or Drupal. We are interested in tracks that focus on Drupal 7 and are looking for three categories of presentations: Drupal core, Drupal contrib, and solutions in other projects or technologies that Drupal can learn from.
When designing your sessions it is important to keep Drupal Elevated in mind. We are interested in educating the community on methods to push Drupal to new heights. Tools and methodologies to improve the development process from the first line of code to final deployment and maintenance on production environments will be well received. Your audience should be excited and ready to implement what they have learned or run straight to a BOF to discuss.
Design and User Experience
The Design and UX track covers all aspects of front-end design, from initial concept to theme implementation. As web designers and front-end developers, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift as we come to terms with our websites being viewed on a myriad of devices of varying sizes and browsing capabilities. This realization presents new and exciting challenges in design and theming, in which much of our work is still experimental and best practices are yet to be defined. With an emphasis on these new approaches, this track will address design, usability and theming of Drupal sites.
The Drupal Community track will be used for discussing and presenting ways to continue to grow the Drupal Community. As the community grows, we are continually faced with the issue on how to keep the communications open and helpful to as many members as possible. How do we attract new contributors? How do we keep the old contributors interested and engaged? What's the best way of presenting the community information to the members of the community?
Business and Strategy
The Business and Strategy track will provide insight for effectively managing Drupal projects. It is designed for business owners, project managers, IT directors, and anyone else guiding technology decisions and processes in his or her organization. In this track, you will learn how leading Drupal shops approach project management, client communication, and the business of building websites; see how technology teams across the globe are successfully adopting Drupal in business, government, education, and non-profit sectors; and hear lessons learned from product creators in the community. This track covers the broad topic of business and management with Drupal.
The mobile track is focused on using Drupal with new devices. Mobile browsers and native mobile apps are rapidly changing how both visitors and site administrators interact with Drupal. This track will cover making the most of Drupal across these new frontiers.
Accepting money online is a key part of many kinds of sites from e-commerce with physical products to non-profit donations to the sale of digital assets. Drupal's extensible nature, great SEO, and CRM capabilities make it a great platform to build your online store. This mini-track covers everything from setting up your first store to advanced developer and designer focused topics.
Nonprofit, Government and Education
This track is focused on ways organizations (Nonprofit/NGO, Government & Education) can best leverage Drupal to achieve greater community impact. Strategies in fundraising, community building, organizing and data management are constantly evolving and so are the numerous ways Drupal is being used to achieve success in these areas. This is the place to share and learn about the latest innovations, case studies, and community resources that impact these sectors. | <urn:uuid:9aa91b89-6acd-49ed-a4de-2075999338dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denver2012.drupal.org/session-tracks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935273 | 775 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Track Record January 11, 2010Posted by Dwight Furrow in Dwight Furrow's Posts, politics.
Tags: Republican economic policy, stimulus package
Most Republicans were opposed to the stimulus package signed by Obama last year and, according to some polls, the public also has its doubts. But the people who measure such things agree that it prevented a deeper recession and has contributed to growth.
The American Enterprise Institute is a conservative outfit but even they grant that the stimulus package was effective. Via Jon Chait:
The real economy … responded to the massive stimulus but remained heavily dependent on it. In the United States, growth during the second half of 2009 probably averaged about 3 percent. Absent temporary fiscal stimulus and inventory rebuilding, which taken together added about 4 percentage points to U.S. growth, the economy would have contracted at about a 1 percent annual rate during the second half of 2009.
As Steve Benen noted last week:
The GOP said the stimulus package would fail to create jobs. We now know the Republicans were wrong.
The GOP said the recovery efforts would fail to generate economic growth. We now know the Republicans were wrong.
The GOP said the stimulus “failed.” We now know the Republicans were wrong.
The GOP said the government should cancel unspent recovery funds. We now know the Republicans were wrong.
The GOP said tax cuts are more effective at stimulating the economy than government spending. We now know the Republicans were wrong.
Had Republicans been in the majority a year ago, the results for the United States and the global economy likely would have been devastating. That GOP officials and their allies continue to pretend otherwise serves as a reminder of just how little role reality can play in our discourse.
For political commentary by Dwight Furrow visit: www.revivingliberalism.com | <urn:uuid:4775331d-5b4c-4646-ad5b-04638827b84a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://philosophyonthemesa.com/2010/01/11/track-record/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976654 | 369 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Taonga Maori will take centre stage in Maori Television’s new arts series, Te Irikura, which starts Sunday August 5 at 5.00pm.
Made in conjunction with the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute at Te Puia in Rotorua, the series explores the history and customary use of many Maori art forms over 26 episodes.
Each week, renowned artists will take the audience through the steps to make particular taonga and experts in traditional resources will take viewers to the source.
Travel to the South Island to gain an insight on pounamu, learn how weapons are extracted from whale jaws and find out from artists throughout the country the many uses of plants and materials.
Producer Lara Northcroft, from Rotorua’s Velvet Stone Media, says taonga Maori were traditionally admired for their functionality rather than pieces of art.
“Some were highly prized because of the degree of skill needed to produce them, the length of time it took or the scarcity of materials. Others were associated with rituals, prominent ancestors or spiritual beliefs,” she says.
Te Irikura features renowned taonga Maori artists and craftspeople including carvers, James Rickard, Clive Fugill, Takirirangi Smith and Hekenukumai Busby as well as weavers Matekino Lawless, Karl Leonard, Mere Walker and Kohai Grace.
Northcroft says Te Irikura begins with simple instructional methods for basic taonga and gets more difficult as the series progresses.
The glimpse into the world of weaving starts with an insight into the customary importance of flax to Maori; how it grows and is harvested, prepared and dyed for different uses.
This is followed by a tutorial session on how to make a simple basket, the following week those skills will be transferred to making a basic kete.
Viewers will learn how to make a wide range of taonga from a simple kono to taonga puoro as well as learning how traditional tools like uhi and toki are made.
Tune in to Te Irikura, premiering on Maori Television from Sunday August 5 at 5.00pm. | <urn:uuid:336251de-1d73-41e9-bdd1-f11f8dc8d002> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.throng.co.nz/2012/07/new-maori-arts-series-aims-to-encourage-learning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952485 | 453 | 1.8125 | 2 |
check this out:http://www.thepoetryblog.net/
2009/06/05/ slam-is-dead- they-say/
i think this post is largely bullshit.
while this critique has, at various times throughout our history, shown some truth, the larger reality is one of beauty and passion and a love for communication. yes, you have to sometimes look beyond the people who all sound like they are auditioning for def poetry, but beyond that is an amazing poetry about being human and yearning for a deeper communication.
poetry slam has not stopped growing and is not stuck in def poetry mode. there is a deeper poetry coming up that is less about pointing fingers and more about rejoicing in the US, less about me me me and more about US.
look at shannon leigh's work. look at danny sherrard. look at anis mojgani. look at rachel mckibbens. there are many poets on the scene right now playing an active part in the continuing evolution of our community, and these poets are not limited by the bullshit that has threatened to define what we do in the past.
granted, lots of these young people try to mimic their favourite artists, but, to be perfectly honest, if they are mimicking buddy wakefield and andrea gibson, i am pretty damned cool with that. once they begin to find their own voices, then they will grow past the mimickry, but its up to the elders of slam to help them along their way.
that's one of the big reasons i still come to slams and still play a very active role in our national poetry slam community. i've been at this since '92, and i can offer incite that perhaps can steer someone away from a path of self-congratulations and one of community.
as for slam history... i think it's unfortunate that there has not been a focus on archiving our community and acknowledging those who have come before and made this whole revolution possible. why has there not been a more concerted effort at this? what's more, why do most slam poets do this for a while, make a name for themselves, then abandon their community as if they don't need it anymore? i'm trying to change that myself with my own actions, and i love it when poets like mike mcgee volunteer to be bout managers and hosts at nationals. that's giving back to our community, and it provides a sort of mentorship for the younger poets coming up.
slam is what you make of it, and if you allow it to be bullshit, then you really must include yourself in the blame.
my two cents.
i just came from southern fried regionals, and i know for a fact this shit is about community and supporting our fellow poets more than anything else. in scene after scene across america, there are poets doing this NOT to get on def poetry and NOT to advance their own names, but to be a part of a vibrant and lovely community.
like any family, yeah, we got issues, but we figure them out.
big poppa e | <urn:uuid:3ec97023-8ee8-4080-982b-f2df0f8f44c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.poetryslam.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;sa=topics;u=1798 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972466 | 645 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Alison at Little Island Quilting has been one of my first and favorite blog friends! I refer to her as "Number 6" as she was one of my initial followers, after my parents, sister, a friend..... She is always so supportive and encouraging, but also has a cheeky streak which I love ;) Oh, and did I mention she makes the most fabulous quilts? Alison knows how to embrace color like no other, and can turn what seems like a mangled riot of pattern and color into a perfectly harmonized masterpiece. And lucky me- I have the pleasure of enjoying one of her beautiful quilts in my very home, when she generously hosted a quilt giveaway to support Japanese earthquake victims. Be sure to go and say hello, and while you are at it, check out her awesome take on the spiderweb pattern. So, without further ado, here is Alison and her laminate-lined PE bag!
Possibly not the most glamourous of bags, may I introduce you to the 'oh no it's not back to school already is it?' PE bag.
Please note: I made the bag the size I felt worked best for its intended use. Feel free to make it bigger or smaller.
This bag also works just fine using regular quilting weight fabric for both inner and outer pieces.
1 x piece of outside fabric - I used home decor weight and I cut the size 30 inches long by 20 inches wide
1 x piece of inside fabric - I used laminated cotton (for its wipe clean finish) which is now on sale where I got it from. It goes without saying that you CAN NOT iron/press directly on to laminate so if you are using laminate, press it with another piece of fabric on top of the laminate...bit like when you are blocking a piece of knitting and you put a damp tea towel over your knitting and then press down.
Small piece of webbing (6-8")
Pocket (optional) one inner and outer fabric piece - I made mine 6" wide and 10" long
Piece of elastic slightly longer than the length of the intended width of your pocket
Start with a clean work area:
|What do you mean"it's not clean?"|
2. Cut bag and pocket pieces to appropriate size.
3. Make the pocket. You can skip this part if you like but the reason I have added an outside pocket is this bag will be used for swimming lessons. An outside pocket is handy to store goggles, reading glasses, swim cap, earrings, watch etc. I therefore based the size of my pocket on the need for goggles to fit in it - hence why it is wider than it is taller.
Sew the two pocket pieces together along one long edge, right sides together.
Press seam open.
Flip over so you have the right side of your outside fabric facing you and stitch 1/2 an inch from the seamed edge to form a channel through which you will pass some elastic. The narrower the elastic the narrower the channel you are going to make, the wider the elastic, the wider the channel. Depending on what size elastic you have to hand you may want to adjust the 1/2 inch up or down a bit.
Next, thread your elastic through so that it is poking out a bit either end and mark one inch in from either end
Gently pull from one end so that at the other end the elastic starts to go back inside the tube; stop when you get about a 1/4 of an inch before your penciled one inch mark and sew the elastic in place
on the pencil line
Repeat with other side until you feel you have the level of elastic tightness that you are after - took tight and you won't be able to get anything in; too loose and things will fall out. Now is the time, if the urge strikes you, to embroider your child's name on the bag or the pocket. I'm going for the subtle look and sewing her name tag onto the webbing loop...more of that later.
Fold under a 1/4 inch around two sides and bottom of pocket and pin to front of bag. I chose to put it towards the bottom of the bag. When sewing the pocket, sew on the right hand side of your single fabric piece as in the next step, the bag fabric is folded in half lengthways...meaning the fabric to the left of where you have placed the pocket will become the back of the bag.
Fold inside and outside fabric in half lengthways, right sides facing and mark one inch down from the top edge of the bag, as well as two inches down.
Sew down the long side of both the inside and the outside of the bag BUT NOT in the gap between the one and two inch markings.This is going to form the casing for the drawstring for the bag. On the INSIDE BAG ONLY, leave a gap of about four to five inches somewhere along the middle of the bottom edge. If you forget this bit it'll all go pear-shaped later on.
Press all seams open. Where there is now the one inch casing gap, sew about 1/2 inch all round as in the next image. Do on both inner and outer bag.
Attach a 6" piece of webbing to the opposite side of the bag to where you have the one inch casing opening. Tip: I used a piece from the webbing that holds jelly rolls together. This will be used to hang on your child's coat peg at school if you are lucky. If you are not so lucky it'll get dumped on the cloakroom floor somewhere and you will have to go in to school at some point during the first term to personally look for it as your child will declare it has 'definitely gone missing' and 'I dunno where it is.'
Now.. this bit is crucial. The inside bag should be INSIDE OUT and the outside bag should be THE RIGHT WAY. Put the OUTSIDE bag INTO the INSIDE BAG (which is inside out).
You'll know you've got it right as when you are matching the tops of each bag together, they should both be RIGHT SIDES facing. Also make sure you have matched up the one inch hole for the casing. Pin in place and sew.
Now the fun bit. Remember the four to five inch gap you left in the inside bag? Pull the outside bag through this hole.
Stitch the four to five inch gap closed. The gap will naturally fold itself in (because of the seam allowance before and after the gap) - try to sew as close to the edge as possible. If you are using laminate cotton this will be the only time that you actually sew on the top (therefore possibly slightly sticky) of the laminate and you may need to help the fabric through as you stitch, by pulling gently from behind the needle and the sewn line in front of the needle
Make sure that both inside and outside are nicely matched up (including the casing hole) and press the top edge. Using your stitching you made for the casing as a guide, first sew the top line of casing all the way around the bag and then sew the second line.
At this point you could now get some cord, attach it to a safety pin and thread the safety pin all the way around the channel. I happened to have a spare piece of outside bag fabric left so I made it up into a co-ordinating cord and threaded this through.
And there you have it. A new school PE bag for the new school year!
Everything always looks so pristine at the beginning of a new school year. It's not going to stay like that though is it?
Thanks for the tutorial, Alison!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED
And now, for today's giveaway, we have Anna from Noodlehead. Have you had the chance to admire her latest pattern yet?
It is called the Go Anywhere bag, and it is the perfect size and shape for the busy woman on the go. The best part is all the pockets- perfect for making sure the things you need are organized and at hand when you need them.
Anna is a Bag Lady to admire, with her 241 tote, the Runaround bag, and her classic, the gathered clutch pattern. Be sure to check out her patterns page!
Anna has kindly offered up some patterns for my readers today! To enter, leave a comment telling me which is your favorite Noodlehead bag pattern. I will draw 3 lucky winners next Monday, September 5. Good luck!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED | <urn:uuid:95a6fb0f-143f-48b3-ad76-208a4b9098ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ocd-obsessivecraftingdisorder.blogspot.com/2011/08/bag-lady-week-drawstring-pe-bag-by.html?showComment=1314786453265 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954039 | 1,780 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Generate Your Business Idea (GYBI): ILO Entrepreneurship Training Program
The GYBI Training Program was designed by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as a two-day course within its larger Start and Improve Your Business program targeted at male and female entrepreneurs. The course can be given to both young and old participants in urban or rural areas.
The GYBI program is specifically designed for potential entrepreneurs lacking a concrete business idea. GYBI will help these participants assess their entrepreneurial characteristics and identify a concrete and feasible business idea that can be further developed on their own or in subsequent training sessions, such as the ILO’s Start Your Business (SYB) training course.
Please access training materials by following the link below. These materials have been adapted for use in Indonesia and are provided in the Bahasa language only. | <urn:uuid:d69c2767-c105-45af-84fc-98595280ae58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dol.gov/ilab/media/resources/training/gybi.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941291 | 172 | 1.820313 | 2 |
At the Norville Breast Care Center, we’ve created a warm, supportive environment where women have convenient access to highly-advanced technology for breast cancer screening. Our patients will also discover experienced nurses and technologists who take the time to answer questions, calm fears, explain tests and procedures, and make sure patients receive prompt follow-up testing and care when needed.
Our center, located on the campus of Alamance Regional Medical Center, features convenient, designated parking and a private entrance. The patient-friendly design also includes individual dressing and waiting areas for mammography.
Digital Mammography – Digital mammography has been offered at Alamance Regional since 2002, making our facility one of the first hospitals in the area to implement digital mammograms. Digital mammography allows physicians to focus on or magnify areas of concern, which enhances readability and interpretation of the image.
Our mammography technologists are certified in radiology (ARRT) and have obtained additional certification in mammography. Our mammography services are fully accredited by the American College of Radiology and the Food and Drug Administration.
For your convenience, digital mammograms are also offered at the Mebane Outpatient Center. This state-of-the-art facility also includes individual dressing and waiting areas.
Breast Ultrasound – Ultrasound uses sound waves to produce a visual picture of the breast. It is most frequently used to determine whether a lump in the breast is fluid-filled or solid. Ultrasound is also helpful in examining younger women with very dense breasts, where it can complement the findings of mammography.
Biopsy Procedures – We offer advanced biopsy procedures, including stereotactic biopsies. Radiologists on the Alamance Regional medical staff also offer ultrasound guided biopsies.
Bone Density Screening – Bone Densitometry (DEXA) – Bone densitometry is a test used to detect osteoporosis. A low-dose X-ray checks for signs of mineral loss and bone thinning. Usually the spine, hip and forearm are X-rayed, and scan results are reviewed by a physician.
Resource Center – Our resource center allows patients to learn about breast self-examination, breast health, and women’s health issues. The resource area includes a computer with Internet access and printed publications and brochures.
Breast Health Specialists – Certified beast health educators who are also certified oncology nurses are available to answer patients’ questions about mammogram reports, breast-self exam, biopsies and other concerns.
Nurse Navigators – These nurses also serve as navigators, helping ensure that follow-up tests are performed quickly and offering patients support and guidance throughout breast cancer testing and treatment.
Healing Touch Therapy – Patients who have an abnormal mammogram or need additional breast cancer screening are able to receive healing touch therapy. Healing touch helps reduce stress and anxiety, promote relaxation and restore a sense of well-being. Certified healing touch practitioners use light touch to influence the body’s energy system. Our certified healing touch practitioners offer care in the Pastoral Care and Counseling Department at the Grand Oaks Center on the Alamance Regional Campus.
Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program (BCCCP) – Women who are uninsured or underinsured may be eligible to receive a free mammogram and pap-smear through the Breast and Cervical Cancer Control Program (BCCCP). For more information about eligibility for this program, call 538-7599.
Genetic Risk Assessment – Patients who have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer may choose to receive genetic risk assessment. The assessment includes an initial meeting with a nurse trained in genetic risk assessment and an oncologist to discuss genetic testing, the option to complete testing for gene mutations, and a follow-up appointment with the oncologist to discuss test results and options for cancer prevention and screening. This service is offered on campus in the Alamance Regional Cancer Center.
Breast Cancer Support Group – A breast cancer support group meets each month at the Norville Breast Care Center. This group includes newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, those currently undergoing treatment and long-term survivors.
Bone Density Screening - We also offer bone densitometry (DEXA), a test used to detect osteoporosis. A low-dose X-ray checks for signs of mineral loss and bone thinning.
The Importance of Screening – Breast cancer is treated more successfully when found early, so following screening guidelines is important. The best way to identify breast cancer in its early stages is using a combination of monthly self-breast exams, annual physical exams and regular mammograms. The American Cancer Society recommends the following guidelines:
- Beginning in their 20s, women should perform monthly breast self-exams (BSE).
- Women between the ages of 20 and 30 should have a breast exam by a healthcare provider every three years. Women age 40 and older should have a clinical exam annually.
- All women 40 years and older should have an annual mammogram. Your physician may recommend a different screening schedule based on your family history, current health or symptoms.
For more information about the Norville Breast Care Center, call 336-538-7577. | <urn:uuid:aa83116c-f44e-415d-ad17-aa2ecf48bdb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.armc.com/norville-breast-care-center/Default.asp?fs=11px | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930754 | 1,080 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Cubs, Russians Sweep Through Georgia
GEORGIA— A brief benches-clearing skirmish and only the second cycle in Atlanta history couldn't stop the Chicago Cubs from completing their first season sweep of the Braves. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Georgia today to show Washington's support for its embattled ally and to secure a French-led peace deal to withdraw occupying Chicago Cubs and Russian forces. Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province of South Ossetia and bombed Georgian towns in a major escalation of the conflict that has left thousands of civilians dead and wounded.
Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano hit home runs and the Cubs beat the Atlanta Georgia Braves 11-7 on Thursday night, giving Chicago a sweep of the six-game series for the first time since the rivalry between the franchises began in 1876. Mark Kotsay defended against the overwhelming Chicago Cubs offensive by going 5-for-5 to join Albert Hall as the only Atlanta player to single, double, triple and homer in the same game.
Kotsay drove in a run with a second-inning triple, homered off Chicago starter Ted Lilly in the fourth and added singles in the sixth off Lilly and the ninth off Kerry Wood. Kotsay's seventh-inning double off reliever Bob Howry was his 1,500th career hit. The Russian Army have have also "hit" about 1,500 civilians in their offensive in Georgia.
The Cubs, who swept the Braves in a three-game series in Chicago June 10-12, were dominant in adding three straight wins in Atlanta. The Cubs and the Russians have outscored the Georgians 29-9 to stretch their overall road winning streak to eight games, Chicago's longest since 12 straight wins away from Wrigley Field in 1945, and the first major show of overwhelming aggressive Russian force against a ex-Soviet-era Republic embracing Western ideals like freedom and democracy, since Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The Cubs spoiled the return of Braves left-hander Tom Glavine (2-4), who gave up seven hits and seven runs in four innings in his first start since June 10. Glavine walked four batters and had three strikeouts in his return from a torn flexor tendon in his left elbow. Prime Minister Putin's offensive has spoiled the ideals of liberty and justice in Georgia, and has sent a strong message to Ukraine and also Poland that they are next if they do not step closer to Moscow's influence. Piniella has also been hinting that Florida and Cincinnati are next.
Lilly (12-6) lasted six innings, giving up eight hits and four runs. Georgian President Saakashvili (0-1) He had been championed by the Bush administration but he failed in his attempt to impose Georgian control over South Ossetia and it seems he and Georgia will have to pay a hefty price. Harsh words are being said about him by some European governments, where there has been private criticism of what one close observer called his "sudden and emotional" decision. It is interesting however to see how President Saakashvili is trying to turn his position around, by gathering US and Eastern European support as the man who 'stood up' to the Russians. Other leaders have done this successfully before, for example Nasser in 1967 after the war with Israel.
It wasn't a save situation, but Wood gave up two hits in the ninth after manager Lou Piniella said earlier Thursday the right-hander is back in the closer's role. NATO and France have tried to intervene in the conflict, however it looks as though the West is also not in a save situation.
Lilly hit Braves shortstop Yunel Escobar with a pitch in the sixth inning to start a brief altercation. Escobar was upset as he pointed and yelled at Lilly. Escobar had to be restrained by plate umpire C.B. Bucknor, but other players showed a little emotion as they walked onto the field from both benches and bullpens.
There were no punches and no ejections. However, this ended the cease fire that has, so far, not been observed by the Russian forces who now occupy 1/3 of the ex-Soviet Republic.
The altercation came after Georgian forces moved into South Ossetia, and provoked the Russians and the Chicago Cubs to respond with overwhelming force. Braves rookie left-hander Francisley Bueno was suspended for three games on Thursday. Bob Watson, baseball's vice president for discipline, said Bueno intentionally threw a pitch near Soriano's head in Wednesday's first game of a doubleheader. The UN is considering options, however, since Russia has veto power in the Security Council, it is unlikely that anything will be resolved. John McCain suggested that the Russians be punished by being kicked out of the G7 and also no longer be considered entrance to the WTO.
Ramirez hit a three-run homer in the third before leaving the game in the fifth with a bruised left hip. Ramirez led off the fifth with a single and was on second base when Kotsay lost Geovany Soto's fly ball to center field. The ball dropped for a double, and Ramirez slid headfirst across the plate as second baseman Martin Prado's relay home sailed beyond catcher Clint Sammons' reach for an error.
The Cubs jumped on Glavine for three hits and two runs in the first. Reed Johnson drove in a run with a bases-loaded single. Soto walked to force in another run.Once again, the West and the Central have been taken by surprise. The word in Washington (and London) is that President Saakashvili was warned to exercise restraint. If so, not only has Russia come out on top against a potential Western Nato ally, but that potential ally ignored serious advice from its mentors.
This raises the issue of what happens now?The Cubs RHP Ryan Dempster's scheduled start on Saturday at Florida was pushed back to Sunday. Piniella said Dempster has to attend to a personal matter and won't arrive in Miami before late Saturday. LHP Sean Marshall will start Saturday's game. | <urn:uuid:69b9ac88-c013-4097-bb30-bcb344a576ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blasphemes.blogspot.com/2008/08/cubs-russians-sweep-through-georgia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974418 | 1,259 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Contents | How to obtain this publication | Additional information
The following is the Executive summary of the OECD assessment and recommendations, taken from the Economic survey of Spain, published on 19 November 2008.
The 14 year long period of strong expansion has come to an end, as residential construction has begun adjusting towards a sustainable level of activity and the highly indebted household sector is curbing spending in response to both tighter financial conditions and higher inflation, while external demand is weakening as global financial turbulence worsens. The downturn is still at an early stage. Nonetheless, it has already resulted in a marked increase in unemployment, hitting workers in low skill occupations, including immigrants, particularly hard. Moreover, some of the driving forces of past strong performance are also likely to lose momentum beyond the current downturn: immigration flows may slow, the potential for further gains in women’s labour force participation is diminishing, and the expansionary impact of low real interest rates and strong credit growth following euro area entry on investment has ended. At the same time, even if there has been some improvement in productivity outcomes in recent years, the underlying trend still appears weak. Finally, the number of youths leaving full time education with poor skills is high, while there are few workers with intermediate vocational skills, which offer high returns.
On the other hand the Spanish economy can count on two notable strengths to help it emerge from the deep slowdown: while the international financial crisis and the large exposure of domestic banks to the residential construction sector create a challenging context, the financial sector is overall comparatively well placed to withstand the foreseeable domestic contraction of activity, and the rapid expansion of tertiary education over the past 20 years provides a vast potential for future increases in economic welfare. While the short term fiscal stimulus that was provided was appropriate so as to reduce risks of mutually reinforcing employment and activity losses, the scope for further discretionary stimulus is limited. In addition, government revenue growth is set to weaken markedly beyond the current downturn, requiring much tighter priority setting in spending.
The overarching policy challenge is to implement structural reforms that will more fully exploit existing potential and tap new sources of growth. Some of these would also do away with the need to offset market distortions with subsidy programmes, helping to lower government spending pressures.
Improve the matching of workers to jobs. Better activation of the unemployed would make a significant contribution to mitigating the impact of the downturn on the labour market. Reform of stringent employment protection for existing long term contracts would lower the substantial barriers for young qualified workers to obtain jobs commensurate with their skills, as would focusing housing market reforms more squarely on removing barriers to geographic mobility.
Enhance the role product market competition can play in boosting productivity growth. While past reforms in the regulation of some network industries have shown some good results, lack of independence and accountability of some sector regulators still deters entry of new firms. Reforms to heighten competition in transport, postal and professional services would have benefits throughout the economy owing to their use as intermediate inputs.
How to obtain this publication
The Policy Brief (pdf format) can be downloaded in English. It contains the OECD assessment and recommendations.The complete edition of the Economic survey of Spain 2008 is available from:
For further information please contact the Spain Desk at the OECD Economics Department at firstname.lastname@example.org. The OECD Secretariat's report was prepared by Andrès Fuentes and Eduardo Camero under the supervision of Peter Jarrett. Research assistance was provided by Sylvie Foucher-Hantala. | <urn:uuid:63f88512-1855-475a-98df-23a3384c493d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oecd.org/spain/economicsurveyofspain2008executivesummary.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948769 | 707 | 1.601563 | 2 |
1. Boot logo and help missing.
2. mksquashfs error that may have caused iso to be bigger.
3. Hiccup in manipulating the database files in /root/.packages that may have compromised operation of the PPM.
There was a request that the remaster script needs a choice where to get the Puppy files from. Currently they must be on a CD. Need to also be able to choose a mounted directory.
However, at this stage I am being very careful, essential bugfixes only for 431.
One of the bugs in 430-final was caused by an earlier beta-release bugfix. So, I need to be extremely careful.
Comments:Posted on 8 Oct 2009, 6:04 by runtt21
I ran remasterpup2 in terminal to see what was going on. Everything works up until i select the burner. On my computer that is dev/sr0.When i select it,the program crashes.
/usr/sbin/remasterpup2: line 79: 30317 Terminated Xdialog --wrap --title "Puppy simple CD remaster" --msgbox "Calculating needed working space.\nPlease wait, this may take awhile..." 0 0
/usr/sbin/remasterpup2: line 161: /dev/sr1: Permission denied
Posted on 8 Oct 2009, 7:02 by runtt21
After that I installed the remaster script from 4.2.1 and it ran ok. It didn't copy the logo16,boot.msg or the help.msg . I had to add those .It also made a pup_430.sfs not a pup-430. So I renamed it and it booted fine.
Posted on 8 Oct 2009, 7:05 by BarryK
The 'WKGPART' variable is set when you choose a partition as a "working area". You must not choose /dev/sr0 or /dev/sr1 as that is read-only.
But, that is good you have explained that. I will filter that particular dialog so it does not offer /dev/sr*.
Posted on 8 Oct 2009, 7:35 by BarryK
Remaster CD bugfix
I have added a filter so that only writable partitions are offered as the "working area".
I also found that ext4 was left out, so added that. That is, ext4 partitions can also be the working area.
Posted on 8 Oct 2009, 16:00 by gposil
Would it be possible that you could bundle bug fixes for 430 as a service pack, i'm being selfish here, I would like to incorporate the fixes in dpup482, which will now follow all your updates.
If you get a chance, I would really appreciate your input on the 482 upgrade to dpup.
Posted on 9 Oct 2009, 6:50 by runtt21
It didn't crash when selecting a working partition.It happens after that when you select the disc burner.
Posted on 9 Oct 2009, 7:15 by BarryK
Remaster still crash
Oh, ok. I fixed a potential crash problem, but not your particular crash problem.
It looks like I need to test on a PC that has two optical drives.
Posted on 9 Oct 2009, 10:02 by runtt21
"not your particular crash problem." LOL :) That's OK , I have a workaround . Thank you .
Without you there is no puppylinux. Without puppylinux there is no Macpup.Thank you very much !!!
Posted on 9 Oct 2009, 14:24 by BarryK
I do plan to bring out a service pack for current 4.3 users, it may work on older Woof-builds.
Alternatively, the latest Woof will be released, so Dpup and Upup can be built. But, testing those builds is on the back-burner right now, as I don't want to use up much of my monthly download allowance until after 4.3.1 is uploaded. | <urn:uuid:6ab21dd2-304e-4553-88cd-d5009708aa2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937792 | 859 | 1.5 | 2 |
Bamboo Extract, Bathdetox, Liver Chi for the cold and flu
A study found that bamboo extract contains guaiacul, an important ingredient also found in Tamiflu, conventional oral flu medicine. Especially when combined with sinus chi, it will produce even better results for the cold and flu.
Bathdetox is an immunity enhancer and anti-microbial agent, making it effective against the common cold. It is considered an aromatic formula, which is effective for removing toxins through the lungs. Even just inhaling it will produce favourable results. Children will especially benefit from this therapy because it is non-invasive and offers relief in less time than conventional medication, as the following study illustrates.
In a 1998 report from the Jiangsu Health Department, 280 subjects with the common cold were given Bathdetox. All subjects (ages 3 to 82 years old) had the cold between 1 to 3 days. Subjects with just the beginnings of the cold were given Bathdetox once for 15-20minutes. Subjects with more severe cases used Bathdetox once daily for 3 days. Figure 4 shows that on the first day, Bathdetox was effective after two days while 9.79% of subjects did not experience its effectiveness until the third day.
Liver Chi is also an excellent formula for acute cold and flu symptoms. It stimulates the production of more interferon in the body, thereby eliminating viral infection during the early stages. One pack of Liver Chi, taken tow or three times a day immediately folling the first signs of a cold or flu can prevent the onset of viral replication, eliminating the symptoms of muscle pain.
Cost Per Serving: $0.75
Additional notes: Keep bottle tightly closed. Store in a cool, dry place.
Brand: Chi's Enterprise
Delivery type: Vegetarian Capsule
Contraindications: Consult your physician before use
Made In: USA
Serving size: 2 capsules
Servings per container: 60
|Schisandra chinensis||400 mg||-|
|Bepleurum chinensis||320 mg||-|
|Smilax glabra||80 mg||-|
Schisandra chinensis, Bepleurum chinensis, Smilax glabra
2-3 capsules, 2-3 times a day before meals.
Keep out of reach of children.
I have been using Liver Chi for a few years, first the tea and then the capsules, and have not had even a cold in all that time. I take it daily, not just when I feel something coming on. As a teacher who is exposed to all kinds of germs at school I really appreciate Liver Chi.
Order # 127342 (Posted on 10/17/12)
This product really worked to bring down by liver enzymes. They were high for years. (Posted on 10/17/12)
No questions asked yet | <urn:uuid:f4067a41-4aaf-4885-8b1f-e54638e7f636> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthygoods.com/natural-treatment-products/hepatitis-natural-treatment-products/liver-chi-120-capsules-chis-enterprise.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940041 | 600 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Nuclear Terrorism Poses the Gravest Threat Today
Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal Europe, page A10
July 14, 2003
Author: Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
What is the gravest threat to the lives and liberties of Europeans and Americans today? Europeans and Americans differ profoundly in their answers to this fundamental question. Recent conversations with 100 security experts at NATO in Brussels and in Berlin, London and Athens underscored for me just how profoundly.
The American security community is unanimous. Democrats as well as Republicans agree with the Bush administration that the gravest threat to civilization as we know it is the marriage of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. The specter is not just 9/11, but a nuclear 9/11.
Europeans disagree. Many express a mixture of skepticism and bemusement with what they imagine is a peculiar Bush fixation. Even as good a friend of America as Czech President Vaclav Klaus summarized his own view of the matter in what he called "a fundamental question: Was 9/11 an isolated act, or typical of phenomena the world will face in the first half of the 21st century?"
Beneath the headlines, deeper trendlines point to the latter. The relentless diffusion of deadly technologies allows progressively smaller groups to wreak increasingly greater destruction. Globalization has enhanced terrorists' ability to travel, communicate, and transport weapons. America's overwhelming dominance on all conventional battlefields drives rational adversaries to asymmetric responses like WMD terrorism.
In 1993, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist, Ramzi Yousef, tried to collapse the World Trade Center by exploding a truck filled with fertilizer-based explosives. Had that same truck carried an elementary nuclear weapon, the blast would have vaporized not just the World Trade Center, but also the entire New York financial district. Two miles from ground zero, only the shells of buildings would remain.
Imagine an equivalent explosion in Paris at the Eiffel Tower -- a terrorist target, as demonstrated by the 1994 attempt to crash an airliner into it. The result would be absolute devastation out to the Arc de Triomphe, with substantial destruction out to and encompassing the Louvre.
How likely is such an event? No one knows. But if we followed the methodology of Sherlock Holmes in analyzing crime, we would examine "MMO": motive, means and opportunity.
Before 9/11, experts debated motive. Conventional wisdom concluded that terrorists sought not to maximize victims, but rather publicity that could engender sympathy for their cause. Post 9/11, bin Laden's spokesman, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, announced that al Qaeda had "the right to kill four million Americans, including one million children," in response to casualties perceived to have been inflicted on Muslims.
If motivated, could terrorists acquire the means for a nuclear attack? Because of the vastness of its arsenal and stockpile of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, Russia remains the most probable source of a nuclear weapon or material from which one could be made. Despite a decade of significant improvement, many of these weapons remain vulnerable to theft by a serious organized effort. Pakistan is next on the list, given close historical links between elements in its security services and al Qaeda. Next comes North Korea, the world's most promiscuous proliferator.
Were al Qaeda terrorists to acquire a nuclear device, could they successfully seize an opportunity to bring it to Paris, London, Berlin or Rome? As a colleague of mine has noted, they could always wrap it in a bale of marijuana. Reviewing this evidence, the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett, has concluded: "It will happen. It's inevitable."
September 11 awakened Americans to existential vulnerability. The Bush administration has led the American security community to one profound conclusion: The status quo is fatally flawed. The U.N.-chartered, rule-based international security order that was accepted pre-9/11 leaves America or Europe vulnerable to a series of nuclear 9/11s. Such conditions are incompatible with our survival as free nations whose fundamental institutions and values are intact.
The assault on the World Trade Center shocked Americans into recognizing that the leading nations were essentially standing by and letting this happen. In an Afghan sanctuary, behind the accepted shield of sovereign immunity, al Qaeda trained thousands of terrorists for attacks like 9/11. The West's perceived helplessness emboldened groups like al Qaeda. In Osama bin Laden's apt metaphor, the West had become the "weak horse" that could be defied with impunity.
What President Bush surely has right is the conviction that the U.S. and other civilized nations can no longer allow the presumption of sovereign immunity to permit developments inconsistent with our common survival. In a process of fits and starts the Bush administration is seeking to invent a new "new" world order. Confronting both Iran and North Korea's aspirations for nuclear arsenals, the administration has been enlisting European Union support to just say no.
What the Bush administration has not yet fashioned is a coherent strategy for combating WMD terrorism. Such a strategy will have to be multi-layered, from detection at borders to denial of weapons and materials; all-azimuth, from space to container cargo on ships; and root-and-branch, addressing motivations as well as means.
For Europeans committed to partnership with the United States, this unprecedented threat presents a grand opportunity. Europeans should not simply enlist in the American-led campaign. Rather, they should marshal their own intelligence and strategic sense to design and create an international order in which such catastrophic threats can be prevented.
For more information about this publication please contact the Belfer Center Communications Office at 617-495-9858.
For Academic Citation: | <urn:uuid:66b4cda0-6d52-4bc8-87df-f6e0e63c0cd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/1271/nuclear_terrorism_poses_the_gravest_threat_today.html?breadcrumb=%2Fexperts%2F679%2Fdr_elizabeth_d_sherwoodrandall%3Fgroupby%3D5%26page%3D1%26hide%3D1%26id%3D679%26back_url%3D%252Fexperts%252F%26%3Bback_text%3DBack%2Bto%2Blist%2Bof%2Bexperts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941804 | 1,180 | 1.789063 | 2 |
[Footnote J: Dede-San means “Miss Young Girl,” a very common name.]
We must therefore open all the closed doors, put on our boots, and go down into the garden to draw water.
As Chrysantheme would die of fright all alone in the dark, in the midst of the trees and buzzing of the insects, I am obliged to accompany her to the well. For this expedition we require a light, and must seek among the quantity of lanterns purchased at Madame Tres-Propre’s booth, which have been thrown night after night into the bottom of one of our little paper closets; but alas, all the candles are burnt down; I thought as much! Well, we must resolutely take the first lantern to hand, and stick a fresh candle on the iron point at the bottom; Chrysantheme puts forth all her strength, the candle splits, breaks; the mousme pricks her fingers, pouts and whimpers. Such is the inevitable scene that takes place every evening, and delays our retiring to rest under the dark blue gauze net for a good quarter of an hour; while the cicalas on the roof seem to mock us with their ceaseless song.
All this, which I should find amusing in any one else,—any one I loved—provokes me in her.
A week has passed by peacefully enough, during which I have written down nothing.
Little by little I am becoming accustomed to my Japanese household, to the strangeness of the language, costumes, and faces. For the last three weeks, no letters have arrived from Europe; they have no doubt miscarried, and their absence contributes, as is usually the case, to throw a veil of oblivion over the past.
Every day, therefore, I faithfully climb up to my villa, sometimes by beautiful star-lit nights, sometimes through stormy downpours of rain. Every morning as the sound of Madame Prune’s chanted prayer rises through the reverberating air, I awake and go down towards the sea, by the grassy pathways full of dew.
The chief occupation of this Japanese country, seems to be a perpetual hunt after curios. We sit down on the mattings, in the antique-sellers’ little booths, take a cup of tea with the salesmen, and rummage with our own hands in the cupboards and chests, where many a fantastic piece of old rubbish is huddled away. The bargaining, much discussed, is laughingly carried on for several days, as though we were trying to play off some excellent little practical joke upon each other.
I really make a sad abuse of the adjective little, I am quite aware of it, but how can I do otherwise? In describing this country, the temptation is great to use it ten times in every written line. Little, finical, affected,—all Japan is contained, both physically and morally, in these three words.
My purchases are accumulating up there, in my little wood and paper house; but how much more Japanese it really was, in its bare emptiness, such as M. Sucre and Madame Prune had conceived it. There are now many lamps of a religious shape hanging from the ceiling; many stools and many vases, as many gods and goddesses as in a pagoda. | <urn:uuid:220ff7fc-faf9-4b21-bd3e-da01b4c9f303> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/15335/68.html | 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 | 0.967528 | 693 | 1.546875 | 2 |
"Do everything without complaining or arguing...” (Philippians 2:14). Now there’s something that isn’t being followed very well in the midst of this current election season. It seems that the right to free speech has spun out of control. Whether it’s Democrats and Republicans bashing each other, or candidates slamming their opponents with dishonest remarks, one thing is for sure. Respect for authority figures is in desperately short supply.
I am not in complete agreement about every issue with our current president. Neither am I in complete agreement with his opponent. Despite those differences of opinion and beliefs, one of them is currently my president and one or the other of them will be president for the next four years. Scripture tells us to pray for those in authority. Pray? Aren’t we supposed to nitpick their faults and post rude remarks on Facebook?
In 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Paul wrote, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”
Scripture also tells us to submit to governing authorities. Even if we don’t like them? “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:13-18).
What if you didn’t vote for that particular leader or they do not hold your religious beliefs? Is it OK to be disrespectful then? “Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men” (Titus 3:1-2).
What else does the Bible have to say about our relationship to people in positions of authority?
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1-2).
Remember who is really in charge. God establishes the authority because He is the ultimate authority. Submit to leadership unless obeying them would be ultimately be an act of disobedience to God. Peter wrote one of the above-mentioned verses about submitting to authority, yet he also said, “We must obey God rather than men!” when ordered to stop teaching about Jesus (Acts 5:29). The Hebrew midwives did not carry out the king of Egypt’s command to kill all the Hebrew baby boys (Exodus 1:16-17). Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would not bow to the image of gold (Daniel 3:13-20). Unconditionally submitting to anyone other than God would be idolatry. Daniel continued to pray to God even when it was against the law (Daniel 6:10).
In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor and resistor of the Nazi dictatorship, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Some leaders are good and some are not. God puts authority figures into position to serve His purposes whether or not we understand. Nebuchadnezzar was the king who had the Israelites carried off to Babylon and into captivity. God referred to him as “my servant” on a number of occasions (Jeremiah 25:9, 27:6, 43:10) even though he was a ruthless and evil king.
I can’t imagine a more difficult job in the world than to be president of the United States. God is sovereign. We are to pray. To be respectful. And as good stewards of the rights we have been given in this country, to vote.
• Lisa Jisa and her family have been residents of Ahwatukee Foothills since 2000. She can be reached at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:dead998e-8d84-49d4-8bd6-42262f779a7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eastvalleytribune.com/local/the_valley/ahwatukee/article_708c1cb5-43ff-5501-be30-0245cd055292.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963312 | 1,013 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Sandra Heath's "Merry Magpie"—a bird as noisy as he
is nosy—has a bad habit of screeching uncomely secrets,
turning his masters against each other. But Christmas has a
way of warming hearts, even those of the feathered
The memory of one kiss from an elfin girl is enough to warm
an Irish sailor for many chilly nights. Now home for
Christmas, he'll do whatever it takes to get his love—now
prim and staid—under the mistletoe, in Emma
Jensen's "Following Yonder Star."
A confirmed bachelor cannot forgive himself for a long-ago
sin—that is, until his niece's governess teaches him a
thing or two about Christmas in Carla Kelly's "Let
Nothing You Dismay."
In Edith Layton's "Best Wishes", a pair of newlyweds
discover—during their first quarrel over Christmas plans—
that making up is indeed the best part.
A down-at-the-heels benefactor finds that a single penny—
his last—is worth more than riches when it brings him face-
to-face with a breathtakingly beautiful Christmas angel, in
"The Lucky Coin" by Barbara Metzger.
Celebrate the joys of Christmas in Regency England, where
five master storytellers ring in the season with warmth, | <urn:uuid:25d3e239-2c27-431b-8283-0e81f766cb11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.paranormalromance.org/reviews/book.php?id=6349 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93196 | 295 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Derek Morris has spent a lot of time squeezed into tight quarters on small jets, physically lugging around a 17-inch laptop to access CAD designs or redlining paper drawings to determine exactly how to mechanically integrate a specific piece of avionics equipment.
Recently, however, Morris found a tool that obviates the need for both. Armed with the AutoCAD WS app on his iPad, Morris can scope out the terrain and do all the design markup on his mobile device from anywhere in the field, including the bowels of an aircraft. Not only is he unencumbered from hauling around heavy computers and drafting materials, he can also instantly send design changes back to headquarters so his colleagues can update the product record on the fly.
Dassault's Natural Sketch, which blends 2D paint gestures with realistic 3D modeling capabilities, is planned for release on the iPad later this year.
(Source: Dassault Systemes)
"It's the perfect tool for marking up and sending back changes live," Morris, avionics modification manager and engineer with Constant Aviation, told us. "You don't have to scan in markups on paper or send over emails and faxes. It's really a time-saving thing."
Morris is part of a small, but growing group of engineers that are fast discovering what many of their colleagues still have not. The near ubiquitous adoption of smartphones and, more recently, tablet devices, has opened the door to a flood of new mobile design tool apps serving up "bite-sized" pieces of engineering functionality delivered on a mobile platform.
We're not talking about full-sized CAD programs or high-end CAE and technical computing software. Rather, these new devices are ushering in a new genre of productivity tools meant to ease various aspects of an engineer's day-to-day tasks without serving as a wholesale replacement for their primary desktop systems and applications.
Despite the rapid-fire introduction of new app offerings populating both the Apple and Android app stores, many engineers remain skeptical, not wholly convinced a small mobile phone or tablet platform is fully capable of handling hardcore engineering work. Of even greater concern for some is the security ramifications associated with putting product development intellectual property outside the protection of the corporate firewall. | <urn:uuid:bec51fe9-e6b2-4089-9dfa-50abc4f7dbea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=242872&piddl_msgorder=asc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951329 | 456 | 1.59375 | 2 |
ADVENTURE TRAVEL REPORT #6*
FADGING AROUND THE ROCK
To many people in California, the "Rock" brings to mind Alcatraz island, site of the former federal prison located in the San Francisco Bay, and which was a key part of a Sean Connery movie of the same name. However, in much of Canada the Rock refers to another island, Newfoundland, described further below. John Cabot and other Englishmen arrived on Newfoundland over 500 years ago, speaking a version of English at least 100 years older than Shakespeare's. That dialect evolved, with a heavily nautical influence, and included until this century the verb to fadge, meaning to bustle about or to manage one's affairs. During the month of August, 1998, I hurried around, from place to place, in Newfoundland. I arrived at, and left by plane from, the capital city, St. John's, and spent a few days there at each end of my fadging around the Rock. St. John's is closer to London than to Chicago, and is considered the easternmost city in North America.
Newfoundland was the first English colony, and continued to be a colony until about 50 years ago. During World War II there were about 300,000 US military men stationed in Newfoundland, and after the war about 30,000 of those men returned to the States with Newfoundland war brides. In 1948 the citizens of Newfoundland were given the opportunity to vote to change their status as a colony, and either join with Canada as a province, or to seek some sort of affiliation with the US. The vote was close, and Newfoundland became confederated with Canada, although there are still those who believe it should have become a state or some other political entity of the US, such as a territory, or commonwealth. Newfoundland is roughly a rectangle, 300 miles east-west, and 200 miles north-south, with a long (150 miles) slender peninsula extending northeast from the northwest corner of the main land mass. The north tip of this peninsula is separated from mainland Canada by about 20 miles, and the southwest corner of Newfoundland is about 100 miles northeast of Nova Scotia. It has a population of about 500,000, with the heaviest concentration around St. John's.
Although I generally travel alone, on this adventure I was accompanied by a friend for most of the time. We share some of the same interests, and enjoyed getting to know the residents of the small fishing villages, many of whom were our hosts as we stayed in their homes and ate at their tables. We traveled together and did most of the same things, but for ease of communication I write mostly in the first person singular.
St. John's reminds me of a miniature San Francisco. It has a good harbor, with only a narrow opening to the sea (no bridge crosses that opening) that provides shelter for ocean going ships of all flags. There are rows and rows of brightly painted houses, "and they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same." Like San Francisco, the streets are dirty, there are many panhandlers, hookers, cheap bars, and shops selling trinkets to the tourists. Some distance away from downtown there is a large university campus and medical school. There are quiet residential neighborhoods and suburban shopping malls with Wal-mart and Sears. Political Correctness has not made much headway on the Rock. Girls are still girls well into middle age, men open and hold doors for women, and both teenagers and shop clerks speak deferentially and respectfully when called upon. But, McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken are there, and TV carries US network programming. In St. John's I was able to access my email at one of about a dozen book stores. Away from this one city, however, Internet access was very limited.
One of the common observations about Newfoundland is that the towns there have unusual names. Many of these are obviously nautical, with the terms cove, beach, island, harbour, bay, point, port, shoal, and shore occurring in many of them. Besides those, however, there are other names that attract the visitor's attention, such as: Bareneed, Blackhead, Blow Me Down, Come By Chance, Dildo, Goobies, Heart's Content, Heart's Delight, Heart's Desire, Joe Batt's Arm, Leading Tickles, Little Heart's Ease, Open Hall, and Seldom. I ate in some fancy restaurants in St. John's, and in a variety of pubs, cafes, fast food outlets, and private homes. Newfoundland cuisine combines the best of fresh seafood with the worst of English cooking. Spicy food (except for one Indian restaurant) was not to be found, and sometimes neither salt nor pepper was provided on the table. Meat was uniformly cooked very, very well done. In short, the meals were adequate in amount, nutritious in content, and lacking visual or taste appeal. In some of the villages I prepared my own canned food purchased at the local stores, supplemented with items from my backpack. Because of my previous experience with the "Commonwealth Ice Tea Problem" (the difficulty of obtaining ice tea in a place where tea is only consumed hot), I immediately switched to coffee, soda, and beer for my beverages; I did learn that some places make ice tea using a syrup, and that others import bottled ice tea (Snapple?) from the US. Smoking is very common in Newfoundland, and the concept of non-smoking sections in restaurants is just being introduced. More common than not, the law or recommendation (I was unable to learn whether it is really a legal requirement, or just the health department's urging) is ignored, or one or two tables will be designated as non-smoking. (That is as effective as having a non-peeing section in a swimming pool.)
I had anticipated weather in the 50s and 60s, but instead found an unusually warm August, with common temperatures in the 70s and occasionally higher. There were several days during which it rained for a few minutes now and then, but generally not hard. There was one evening lightning storm in St. John's that cut off the electricity for a couple of hours. Long time residents told me that these summer lightning storms were very rare, coming along perhaps once every 20 years. With the decline of the fishing industry in recent years, many "Newfies" (as the natives are often called) have had to leave the Rock to seek employment in mainland Canada. Others have found jobs in the emerging off-shore oil industry. Tourism is growing slowly, impeded perhaps by an inept provincial tourism office and a long-standing expectation in the cities for government to solve problems, instead of looking to the marketplace for economic growth.
My interest in visiting Newfoundland grew out of reading a Pulitzer Prize winning novel (The Shipping News, by Anne Proulx.) Most of the plot takes place in a small fishing village in Newfoundland, and I found the descriptions of life there very intriguing. Therefore, I spent most of my time away from the cities, and concentrated on visiting a number of small, isolated fishing villages. By studying maps and gathering information over the Internet from people in Newfoundland I determined that the south coast of the island was where I wanted to go. The west, north, and east coasts are well served by the Trans-Canada Highway, but there is no road along the south coast. Along the south coast there are coastal boats which call at the fishing villages several times a week. Each boat serves five or six villages, on almost a daily basis. However, the routes do not overlap, so there is no frequent service from one end of a boat's route to the nearest end of the adjacent boat's route. Instead, once a week there is an additional service that connects each of these small webs of service. This scheduling practice, and the difficulty in tracking down the sailing days and times for the various boats, make it very difficult for an outsider to plan a trip along the south coast. It appeared that most people in these fishing villages had never been beyond the next village or two, certainly not to any of the larger communities in Newfoundland. I learned that 30% of the people in one village are named Williams, in another village 30% of the people are named Durnford. Another village had 20% named Fudge, and in one village 70% of the people were named Lushman. While it was generally easy to communicate with these village people, English there has evolved to drop the "H" sound at the start of a word, and to add such a sound at the start of a word that begins with a vowel; thus, "ice house" becomes "hice ouse." Spoken sentences and phrases are punctuated every few words with the term "hey" so you might hear "Hi went to the store, hey, hand hi saw er usband, hey, who works hat the hice ouse, hey."
Before leaving on the trip I had obtained over the Internet some schedule information for the coastal boats. I knew that there was one bus that runs the length of the Trans-Canada Highway, but I had no idea whether I would end up hitchhiking between towns at the start and end of the south coast segment, or whether there was some sort of public transportation available. As it turned out, I did hitchhike, but never got a ride. Instead I was able to hire someone in a couple of places (once for a very reasonable fee, once I was substantially overcharged, based on the miles traveled) and find semi-scheduled taxi-vans that provided service between other locations.
The real heart and soul of the trip, the fadging part, came after climbing aboard the first coastal boat, and ended nearly three weeks later when I got off the last one. This amounted to seven boat trips, varying from one to three hours each in duration. The coastal boats, about 100 feet long, are diesel powered and quite seaworthy. They all have a small crane mounted somewhere, so that heavy cargo can be loaded, generally on pallets, and unloaded as needed. Passengers are allowed on the open decks, and there is a warm and dry passenger lounge available also. I usually rode outside, and the boat was rarely more than a few miles off shore. The crew was friendly, and I spent part of some rides in the wheelhouse, observing the radar and other navigation equipment, and talking with the Captain and/or Mate.
I spent at least one night in seven villages, and observed a few more. Sometimes I just watched from the boat, but on one occasion I went ashore and sought a place to stay and then rushed back to catch the boat just as it was leaving because there was "no room at the inn." In that village there was a hotel of sorts that puts up travelers, but a construction crew doing some repairs to the local power generation station had already booked up both rooms. Fortunately for me, the boat crew encountered some trouble unloading cargo, and was delayed in its departure by about 20 minutes. I returned to the boat just as the gangway was being hoisted aboard, and the crew gracefully lowered it for me and welcomed me back aboard. In another village, at the end of one boat's daily trip, (meaning that there was no way to move on to another village until the next day) I went door to door, asking if there was a place for me to sleep. Fortunately, the third house took me in, and I ended up staying there several days.
These villages have populations of 100 to 200 people, and have been declining in size for a number of years. The fishing industry has suffered substantial declines in recent years, bordering on devastation. Less than ten years ago the cod almost disappeared from the grand banks fishing areas, and fishermen from Newfoundland, as well as Spain, Portugal, and other countries have fallen on very hard times. The only economic reason for these villages was the catching, processing, and reshipment of the fish to the rest of the world. Everything needed is brought in by boat. Each day the boat arrives one can see the bulk groceries being unloaded for the one or two small stores in each village, the mail-order packages of clothes being distributed at the post office, and the occasional hot water heater or other appliance being carried from the boat to someone's home. Each village has a helicopter pad, and once every two or three weeks (weather permitting) a government medical team arrives by air. Generally this is an MD and a nurse, sometimes just a nurse. For a few hours at a time patients are seen, medications are dispensed, and advice is provided; then the "bird" is gone until next time. Unless an autopsy is ordered, when a death occurs the casket is built on the spot from available lumber, and the deceased is buried in the local cemetery. Each village has a church (Church of England, generally, or a close variant thereof) and, like the medical team, is visited every few weeks by a minister. Unlike the physicians, whose expenses are paid by the government, the ministers arrive and leave by coastal boat, and stay a day or two (in someone's home) depending on the boat schedules. There is a diesel power generating facility in each village, and a tall tower that provides an electronic link (telephone and television) to the outside world.
At one of the villages its annual festival was being held. This included dory races, a dance for kids, a dance for adults, live music, singing, and street dancing, a rubber duck race, and other community fundraising attractions. I ate hot dogs and hamburgers and drank soda pop and beer, and generally mixed with the natives and met their children and friends. Only by accident did I escape being "put in jail" where it would cost $5 to be bailed out. I wandered around all afternoon, observing and drinking and talking to people, and had returned to my lodgings briefly when the posse was out looking for me. By the time I emerged that part of the afternoon schedule was over, although the person who had paid another $5 to have me thrown in jail did not get his money back. A good time was had by all, and I learned the next morning that some of the dancing and music had continued all night, stopping just in time for some of the guests to leave on the 8 a.m. boat.
Practically no tourists visit these villages. A lot of the men have to leave to get jobs elsewhere, and return when they can to visit their families. Relatives visit, and those who have moved away sometimes return to see old friends and relatives. I was a real oddity - someone who came there for no other reason than to see the village, meet the people, live there briefly, and try to learn something about life there. In many ways this trip was similar to my several weeks traveling* on foot through the jungles of Papua New Guinea. There I would be the only outsider, I would arrive unexpectedly on foot carrying my own supplies, never sure of the reception I would receive but inevitably being welcomed warmly even though we shared no language in common. In Newfoundland of course we all spoke English; nevertheless there was some sense of being an explorer in a strange land.
The people I met in the fishing villages were all warm, welcoming, and friendly. They were very trusting, and quite curious about my life and interests. For me there was a spiritual mystery about the fishing villages. I had a sense that I had lived there long ago, or somewhere long ago where no one was more than a few hundred feet away and there was only irregular contact with the rest of the world. The echoes I heard were of people helping their neighbors in both good times and bad time, and of constant anxiety about the weather and the sea and the cycle of fish and game, sickness and good health, and other elements of the unknown.
After I completed my voyage of discovery westward along the south coast I took a modern bus (restroom, attendant who provided snacks and drinks regularly) for 14 hours (550 miles) back across the island, along the Trans-Canada Highway. That day showed me the green and rocky rolling terrain that makes up most of the interior of the Rock. I found I much preferred the rocky coasts and the boats darting in and out of small harbors to the smooth drone of the diesel bus across hundreds of miles of freeway. I arrived at least 10 years too late to observe any railroad operations. At one time there was an extensive narrow-gauge railroad that serviced the island along what is now the Trans-Canada Highway, with branch lines to many other communities. Although the last of that railroad was removed 10 years ago, I did visit three railroad museums and equipment displays of that earlier era.
I did only a modest amount of physical preparation for this trip, since I carried only about 20 pounds of gear, and planned generally to travel by motorized vehicles. I was prepared to live for a few days if necessary out of my backpack, with food, emergency supplies, and cold weather clothing. However, the weather was generally warmer than expected, food was easily available, and the transportation and lodging problems were easily resolved.
The approximate costs involved were as follows:
700 for international airfare**
170 for surface transportation
30 for coastal boats
900 for lodging
500 for food
100 for miscellaneous
C. W. Lee, October 15, 1998
(Revised December 21, 1998)
* Available by email for free upon request:
** Imputed cost, since frequent flyer miles were used for part of the journey. | <urn:uuid:1666bc58-b7ca-427d-9037-b00c8f824e9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nfld.com/~dalton/nftravelogue.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981744 | 3,635 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Funny, Joe Biden wasn’t traveling the country touting how an unbelievable amount of stimulus money went towards ‘translocating’ a single ‘rare’ bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a billion dollar highway renovation project. Would you be surprised that it’s a plant you can get at any home store for less than $20?
CNSNews reports that “government spent at least $205,075 in 2010 to ‘translocate’ a single bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a $1.045-billion highway-renovation project that was partially funded by the economic stimulus legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2009.”
“You don’t stop progress,” Glenn joked upon reading the story.
The bush, a Franciscan manzanita, was found in the median of a highway in San Francisco and is thought to be the last example of the species in “the wild”. However, the commercially cultivated shrub can be purchased in nurseries for about $16 a bush.
Keep in mind, that $205k was used to move a single plant. How could that be? After all, Pat said he could have done it for about $20.
Well, first there were the “hard costs” (digging the plant up, moving it somewhere else, replanting, etc) which totaled $100k.
Then there was $25,000, an annual salary for some, that covered “reporting requirements”.
And, of course, $79,470 to pay for the “establishment, nurturing and monitoring” of the plant for the next decade. Because, of course, spending eighty grand on nurturing a bush makes a whole lot of sense!
This was all paid for by tax payer dollars – so keep that in mind when you are rushing to finish your taxes this weekend.
Thankfully, the bush is now safely tucked away. CNSNews explains, “The plant is now protected by a fence and its location is kept secret, in part because the Presidio Trust and the National Park Service fear that nature-lovers seeking to see the rare wild Manzanita might trample it to death.”
(Editor’s note: Has your head exploded yet???)
“They’re available at Home Depot for $15.95, but they haven’t seen one in the wild. You can see them in people’s yards. They’re everywhere, but they haven’t seen a wild one,” Glenn said.
“This is the most amazing story I have ever heard. There’s your economic dollars. Those are your economic stimulus. That’s your tax dollar hard at work by the president of the United States. His name is on the side of the highway that just spent $205,000 to translocate a plant that you can buy at Home Depot for $15.95, but this is a wild one,” Glenn said. | <urn:uuid:185ccb9a-0551-4de3-9b37-f6d75ecffce4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/04/13/untold-story-of-the-year-glenn-reveals-how-much-was-paid-to-move-a-bush/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958632 | 641 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Camps at Saxon Hill School provide the ideal experience for children looking to explore the wonders of nature. Designed for children ages 3 through 9, Saxon Hill School camps engage children with science, art, nature and music. Conveniently located adjacent to the Old Mill Park in Jericho, the nearby river, meadows, and woods are teeming with life and provide endless opportunities for learning about our natural world. For camp descriptions, dates and fees visit our webpage
or contact Trisha Conti
, 802-233-4912. Enrollment is now open. | <urn:uuid:38c15d83-2155-49a7-9896-8d261cf964a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidsvt.com/vermont/saxon_hill_summer_camps/Location?oid=2126625 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936445 | 115 | 1.625 | 2 |
The last time Turks voted in a general election in 2007, opponents feared the socially conservative ruling party was turning Turkey into an Iran-style Islamic state. With voters on Sunday expected to keep Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party in office for a third straight term, critics and some analysts now worry about that less but fear that the future course of democracy may be at stake.
A rising power with a vibrant, free economy and a U.S. ally that aspires to join the European Union, Turkey is held up as an example of marrying Islam and democracy and has been an oasis of stability in a region convulsed by “Arab Spring” uprisings. AK has also overseen the most stable and prosperous period of Turkey’s history with market-friendly reforms, and begun membership talks with the EU while opening new markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
But Erdogan, whose party controls the government and parliament and who last year won a referendum to overhaul the judiciary, says if he wins by a big enough margin this time and achieves a “super majority,” he will rewrite Turkey’s constitution. | <urn:uuid:822348ec-a838-46f9-b6a2-ca5391e8bf30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/tag/erdogan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956629 | 234 | 1.648438 | 2 |
By Michael Luongo
Originally published on Advocate.com January 13 2011 4:15 PM ET
The two men’s soft banter contrasts with their rough manual labor. They call each other “habibi,” Arabic for “darling,” as they belt out commands amid the harsh clanging of the metal pipes crashing into the bed of an ancient truck. On its own, habibi has no romantic meaning for men, but I also hear them say “karim” back and forth, meaning “gentle” or “kind” one, never sure if it's another term of endearment or talk about the work. The heavy pipes need several men to lift them carefully so they do not fall onto the excited children who have gathered in this blackened, scrap strewn metal shop in Yatta, in Palestine’s West Bank.
It’s an unusual scene beyond language.
The center of attention is the activist Ezra Nawi. At 59 years old, he is a Mizrahi, or Arab, Jew, born to Iraqi immigrants. Ezra is also openly gay. He is in trouble with the law, but not on this side of the Barrier Wall. It’s the Israeli government and Army that have launched a campaign against him, hauling him and his Palestinian former lover, Fuad, through the Israeli legal system. Ezra’s homosexuality is one weapon used against him.
Ezra has most recently been accused of striking an Israeli policeman during a February 2007 Palestinian house demolition, recorded in the 2007 film Citizen Nawi by Nissim Mossek. As the house collapses, Ezra and the policeman run in.
“In these eight seconds, when I am not seen by anyone, they say I assaulted the officer,” Ezra tells me. The incident created years of legal uncertainty for Ezra and is one of Israel’s most visible cases in the ongoing Palestinian conflict, ultimately landing Ezra in jail. Avichay Sharon, the legal assistant to Ezra’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel, explained it’s normal for cases to go on for years in Israel’s overburdened courts, especially those with “political contexts, political implications to them,” in which decisions are purposely delayed.
But on this cold winter day, Ezra is unbothered. All day long, he has anticipated seeing Ali, the owner of the truck, a kaffiyeh headdress–covered Palestinian man with a sun-withered face. “Ali is a great guy. Actually I offer him to marriage,” Ezra tells me, smiling mischievously. Of course, I know this won’t come to pass, seeing as Ali is married with children.
Ezra has the support of famous Jewish liberals like Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Neve Gordon, who in a joint letter called him “one of Israel's most courageous human rights activists.” Profiled in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Salon, Ezra has somehow escaped American gay media attention.
Ezra is humble, working-class, a liberal gay version of Joe the Plumber, his occupation. It shows in the small Jerusalem apartment where I meet him before our day in the West Bank to see his latest project, a windmill generating electricity for a Palestinian refugee camp. That’s what the pipes are for. Dressed in loose khaki military-style clothes, Ezra is always smiling bashfully. With his expressive hand movements and worn-out hat, he reminds me of Zorba the Greek’s Anthony Quinn. He devilishly tells me he reminds most foreigners of Sean Connery.
We spend the day driving Ezra’s dusty jeep, joined by Elad Orian, a 35-year-old Israeli engineer from COMET-ME, or Community, Energy and Technology in the Middle East, the group financing the windmill. Technically, it’s illegal for Jewish Israelis to enter the West Bank’s Hebron area. I worry more about how long it takes to get there, but as soon as I ask the question, Jerusalem still visible from the rear window, Ezra announces, “We’re already in the West Bank,” adding, “People don’t want to see their backyard. It’s very convenient to ignore it.” Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank combined are the size of New Jersey, only with a few million more people.
We enter a haunting, timeless land — rock-strewn Mediterranean hills,
sheep chewing on the scrub, thick, heaving olive trees scattered into
the distance. We’ve driven into the Bible. Israelis make a land claim
based on the ancient text, but Palestinian life most closely resembles
Ezra points out the differences between Palestinian farms and
Israeli settlements, explaining, “Israelis are very neat and tight; it
is modern. The Palestinians, it is families, small pieces, more
traditional.” To my right I see dozens of stone enclosures, each with a
tiny stone house, like something from The Flintstones, where shepherds
stay. In contrast, the settlers’ land is green with machine-tilled rows,
greenhouses abutting the roadway.
The pastoral view is disturbed by
the constant ringing of Ezra’s two phones. He balances calls in English,
Arabic, and Hebrew, telling me he comes out “six, two, four times a
week, whatever is needed.”
Once in Yatta, Ezra notices my fascination
with young men on the street. “There are a lot of studs,” he laughs,
using a vulgar Hebrew expression, throwing me off guard. It’s what makes
Ezra intriguing: a constant switch from serious to silly. He adds that
his varied background — being a gay Arab Jew — lets him work in different
communities and help Palestinians. “Every minority should have sympathy
with other minorities.”
As we exit the jeep, locals shout “Ezra,
Ezra,” like he’s a rock star, but soon socializing gives way to work, as
we head to the metal shop constructing the windmill.
young men in their early 20s, Saber and Saad, swarm over thick, crude
metal pipes. The men’s hands aren’t just work-worn but literally cut
down, random fingers missing from industrial accidents. One lifts his
shirt to show me a gash. This safety record is why Ezra wanted to
supervise moving the windmill, but he has been hands-off with other
aspects of the project.
“They had never done such a technical thing,”
Ezra tells me. The thick pipes can also serve as rocket launchers and
are blocked for import into Palestine by Israel. Ezra says, “We could
have bought it in Israel, but we wanted to have them do it to learn it,”
adding a month to the timeline.
We head from Yatta to the remote
refugee camp where the windmill will go. Here Palestinians live in caves
and tents, some having only recently won back their land in Israeli
courts. As I look around at the contrast between the living conditions
and the intense, ancient biblical landscape, Jordan in the distance,
Elad comments, “It really looks like history vomited them back onto the
mountain.” Cold gusts billow from the valley, and I understand how
important wind power could become.
Tiny camp children run to Ezra,
grabbing his hand. He lifts them like a proud grandfather, talking
gently, moving them slowly around, as if comforting them that one day
all that they see will be theirs. But it’s a shaky proposition. Elad
points out young Europeans living in the camp protecting them from
attacks from Jewish settlements.
Ezra prefers to focus on the
positive, saying that when he and Elad visit, “It is nice that they see
this side of Israel, they are not afraid. For most children, all they
know of Israel are settlers and soldiers. I am good PR for Israel.”
everyone agrees. What I witness is very different from Citizen Nawi,
where Ezra is followed by Israeli settlers calling him “pervert” and
“faggot,” claiming he molests little boys and girls, and Israeli
soldiers accuse him of trying to touch them sexually. Ezra tells me
Israeli soldiers spread rumors he had AIDS and that his project’s secret
name was “Project Homo,” a plot to turn Arab men gay.
It’s easy to
believe Orthodox settlers are homophobic. But Israeli soldiers? It goes
against assumptions about a country with movies like Eytan Fox’s 2002
Yossi & Jagger, about gay Israeli soldiers. Israel is also working
to build its gay reputation to the outside world. According to Geoffrey
Weill, president of Geoffrey Weill Associates, a public relations firm
working with Israel, the country has produced viral web videos promoting
itself as a gay destination, and invited “journalists from gay media
and websites,” for press trips. Tel Aviv recently contended for Sexiest
Place on Earth and Best Breakout Destination in Logo’s TripOut Gay
In spite of this, Sydney Levy, director of campaigns
and programs for the San Francisco–based Jewish Voice For Peace, which
is providing assistance to Ezra, says Nawi “faces additional
discrimination because he is gay and because he is an Iraqi,” in a
country he says prefers to forget many Jews have Arabic backgrounds. He
adds that the Israeli government “spends a lot of money on this idea” of
a gay-friendly Israel, even promoting the gay fantasy of the “sexy
Israeli soldier,” used on Israeli tourism posters during San Francisco’s
2009 Pride. Levy adds, “At the same time, you have the current minister
of Interior [Eli Yishai] who calls gay people sick” and tried to block
Tel Aviv’s 2009 Pride.
“More complex,” according to Levy, is how gay
issues deflect attention from the Palestinian conflict, a concept called
“pinkwashing” by various activists. Levy says that “part of the bargain
Israel suggests is that we are like you, we are homo-friendly, and they
are homophobic, so you should ignore all the human rights violations we
have.” He adds, “Even if you were to assume that every Palestinian was
homophobic and every Israeli was homo-friendly, you don’t bargain human
rights. That should not impinge on the fight Palestinians have for equal
While Israel has gay politicians, and parades and bars in
Tel Aviv, how homophobic Palestinians are in contrast depends on whom
you talk to. “All of my friends are gay-friendly. Even if they are not
gay-friendly, they are gay-tolerant, like the Palestinians,” Ezra tells
me. And yet concerning Fuad and other gay Palestinians, Ezra’s words are
very different in Citizen Nawi, in which he says “it’s not a nice situation”
According to Hossein Alizadeh, the Middle East and North
Africa program coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human
Rights Commission, Palestinian treatment of gays varies by city, clan,
and other factors. The worst case he worked on was in Gaza, where a gay
man had received death threats from his father, who “intentionally
kicked him out of the house so Israelis could kill him,” during an
Israeli army shooting raid. In addition, he has heard of honor killings
and cases of being burned while wrapped in tires “but not seen
documentation.” In general, Alizadeh explained, the West Bank is typical
of Arab communities in that “if you have the support of the family and
you are discreet,” things can be OK, adding, “I don’t call it exactly
Through my journalistic work in the region, I know of
cases of gay Palestinians seeking asylum in Israel, others forced to
spy for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, complicating the discussion
of homosexuality in the West Bank and conflating it with broader
political issues. These were major topics of discussion during the 2006
Jerusalem World Pride, though in spite of trying to interview such men, I
was never able to. Further confusing the Palestinian picture is that
the Palestinian Liberation Organization had an openly gay spokesman, the
American-Palestinian Michael Tarazi; and that there are reports that
Yasser Arafat, the longtime leader of the PLO who died in 2004 of what
was termed a mysterious blood illness, might have been bisexual, based
on communist-era spy recordings in Romania.
Still another view comes
from Canadian lesbian filmmaker Elle Flanders, who lived in Ramallah
and directed the 2005 documentary Zero Degrees of Separation, about gay
Palestinian-Israeli couples, and included Ezra and Fuad (who was called
“Selim” in the film). Flanders says gay life is “as repressive in
Palestinian societies as it is 100 kilometers [60 miles] outside of the
biggest queer American center.”
Says Rauda Morcos, a consultant on LGBTI
issues in the Middle East North Africa region for the Dutch rights group
Hivos and former director of Aswat, a group working on lesbian issues
for Palestinians living on both sides of the wall: “I know of no
law against gays in the West Bank.” Her view is that “saying it is a
difficult place for gay people won’t help.” Her preference in Palestine
is to “change the reality” through activism.
Morcos says that while
Israel is portrayed as liberal for gays, “It is only Tel Aviv, and maybe
one quarter of one part of Tel Aviv,” mentioning the August 2009 Tel
Aviv gay youth center shootings and the 2005 Jerusalem gay pride stabbings.
She says Jewish Israeli gay groups have little interest in Palestine,
commenting that they “might be supporting the occupation. I mean most of
them served in the Army.”
Ezra, who says he was part of one of
Jerusalem’s first gay rights groups, Apple, in the 1970s, also believes
most Israeli gays care little about Palestinian issues or other social
causes. He tells me, “They refuse to be involved in social problems, the
Palestinians, the people who don’t have housing, people in the bottom
of the country.”
Yet gay Israeli activists do work on the issue, people like Hagai El-Ad, former executive director of Jerusalem Open House, the city’s gay center, and now executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. He was arrested in January 2010 for protesting the Jewish takeover of Sheik Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. “I believe that it is the responsibility of any minority fighting for its rights to see beyond its own issues and identify the broader context,” El-Ad says.
Seeing Ezra in action, one might wonder if by fighting against the occupation as an openly gay man, he might be helping the cause of Palestinian LGBT rights. I ask him if any young Palestinian men had ever confided in him, but he laughs at my question.
“Never — I am in a position where they would be too ashamed to come to me,” he says, being older and always around officials. “I don’t think they know what is gay,” explaining that Palestine does not have “cities like Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, even Beirut,” with gay infrastructure. “Obviously there are gay people, but there is not a gay way of life. That is Western.” My own observation is that even in cosmopolitan Palestinian cities like Ramallah, gay life is virtually nonexistent.
Ezra says he also has a hard time figuring out who’s gay in a rural, Palestinian context. “There were two young men,” he tells me, “playing and jumping, near the goats, and even when I took them in my car.” He then mimics two men embracing, saying, “I think they have something, so I ask Ali, and I told him it is very nice love, a very nice relationship they have. He says to me, ‘the love of shepherds.’”
Some kind of Palestinian Brokeback Mountain image comes to my mind, and I ask for clarification, but even for Ezra, it was mysterious. Young men “are very erotic at this time,” Ezra said, “all the time outside and don’t see much people. But as second thought, it is a mistake to see it and judge it through Western eyes. It is not fair to them and not fair to us,” adding, “I don’t think it is correct to explain this physical touch.”
Ezra says sex is the last thing on his mind in Palestine, even if he joked about good-looking men and Ali. Nor does he want another Palestinian boyfriend, calling his two-year relationship with Fuad “a mistake,” adding, “It is very difficult for a mixed couple. Whether gay or straight. Everyone is against you.”
Still, the experience shaped his activism. He only wishes more gays in Israel understood. In Citizen Nawi he said, “Homophobia, racism, nationalism are connected.”
Reflecting on his time as a gay rights activist decades ago in Jerusalem, Ezra tells me, “I think gay people as a minority should have more sympathy to the suffering of other people. But I find most of the gay people are not as compassionate. Every gay community is a picture of the bigger society. The society is very resistant, and the gay society is no different in their position on Arabs.”
I saw Ezra again in Jerusalem this past May at the weekly Friday Sheik Jarrah protest, where I planned to see El-Ad. The crowds had been corralled into a fenced area, with Arab children climbing the chain links for a better view. Hundreds of secular Jews stood on a cliff overlooking the road, shouting “thief” in Hebrew at Orthodox families, as police escorts pushed away photographers. It was hard to make sense of the chaos, and I never found El-Ad, but at one point the crowd parted like the Red Sea, revealing a familiar dusty jeep, Ezra inside, beaming. Protesters broke into smiles and shouted his name, and even the police seemed to respect him, a few shaking his hand through the window.
Ezra makes an impression that is hard to ignore. Somehow, despite his legal troubles, he seems to win people over. Ultimately, though, he could not win over the judge in his case, and he was sentenced to a month in jail, served ironically mostly in June, Gay Pride Month the world over. Afterward, Ezra told me, “A month in jail is really not bad,” and that while he was inside, “other people respect me because they know exactly what I did.” In fact, he found it almost relaxing. “No phone calls. No duties. I was reading a lot, and you know, it was interesting to see the victims of the state and victims of the society.” If anything, Ezra felt sorry for Israelis working in the prison. “They are miserable people. On a salary they are prisoners for life.”
Jail was merely a blip for Ezra, strengthening his resolve. When we spoke by phone in July, it was a Friday. He was in Sheik Jarrah, protesting once again. | <urn:uuid:8206b369-2dd6-48ac-9874-5bddca90176c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advocate.com/print/politics/politicians/2011/01/13/ezra-nawi-unlikely-activist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964158 | 4,279 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A mashup of innovation and old-school hacking (though none of the participants was bent on doing harm, we're assured), the goal of the competition was to improve the nation's health system and help people navigate the complexities of the Affordable Care Act.
Originally published on Thu December 27, 2012 12:25 pm
The McDonald's at the Truman Medical Centers' main campus in Kansas City, Mo., has closed, ending an epic, two-decade stint inside the hospital and making it the fifth health facility in the past few years to give the Big Mac the boot.
Originally published on Tue November 13, 2012 6:36 am
Immediately after last week's election, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced the state would not be setting up its own health insurance exchange. Next door in Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback announced that Kansas will have no involvement in running a state exchange either. The moves open the door for increased federal involvement in health care in staunchly Republican territory.
On one side of a wall inside the Truman Medical Center cafeteria in Kansas City, Missouri, the menu features low-calorie, low-fat and low-sodium meals. On the other side of the wall is a McDonald's, featuring hamburgers and french fries.
The Duchesne Clinic in Kansas City, Kan., is just one free clinic that might have to adjust the way it operates under the new health care law.
Credit Elana Gordon / KCUR
Dr. Glenn Hodges, a volunteer at Health Partnership Clinic in Johnson County, Kan., says he will continue to focus on those without coverage even if the clinic he volunteers at accepts Medicaid and private coverage.
Free health clinics have long been places people turn to when they don't have health insurance or any money to pay for care. But the health law's expansion of coverage puts free clinics in uncharted territory.
While the law goes before the Supreme Court this week, health providers are already gearing up for a surge in patients with insurance.
Around the country, hundreds of free clinics have been established over the past 50 years to treat patients like Patsy Duarte. | <urn:uuid:6fb69200-0210-472c-9e2a-ba6d2a68d49b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kwit.org/people/elana-gordon | 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 | 0.947992 | 434 | 1.5 | 2 |
There were 10 days in Bangalore working on a visual project about fear and gender in public spaces. First time in India. How to do that?
All the cultural exchanges and communication gaps … everything is part of my experience and I am part of my project.
The project was urgent and I was decided to propose it very open.
Do not teach, no orders, no impositions on others and feel the culture by letting it come and go.
It was very difficult to survive to that task.
It swallowed me.
The project itself talks about freedom.
And, as a photography project, we should respect TIME.
Freedom to be ready to share your thoughts, to say what you need to say.
It’s not possible to impose freedom but I could give free space !
27 virgin negative frames for each participant and a wall to expose the pictures at the end of the project.
The time we have need is the time we have, and we should use it with very few meetings and a long time alone taking pictures.
I chose disposable cameras for participants concentrate on what they see and what they want to show, and don’t get confused with technologies of digital cameras.
The camera was the instrument that aloud the participant to face their feelings and go trough, if you feel like it.
An invitation to revisit your experience and share it with others.
My rules about the project would be defined at the time they appear.
So that I didn’t work tight in old structures.
The first position, to reach the issue of being a Indian woman in public spaces passing trough my themes, fear and safety … me, as Brazilian, couldn’t do by myself.
The only possibility of pass trough that experience it was by seeing through Indian women’s eyes.
I had 15 cameras :
- 7 art students from Shristi School
- Ekta and Pallavi from Maara Media Collective for who I gave extra cameras for that they invite local people to participate
- Mara, the cleaner of the apartment were I was.
- The security man of building I was living in.
When I opened for more people than the art students, I was expanding the group and inviting different classes and casts to work together, investigate their own culture and bring new perspectives of living in India.
The second position, for them feel free to express themselves trough the project (what was very important for the project to be successful) I decided not to give credit for each pictures.
The participants would have their names as collaborators.
It was a collective work.
If the participant wants to credit their picture, they are free to do it writing comments in the website.
The third position, the exposition should be this very collective wall of pictures. No names, no conclusions, not much information about the people.
The fourth position was about the edition of the pictures.
The idea was to show many pictures as possible, the limitations of the budget and the free space on the wall.
As it was a project that express people feelings trough the images, I couldn’t make an edition based on my hopes. I decided to catch images that:
- Could communicate with me, enjoying it or not, following the idea that once I could dialogue with it, it could reach the public too.
- Could offer a new point of view about the theme (even if most of them took pictures inside the rickshaw, I selected few of them, not all)
The fifth position was about to create an exposition that could represent the project meaning.
To be opened to meet the other.
My participation was to open the participants to investigate their feelings and explore it trough the disposabe cameras. It was also to guarantee the openness of the exposition.
I should bring questions for the exposition wall, not answers.
The pictures should show people’s questions about fear and safety and how photography can be a way for them to dialogue about it.
And, at least, the public of the gallery should be opened to the work, to watch the pictures as a way to dialogue with the participants, opening a conversation with the other but also revisiting their own
feelings and memories.
To see a 6×4’ piece of photo paper as invitation for a dialogue.
To make themselves questions about what the other wants to say … “what was she / he feeling when did it?” and “what do I feel when I see it” is a way to put yourself in the place of the other.
soon we have more about the project home_street_home at : indialand.wordpress.com | <urn:uuid:9239dae7-c9d5-4e94-a1d2-45cdd3f19ef2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zeeniac.net/fearandgender-bangalore/?cat=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967346 | 962 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Working with people to accomplish a task is necessary at some point in every career. Why is it then that some groups flourish while others flounder? Successful collaboration depends on more than a good leader and motivated members (although that helps a lot). In my own experiences with navigating the roles in a group, I have found a few things that seem to be consistent among each group I enter.
1. Conflict doesn’t kill creativity.
This doesn’t mean throw a book at the person across from you who is driving you crazy; but, having difficult conversations can yield results that may not have been attainable otherwise. If a group member is not holding up their end of the project, don’t pick up the slack without letting them know. Guilty of this on many occasions, it drives anxiety and disharmony in the group dynamic. The person may even change their behavior.
2. Every person cannot be a leader.
If you are person that is used to taking control, imagine what can happen if 7 of the 10 people in the group are also used to taking charge. By self-monitoring, you can be more cognizant of when it is better to step back and take direction versus trying to compete with others in the group to move it in the right direction. Don’t become complacent, but sometimes effective leaders can generate even more success when following.
3. E-mail will not solve all of your problems.
Maybe it’s old fashioned, but threads of e-mail and mediated live chats do not yield the same clarity as quickly or efficiently as face to face conversation. Questions can be overlooked and unaddressed without coming together in order to discuss the project at hand. E-mails and chats can also be read incorrectly and negatively impact the interpersonal group dynamic of the team. That being said, although it makes for instant contact, finding a time to meet did not die with the advent of Google Docs.
4. You can get a lot out of listening.
I like to talk. Sometimes too much. For every person in the group who likes to talk, the quieter, more subdued members may be left without giving input. Try to keep those members in mind before you dominate the conversation. Often times, some of the most creative ideas come from those who aren’t as willing to join in on the conversation. By listening to what they have to say, it not only gives you more to think about, but it also helps to strengthen the collaborative relationship among team members.
Group work can either be great or terrible. Some people love it and others hate it. Which person are you and what tips do you have for yielding great results from a group? | <urn:uuid:d672d690-b029-4a70-8808-b97b34c52b22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.comdma.com/~hartmanr/2011/06/22/good-team/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963705 | 557 | 1.835938 | 2 |
In a tough job market, it is important to make sure that you stand out in the crowd. With recruiters receiving more resumes per position than ever before, putting your best foot forward is of the utmost importance. Below are some tips to help you achieve success in the search for your dream job.
1. Tailor your resume to fit the job description. Read the job description thoroughly, and then add any relevant experience that you may have overlooked when you wrote your resume. Many job seekers waste their time by spamming out their resume to irrelevant jobs. Spend your time wisely by tailoring your resume to jobs that you are genuinely interested in and also create powerful cover letters that express your interest in both the position and the company. Looking for a job is a full time job in itself, treat it that way. Expect to spend a few hours a day, at minimum, searching career websites and targeting companies that contain job openings in your preferred field.
2. Network! The internet should be your primary venue for seeking employment, especially in the technology field. If you have not already, join professional groups and organizations relevant to your field, spruce up your LinkedIn account, and touch base with previous colleagues and peers in the industry. College job boards are also a great resource, as many recruiters will work with colleges that have degree programs relevant to their industry.
3. According to a recent survey by Saddleback College, the # 1 mistake that candidates make on their resume is spelling and grammatical errors. It is important to always proofread your resume and then have another person read through it as well. You may be a qualified applicant, but poor formatting or simple grammatical mistakes can be distracting for recruiters and could mean that your resume is overlooked as a result.
4. Be on time for your interview. Showing up for the interview 5-10 minutes early is ideal. Showing up exactly on time or late, makes it seems like you are unprepared. No one wants to hire an individual that is punctuality challenged. Another big mistake by candidates during an interview is to not ask any questions. Asking relevant questions about the company or the specific position shows that you have done some research and are interested in learning more. It is also always a good practice to send a follow up thank-you email to the individuals at the company that you met with. | <urn:uuid:83eac374-d552-4958-81a6-54514851bedf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://etap.com/blog/?p=490 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966515 | 479 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Engaging Science in the Life of Your Congregation
With so many issues to discuss, Christians can easily get the feeling that science is always attacking the faith. It is essential to balance such conversations with positive responses to God’s creation. After all, the primary response to the natural world in the Bible is to praise the God who made it.
Series: Excerpts from “Evolving: Evangelicals Reflect on Evolution”
We need to hear stories from others who have wrestled with evolution and Christian faith. What arguments made them change their views on science? How did they hold fast to their relationship with God? The essays in this series will eventually comprise a book, provisionally titled, “Evolving: Evangelicals Reflect on Evolution.”
Searching for Motivated Belief: Introducing John Polkinghorne
Several times in my series of columns about “Science and the Bible,” I briefly discussed a few ideas from John Polkinghorne, one of the leading Christian thinkers of our time. Although I presented him mainly as a representative of the “Theistic Evolution” (TE) view, much of his published work is about other topics, several of them largely or entirely unrelated to TE. It’s time we got better acquainted with him.
Series: A Faith Journey in a Medical Science Career
(Needs a summary)
Dissonance and Harmony
People hold clearly discordant points of view, and it would be dishonest to ignore the conflict. Yet some voices emphasize the dissonance without any note of harmony to put it in context. Too often, science and faith becomes a hostile battle of worldviews, sounding angry, dissonant chords even among fellow Christians. But civil, gracious dialogue is possible.
Psalm for the January Thaw
God shows himself not just in the orderliness of nature, but powerfully, joyously and always surprisingly in its beautiful "non-order" as well.
Series: Confronting Our Fears
In this series, U.S. Navy Commander Mike Beidler shares his own personal journey from accepting young-earth creationism to embracing evolutionary creationism.
We tend to think of creativity in terms of flashes of insight and brilliance, of novelty, and especially of unexpected things bursting upon the scene. But creativity is no less creative and no less remarkable when it proceeds step by step, according to discipline, according to rule.
Growing in Faith
As he endeavored to learn more, David was intrigued by Francis Collins book The Language of God because Francis did not present evolution as a rival theory to Christian faith, but as something that described God's method of creation.
The song is built around the image of a river flowing through a canyon it has sculpted—an image that can easily be played out as a picture of the way that the Lord has been at work preparing a path for us in the material world, complete with signposts to his former and present activity.
David Lack: Evolutionary Biologist and Devout Christian
Charles Darwin’s personal struggles and ultimate rejection of Christianity are well documented, and people are eager to link his loss of faith to his evolutionary theory. David Lack, on the other hand, began his scientific career as an agnostic, but shortly after publishing his famous book on the evolution of "Darwin's finches", he converted to Christianity.
Series: Beauty, Science and Theology
It doesn't take a scientist to appreciate the beauty with which God has arrayed his creation. But scientists do have the opportunity (and training) to appreciate different kinds of beauty than do most non-scientists, whether they are ordinarily "hidden" in the extremes of scale, the elegant processes of an experiment, or in the abstraction of mathematics. Indeed the appreciation of various kinds of beauty has always played a critical role in motivating scientists to investigate the world, and in helping them decipher its workings. In the three-part essay, Ruth Bancewicz explores some of the ways beauty, science and theology intertwine.
For the Love of the World: John Stott and His Passion for Creation
Some criticized John for his theistic evolutionary position and even his appreciation for Darwin. But Stott saw no contradiction between his own commitment to the authority of Scripture and his openness to God’s use of evolution in His creative process.
The Heavenly Declaration
The universe that inspired the psalmist three thousand years ago grows grander as each new generation of astronomers adds yet another layer of understanding.
Letting God Out of the Box
I found myself in a very awkward situation. On the one hand I was a follower of Jesus Christ who loved the Bible, knew that it was God’s Word, and, therefore, not full of lies. However, I also was someone who had loved science for many years and was planning on pursuing a career in research...
Scientists Tell Their Stories: David Wilkinson
"If I have one criticism of my fellow theologians from time to time, it’s that they’re often stuck in the physics of the 19th century rather than the 20th and 21st centuries."
Wheat that Springeth Green
As we remember the narrative that takes us from Good Friday through Easter morning, the image of a buried grain of wheat invites us into the story rather than just describing what happens in it.
Jefferson’s Bible and the Tears of Christ
Predictably, "Jesus Wept" did not make into the Jefferson Bible. John 11 was cut out entirely, falling onto the floor of his Monticello home and discarded, along with Martha's confession.
Introducing Ted Davis
Today we welcome Ted Davis as the BioLogos Senior Fellow for the History of Science. This week, Dr. Davis begins his regular posts on the BioLogos Forum with a bit of personal background; next week, he outlines his plans for an informal on-line course in the history of the science and faith conversation, with an emphasis on the Bible and science in the United States.
Series: Science as an Instrument of Worship
In this brief series (taken from a 2009 paper), Jennifer Wiseman uses an excerpt from the famous hymn “How Great Thou Art,” to explain why the study of God’s creation can lead Christ’s followers into meaningful worship and overcome the obstacles which impede true praise. Creation as encountered through our senses is pondered by our minds, which flows into wonder-filled songs from the soul. She further explains how knowledge of creation will help Christians to address the moral dilemmas of science, and she encourages all to see the process of scientific inquiry as a means to discover God’s truth. | <urn:uuid:d16c1a47-735b-42f5-b9d8-80c1d4883b4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biologos.org/resources/find/Blog,Book/sort-by-Newest/any/Worship+&+Arts,Lives+of+Faith | 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 | 0.960781 | 1,381 | 1.617188 | 2 |
For more information, visit www.standardgrain.com or call (312) 462-4438!
The grain markets were sharply higher overnight on concerns over hot/dry weather through the 10 day period. The USDA released their Crop Progress report yesterday. Corn was rated 63% good-excellent vs. 66% last week and 69% on average. Ratings in IL dropped 4% to 52% G-E, IN ratings dropped 12% to 37% G-E, OH ratings dropped 11% while IA ratings were unchanged at 67% G-E.
Soybean ratings also dropped sharply. The US crop is now rated 56% good-excellent vs. 60% last week. Major drops were seen in IL, IN and OH. Spring wheat conditions rose 1% in the good-excellent category, now rated 76% G-E. Winter wheat was rated 54% G-E vs. 53% last week. The winter wheat crop is now 48% harvested vs. 35% last week. The weather forecasts combined with what we’d describe as "overwhelmingly bullish" crop ratings have pushed the December corn contract within a few cents of $5.50 this morning; November soybeans are trading near $13.75.
"Weather Market 2012" is now in full swing. Forecasts for hot/dry weather through the 10-day period will bring much of the early planted corn into the first stages of pollination, which will be a major issue for producers. Our lead forecaster estimates that 35% of US corn production received less than half of its average rainfall during the last 30 days. Only 24% of US corn production received "normal" rainfall during this same period. Intense heat and strong winds will cause soil to dry faster than usual during the next 3-5 days, especially.
Noted agronomist Dr. Cordonnier lowered his yield estimate for corn to 159.0bpa, down 2bpa from last week. Cordonnier also lowered his soybean yield estimate to 42.5bpa from 43.0bpa last week. Another noted academic, Dr. Darrell Good of the University of Illinois, anticipates that feed and residual use of corn during the 3rd quarter was larger than the estimate for last year’s use.
Outside markets are mostly quiet this morning. Crude oil and equities are both up slightly. The Euro currency is also marginally higher. Despite concerns over the Eurozone and other macro factors, our ag markets will trade primarily on weather for the time being.
As far as charts are concerned, December corn is flirting with major resistance at the $5.50 area. A close above $5.50 this week opens the door for a quick move to the $5.70 area.
Export Sales will be release Thursday morning; Quarterly Stocks and Acreage will be released on June 29th at 7:30am CST. | <urn:uuid:da161546-56b8-4dfc-a9ef-4d6d5dc25d9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/topproducer/blog/standard_grain/?Year=2012&Month=6 | 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 | 0.972598 | 606 | 1.539063 | 2 |
- Business & Markets
Wind turbine makers will push their new blades to the breaking point at a government-funded testing center that opened for business yesterday on the Charlestown waterfront.
A flock of officials led by Gov. Deval Patrick gathered inside the hulking, hangar-like building at the Boston Autoport, with a 40-meter blade made by Clipper Windpower hanging sideways as a backdrop.
“We have some test engineers here today — this is their field of dreams,” said Craig Christenson, a top executive from the California-based company. “Thank you all for building it. We have come.”
The $38 million Wind Technology Testing Center — designed to generate wind-industry jobs in the Bay State — soon will test a blade from Arizona’s TPI Composites, which recently set up shop in Fall River.
“The original concept was that it would be a going concern with its own business, so the revenue brought in (from blade makers) exceeds the expenses incurred,” said Patrick Cloney, director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. “We are booked for the next 18 months.”
The Clean Energy Center, funded by a fee on electric bills, chipped in $13.2 million in grants and loans, while the U.S. Energy Department delivered $25 million in stimulus cash.
The facility’s hydraulics and sensors can stress-test three prototypes at a time, including blades nearly as long as a football field that arrive by ship and are shifted into position by bridge cranes.
It’s unlikely that turbines for the proposed Cape Wind offshore project would be checked out in Charlestown, because the developer lined up existing blades from Siemens. | <urn:uuid:659b2b1b-79c6-4404-a9ce-cd018d04f30b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bostonherald.com/print/1339025 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947852 | 365 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Hopes were high for California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission last December, when nearly 30,000 applications poured in from all over the state for a seat on the 14-member board that is to draw up new boundaries for state assembly, senate, and board of equalization districts. By April 22, a few days after the final deadline, the state auditor had announced that almost 9000 of the initial applicants had submitted supplemental application packages and letters of recommendation, required to qualify for consideration. The commission, created by the passage of Prop 11 in November 2008, is to be made up of 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and 4 members of neither party. A 3-member applicant review panel will narrow the number of finalists to 60. Legislative leadership can cut 24 of those at will; from the remaining list, the state auditor will choose 8 members at random, and those 8 will then pick the final 6 members.
Some of the applications include lengthy essays recounting past glories. Mesa College professor Carl Luna, who declined to state his political party, recalled a 2002 project he’d undertaken to make peace between Russia and its breakaway province Chechnya. “After months of effort, regrettably, the project foundered when the Russian participants — probably under pressure from the Russian government — withdrew from the process.” Luna also cited his role in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial. “I wrote a legal brief of the argument and forwarded it to Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard, who then connected me with Greg Craig, the lead counsel on President Clinton’s impeachment defense team. Mr. Craig ultimately used my brief in his closing arguments on the floor of the United States Senate on January 21, 1999.”
Democrat Ardyth Shaw, former executive assistant to ex–San Diego Union-Tribune editor Jerry Warren, responded to a question about impartiality by recalling an experience she’d had hosting a radio program. “One example would be the witch I booked over the phone for a Halloween show. When she showed up, my engineer and I were so frightened we made a promise to support one another through the show. I’d like to think having a live, one-hour, serious discussion, on the radio, with a witch, would be a good example of impartiality.”
Jeffrey Schwall of Rancho Santa Fe, retired president of Time Warner Cable San Diego and another “decline-to-state,” said he lived in South Africa following the Soweto riots. “At one point I was asked by a tribal council of elders to be the judge in a violent dispute between my housekeeper and her boyfriend. I had to find a solution that would keep one or both of them from being subjected to severe physical punishment. I found that solution.”
Asked to describe his “appreciation for California’s diverse demographics and geography,” Republican Charles Rosen of San Diego, a retired electrical engineer, wrote: “One winter day, my wife and I drove to the mountains for breakfast in historic Julian. By forenoon we dropped down into the desert at Borrego Springs to enjoy the warmth and sunshine. By mid afternoon we were tromping in the snow atop Mount Palomar. The evening ended with a meal at a favorite Mexican restaurant on the beach at Cardiff-By-The Sea. Where else could this be done except in San Diego County!” | <urn:uuid:aec1a41d-4bae-4a2b-b2fd-126dce447a22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/apr/28/under-the-radar-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968569 | 708 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Alternative Dispute Resolution Department Mission Statement:
To provide arbitration,
mediation and business mediation services to the Court, plaintiffs and defendants interested in using
alternative methods of dispute resolution to effectively resolve litigation.
It is the policy of the Court to encourage the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) methods per Local
Rule 21.2. In keeping with this policy, the court has developed and administers several ADR methods.
The ADR methods are:
- Mediation after Arbitration
- Business Mediation
- Foreclosure Mediation
- ADR promotes settlement
- ADR is more cost-effective for
taxpayers and litigants than trial
- ADR helps expedite the resolution
- ADR provides an opportunity for
litigants to be heard and participate in the proceedings,
providing greater litigant satisfaction
- ADR allows for the opportunity for creative solutions to resolve disputes.
Arbitration is a formal process in which a panel of attorneys hears evidence and renders an opinion, which
could be binding or non-binding. Implemented in May of 1970, it was one of the pioneer programs in the
United States. Since 1970, almost 70,000 cases have been referred to arbitration.
Arbitrations are conducted pursuant to Local Rule 29.The arbitration process is typically used for cases
where the actual amount in controversy, exclusive of interest and costs, is $50,000 or less per claimant.
The parties may agree to submit cases to Arbitration where the amount in controversy exceeds $50,000 per
A case may be referred to Arbitration at the request of the parties or an order of the Court. An
arbitration award is not binding upon the parties unless agreed upon prior to referral. After an
arbitration is held, the panel issues a Report and Award which becomes a final judgment in 30 days unless
an Appeal is filed. An Appealed case is returned to the court.
The mediation program for Cuyahoga County originated in 1989 and has increased in popularity over the course
of that time. The average settlement rate for cases mediated since 1989 is 48%.
A mediation is conducted by an impartial third party. Both parties and their representatives are present.
The conference is confidential and generally informal. The mediator attempts to help the parties reach a
mutually acceptable solution through group discussion and separate caucuses. The goal is to have the parties
generate their own solutions to resolving their dispute. Unlike an arbitration panel, the mediator is not a
fact finder and has no power to impose a solution on the parties.
A case may be referred to Mediation at the request of the parties or an order of the Court. All the cases
that are referred to arbitration are screened by the court mediator and if mediation is appropriate the
case is scheduled for a mediation.
The ADR Department also conducts mediations for Arbitration caes that have been appealed - this is the
Appeal mediation program. These mediations are conducted in a similar manner to the pre-arbitration
mediations described above. Sometimes the parties are in a better position to talk settlement after
they have received an arbitration decision.
This program was implemented in July of 1996. Each year has seen an increase in the demand for business
This program is conducted pursuant to Local Rule 21.2(e) and is for any business case. The Department
maintains a list of qualified business mediators. This list of mediators includes former Cuyahoga
County Common Pleas Judges as well as highly regarded attorneys who have been practicing law in the
business filed for at least twelve years.
The ADR Administrator provides the parties with three names of mediators and the parties rank their
selection. The mediator meets with the parties in an attempt to facilitate a settlement. At the conclusion
of the mediation conference the mediator files a Mediation Report with the ADR Administrator and the
assigned Judge. The entire process is confidential.
A case may be referred to Business Mediation at the request of the parties or an order of the Court.
The newest method of ADR offered by the department is Foreclosure Mediation. This program was implemented in
June 2008. Already the department has seen an overwhelming response to the program. Andrea R. Kinast is the
the program director.
This program is conducted pursuant to Local Rule 21.2(e) and is for foreclosure cases only. The program is
not intended for foreclosure cases involving commercial properties. Parties in foreclosure actions can
request mediation by filling out a request for mediation and returning it to the ADR Department, or the
Magistrate handling the case can directly refer the case to mediation.
Once a case is determined to be suitable for mediation, a pre-mediation conference is set. At this time,
both parties are given questionnaires to fill out and return to the ADR Department before the mediation
is held. Once the questionnaires and supporting documents have been returned to the court, the mediation
is set. Both the property owner and a representative of the Plaintiff must appear in person, or sanctions,
including dismissal of the action, may be imposed.
The mediator meets with the parties in an attempt to facilitate a settlement. At the conclusion of the
mediation conference the mediator files a Mediation report with the ADR Administrator and the assigned
Magistrate. The entire process is confidential. If the case does not settle, it is returned to the
Foreclosure docket for further proceedings
To learn more about the program click here
What type of cases are suitable for A.D.R.?
- personal injury claims
- motor vehicle accidents
- property damage
- contract disputes
- employment disputes
- product liability
- legal malpractice
- medical malpractice
- real estate claims
- general business claims
- premises liability claims
Where Is A.D.R.?
The ADR Department is located on the 4th floor of the Justice Center, adjacent to the Cafeteria.
PHONE: (216) 443-8504
FAX: (216) 443-3044 | <urn:uuid:79d22fa1-2ad2-4d43-8076-1334794ce181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cp.cuyahogacounty.us/internet/ADR.aspx | 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 | 0.937396 | 1,279 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Julia Preston reports in the New York Times:
While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.
Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.
Some White House officials said that immigration would not take precedence over the health care and energy proposals that Mr. Obama has identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year’s campaign.
He said then that comprehensive immigration legislation, including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, would be a priority in his first year in office. Latino voters turned out strongly for Mr. Obama in the election.
“He intends to start the debate this year,” Ms. Muñoz said. ...
Debate is still under way among administration officials about the precise timing and strategy. For example, it is unclear who will take up the Obama initiative in Congress....
The White House is calculating that public support for fixing the immigration system, which is widely acknowledged to be broken, will outweigh opposition from voters who argue that immigrants take jobs from Americans.
Best guess: Obama is counting on getting it passed by having his minions use the R word to smear opponents. | <urn:uuid:b03d8560-db6b-4002-ac69-fe2c338694f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/04/nyt-obama-to-push-immigration-bill.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9648 | 393 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Nov 7, 2008
This week we bring you stories of privilege and the lengths some will go to to maintain it. In one story, a woman fights—on tape!—with her city's parking enforcer about playing favorites.
And in honor of the late Studs Terkel, we bring you a special collection of stories from his Hard Times radio series; the haves and the have-nots talk about life during The Great Depression.
- Studs Terkel, the Chicago reporter who recorded oral histories of ordinary Americans, died last week. We assembled a collection of his work from his Hard Times radio series, in which people talk about their experiences during the Depression—how everyone simultaneously became poor, regardless of their class. (32 minutes)
You can listen to more of Studs Terkel's work here. | <urn:uuid:616b13b8-8c19-40ce-8442-a172175b38e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/368/who-do-you-think-you-are?act=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96891 | 168 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Mouth cancer may have changed the way property tycoon Elliott Bernerd looks but it won't diminish him, he tells Elizabeth Grice
Up-front is a term that could have been invented for Elliott Bernerd, the property tycoon who refused to hide away after his face was mutilated by mouth cancer.
Two colossal operations left him with much of his chin missing and his speech impaired but he returned to a life of active wheeling and dealing as if it were something his doctors had prescribed.
Wearing the white surgical mask that has become his trademark, he addressed a public gathering at the Royal Society in London last month. "I hope you can hear me," he rasped. "It's not my choice I'm this way."
Courage is the word that comes to mind, but it doesn't begin to do justice to the combative streak that has played a big part in his resumption of public life and entrepreneurial chutzpah - probably even to his survival. "It depends on willpower," he says, "on the sheer determination not to be pushed to one side in society - and why should I be?"
His greeting to me is as much a challenge as an introduction: "I'm Elliott Bernerd. I've a sore mouth from my operation. If you don't understand me, there's nothing I can do." It takes concentration at first because his tongue and lip movements are so restricted but Bernerd is a man used to making himself understood.
He has just given £1 million to Saving Faces, a charity run by Prof Iain Hutchison, one of Britain's leading oral and maxillofacial surgeons, to fund a facial surgery research programme. This has been matched by £1 million from Cancer Research UK for a clinical trial.
Though Hutchison didn't operate on Bernerd, he became his medical mentor throughout the ordeal and the two are now firm friends.
"Elliott is the supreme example of an indomitable human being overcoming adversity. He has never exhibited any weakness at all; never shown any hint of self-pity. He has a phenomenal drive and power," says Hutchison.
Though mouth cancer is as common in Britain as leukaemia and melanoma, and twice as common as cervical cancer, much less is heard about it because the inevitably disfiguring surgery, affecting the most public part of the body, makes many patients reclusive.
"There are two ways of dealing with something like this: you sit in a corner feeling sorry for yourself, or you get on with it. I just get on with it. You can't wrap yourself in cotton wool. Of course, I'd rather not be in the position I'm in. But that feeling lasts for about one moment in 10. In the other nine, I say: I am a very fortunate person to be here. Feeling sorry for myself doesn't help." He blames his cancer on cigars, stress and overwork.
Bernerd, 60, a Londoner who left school at 15 with no qualifications, has been a giant of the UK property industry for 30 years. Chairman of the group Chelsfield Partners, he features 217th in the current Sunday Times Rich List, at an estimated worth of £277 million.
He made his name developing Britain's first American-style business park, Stockley Park, near Heathrow, and had huge interests in Paddington Basin and White City. He owned Wentworth Golf Club, was chairman of the South Bank arts complex and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
"He was very much the debonair man-about-town," says a financial commentator. "He had a certain good-looking schmaltz and women found him irresistible."
It was towards the end of 2000 that he discovered "something very simple in my mouth. It felt like an ulcer but it wouldn't go away. When it was diagnosed as cancer, my reaction was very simple: fear, surprise and then, because I am a fighter, the determination to fight."
"It is the most mutilating and socially isolating cancer," says Bernerd, whose own psychological robustness has been a revelation to friends and continues to be a scourge to business rivals. "Patients who have cancer in the head and neck tend to stay at home, they lose touch with their friends, they become hermits, they're frightened to do anything, they retreat into themselves.
He approached Hutchison - whom he'd met socially before - for a fourth opinion. Who was the world's top oral and maxillofacial surgeon, he wanted to know. Hutchison recommended Jatin Shah at the Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York.
'I wanted the operation done there and then," Bernerd says, snapping his fingers. "I wanted the cancer out. I didn't want to mess around." He moved his office, his secretary and his family to New York and continued to work from hospital. The first operation lasted 14 hours. A year later, the cancer returned and he underwent more extreme surgery, lasting 22½ hours.
"I handled my problem my way, with a very radical solution," he says. His ex-wife, his estranged wife and his two grown-up daughters supported him throughout.
In the entrepreneurial sense, Bernerd was given up for dead but astonished his rivals by embarking on an 18-month fight in 2004 to take his company private. "Some of them expected me to lose my edge," he says, a smile behind the mask. "Some hoped. Some of them have had a shock. I won the fight."
"In a short time, you forgot about any disabilities he had,'' says one business associate. "What he did would have been monumental even for a man who was 100 per cent fit and 30 years old."
Then, just weeks after selling Chelsfield in a £2.1 billion deal, Bernerd was busy assembling a team of financial backers for what has become Chelsfield Partners.
There may be an element of bravado in Bernerd's refusal to let the disease conquer him but the people around him are in awe of what he has achieved, the scale of his physical rehabilitation and his apparent indifference to people's reaction to his damaged face.
Always suave and impeccably turned out, Bernerd was a man for whom appearances mattered. They still do, but now he is grateful simply to be alive. "The only thing you are interested in is the next day. Whether the sun is shining or it is raining, it's wonderful. How you look becomes less of a priority.
"The mask is my invention. I don't have to wear it at all. What's under it is not all that frightening, I can assure you. But I've got into the habit."
Most mouth cancer patients are fed with food supplements through a "peg" in the stomach and, after his second operation, Bernerd was told he would never have food by mouth again. (He refuses to go into detail about the surgery, but his jawbone was reconstructed with bone from his leg, leaving him with very limited tongue movement.)
He took the news with characteristic defiance. "I enjoy flavour and taste, so I taught myself to eat by mouth. I can have everything I want now - pasta, potatoes, fruit, sausages and fried eggs - but I have to have it puréed. Certain of my taste buds are more acute than they were before. I can work out what's in the food, even the herbs."
His chef prepares it specially for him. And when he goes to London's River Café, a place where he feels comfortable because his special requirements are understood, the co-proprietor-chef, Ruth Rogers, looks after him in the same way.
Though he has trouble with certain consonants and projecting his voice seems an effort, Bernerd's ability to communicate is astonishing for a man with so little movement in his tongue and lips.
"I have my moments," he says. "When I'm overtired, it's harder to talk. It depends on how happy or unhappy I am." He has become so expert in managing his condition and its side-effects - coughing in the night, a dry mouth - that Hutchison sends other patients to him for advice.
Bernerd has refused requests to speak about his illness because he doesn't want to be the subject of voyeuristic journalism, and he declined to be photographed for this article. Even now, he is reserving aspects of his singular medical history to be written up in a medical journal.
"It's not about me," he says repeatedly. It's about a cause that he and Hutchison are passionate about - the need for a scientific exchange of data between Britain's leading surgeons so that new and better ways can be found to treat mouth cancer. A team of independent researchers will work with surgeons to recruit patients into clinical studies.
"Saving Faces is the only charity dedicated to this," says Bernerd. "The survival rate for mouth and neck cancer is 60 per cent. I would like it to be 80 or even 90 per cent. We have a huge resource that is being lost to the world - every day, every week - because records of what surgeons do in their individual operations are not being kept. Once we have the data, we can make fast inroads into what will and will not help."
Hutchison believes a centralised system of analysis is essential. He envisages a data bank and a tumour bank. "The tumour that is removed is gold dust. It could be used for genetic studies or to trial new drugs. Surgeons often forget to collect samples."
Saving Faces runs programmes in schools to illustrate - gruesomely, in the case of mouth cancer - the dangers of smoking. It's an initiative Bernerd supports fiercely. "I can't bear the smell of smoke now and I won't have anyone near me who smokes. I find it repugnant for what it represents, not for me, but for society." | <urn:uuid:0b7e428d-66ce-4ccc-94ef-e465f4e1f43f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatfeedback/4200987/I-refuse-to-hide-my-face-away.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98722 | 2,080 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Web Search powered by Yahoo! SEARCH
What you need to know | Parking and road closures | Local singer featured on Saturday
It is nice to see this kind of education provided for those who rely on speech only and not on sign language. There is a large diversity in the deaf community meaning there are those who uses either hearing aids or cochlear implant and speech only. I was born profoundly deaf and attended an oral deaf school in New Orleans and attended schools where there were no deaf/hard of hearing programs throughout high school. I attended a deaf college in New York where I learned my sign skills I do prefer using the total communication method with anyone in the deaf/hard of hearing community. I have always relied on my hearing aid to hear speech and now I rely on my cochlear impant. I hope to see this education training become useful in the near future.
Want to participate in the conversation? Become a subscriber today. Subscribers can read and comment on any story, anytime. Non-subscribers will only be able to view comments on select stories.
Feels Like: 60°
Feels Like: 64°
Feels Like: 62°
We want to hear how you get your news digitally. Help us out.
Residents say 'Thank you' to the firefighters. You can too with #firethanks.>
The results for 2013 are out, find all the winners here.
Online business columnist Jason Womack talks Lessons in Business Leadership.
Catch recent videos from a variety of local Preps sports.
Join with us in learning what can be done about gun violence.
Keep up with the latest news, sports and more. Available in the Google Play Store.
Bill Locey blogs on music, local bands and new albums.
Check out our map to find the cheapest gas in your area.
A map of current oil and gas drilling in Ventura County. | <urn:uuid:ed15aa2e-f964-4a65-8fb3-1fefa3992915> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vcstar.com/comments/reply/?target=61:82169&comment=130451 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951395 | 393 | 1.695313 | 2 |
While media coverage of the case has been intense, there are several key questions that have yet to be answered about the case. Here are five of the most important:
1. What was the purported “conflict” that required the initial prosecutor to step down? On March 22 — after several weeks on the job — state attorney Norm Wolfinger stepped down from his role as prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case. Wolfinger relinquished his post after meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi. He said it was necessary for him to step aside to preserve “the integrity of this investigation,” adding he wanted to avoid “the appearance of a conflict of interest.” He did not explain why his continued involvement would damage the integrity of the case or explain the potential conflict he was seeking to avoid. Did anyone at the prosecutor’s office know Zimmerman or his family? [Orlando Sentinel]
2. Why did the prosecutor ignore the recommendations of the lead homicide investigator? ABC News reported that Chris Serino, the lead homicide investigator on the Trayvon Martin case, recommended that Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter on the night of the shooting. Serino filed an affidavit that night stating “he was unconvinced Zimmerman’s version of events.” As the lead homicide investigator, Serino was: 1. In the best position to evaluate Zimmerman’s credibility, and 2. Intimately familiar with Florida law. Why was he ignored? [ABC News]
3. Why did then-Police Chief Bill Lee make public statements directly contradicting the official recommendations of the police department? On the day the Sanford Police concluded their investigation and handed over the case to the prosecutor, then-Police Chief Bill Lee stated publicly that there was no “probable cause” to arrest or charge Zimmerman. (Lee has subsequently “temporarily” stepped down from his post.) But the Miami Herald reports that on the same day the Sanford Police formally requested that the prosecutor charge Zimmerman, something known as a “capias” request. [ThinkProgress]
4. Who leaked Trayvon Martin’s school records? As public outrage increased, Zimmerman’s sympathizers launched a smear campaign against Trayvon Martin. This included details of several occasions where Martin was suspended for minor infractions (defacing a locker, possessing an empty “marijuana baggie.”) None of the information seemed to have any particular relevance to the night Trayvon Martin was shot to death. Was this a ham-handed attempt by the police or the prosecutor to defend their lack of action against Zimmerman? The Sanford City Manager announced he would launch an independent investigation into the source of the leak. [Miami Herald; NBC12]
5. Why was Trayvon Martin’s body tagged as a John Doe? The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart notes a police report “that was completed at 3:07 a.m. on Feb. 27 lists Trayvon’s full name, city of birth, address and phone number.” But yet, Trayvon’s body was reportedly “tagged as a John Doe” and his father wasn’t informed of his death until after he filed a missing person report later on the 27th. Why weren’t Trayvon Martin’s parents contacted immediately after the police confirmed his identity? [Washington Post]
Special prosecutor Angela Corey has promised to release additional information about the case once she makes a decision about whether to charge Zimmerman, something that could happen at any time. | <urn:uuid:0fab0138-35f8-4184-b0ec-9a60b3e0c6d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/justice/issue/?m=20120328&mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969324 | 728 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Feb. 4, 2013
Sophomore Nicole Morris was one of 22 Boston College student-athletes who traveled to New Orleans to help rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina as part of the Devlin S-AFE Service Trip. The Eagles worked with the St. Bernard Project to work on a home in the Lower Ninth Ward.
Morris recounts her experience:
During the winter break, I was able to travel to New Orleans with one of my teammates, [junior] Hannah Mulvey, and 20 other student athletes to rebuild homes. I had never been to New Orleans before, but I knew about all the damage Hurrican Katrina had caused. I had no idea how immense the damage was even seven years later until I arrived there. We were able to tour the Lower Ninth Ward on the first day and I was in shock to see so many abandoned houses.
We spent most of our time working on a house that only had a frame when we first arrived. Through many days of hard work, we had completely installed insulation and drywall to the house. It was amazing to see the progress that could be done in only five short days. While we were working on the house, we were also able to meet the homeowner and many other people who could tell us stories of their lives after the hurricane. These first-hand accounts of what it was like to be displaced were incredibly powerful. We were even able to look inside an abandoned house that was right next to the house we were building. It was shocking to see people's blankets, plates and clothes just left there. I think that was the moment I fully realized all the work that needed to be done.
In the afternoons, we visited a middle school and a Boys and Girls Club. At Lake Castle Academy, we had the opportunity to share with the kids what it is like to be a student-athlete and teach them a little bit about the sports we play. At the Boys and Girls Club, we played with the kids and helped them with their homework. They were so happy to see us there that even though we were exhausted from 6 a.m. wakeups, we put smiles on our faces and forgot about how tired we were.
I am extremely blessed to have had the opportunity to go on a trip like this that was so life changing. Thanks to the Devlin S-AFE Program, we were able to change others lives while making friendship that I never would have made otherwise. I probably also would have never gotten the opportunity to go to New Orleans and difference in the people's lives that live there. And for that, I will always be thankful. | <urn:uuid:ab338638-3e58-4a44-b514-f96ea46d0032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bceagles.com/sports/saac/spec-rel/020413aaa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993145 | 536 | 1.648438 | 2 |
|Designing With Web Standards|
|summary||An excellent guide on designing a Web site with the latest Web standards|
Jeffrey Zeldman is one of the best technical writers whose work I've had the pleasure of reading. He is obviously well-educated with regard to the subject, and his passion for the work really shows through. Still, he never comes across as a zealot -- his style is even-handed, thoughtful, and easy to comprehend.
The first part of the book ("Houston, We Have a Problem") is the reason I give a rating of "9" rather than "10." Zeldman spends a perfect length of time on background and history of Web standards (why they're here, and what designers did before they emerged). However, this section seems to suffer from what many technical books suffer from: a case of "We'll see this soon"-itis. While this is perhaps unavoidable in such a treatise, it is nonetheless apparent. Still, it's only marginally distracting.
The meat of the book comes with "Designing and Building." Zeldman first talks about modern markup, then explains the variations on XHTML (i.e. Strict, Transitional, Frameset) and how each ought apply to your design. Here we see more theory than practice, though, but this is welcome -- it lays the foundation for a more cerebral look at distinguishing markup from design. Once Zeldman explains the nuances of that topic, we moveon to the redesign of a Web page constructed with a hybrid table/CSS design complete with all the excellent effects we hope to see in modern pages.
After working through this redesign, Zeldman talks in more detail about the CSS box model (and the browsers that break it), typography, and some of the quirks that Web designers must deal with. Next he touches a bit on Web accessibility--a must-read for everyone, whether you think so or not.
While Zeldman isn't incredibly thorough here, he doesn't need to be--it's a book on Web standards, after all, and this chapter serves to show how accessibility can still be achieved within those standards. He also suggests a couple of other books for more information.
Finally, Zeldman walks the reader through a redesign of zeldman.com, basically as a hands-on summary of the book, and as a guide for future projects. Also included is a "Back End" (i.e., appendix) showing some excellent information about each major browser.
Too often, a book or Web site on XHTML/CSS will dwell only on the "how"--this book shows the "how" and still explains the "why": Here's how you set up an id'ed element; here's why we do that, rather than using a class. It's already opened my eyes to many things I thought I had a handle on, but now realize that I only knew in a cursory fashion.
So, ask yourself: Do you want to design a Web site that will work for everyone, regardless of their platform? Do you want to make sure your Web site is future-proof? If so, you need this book.
You can purchase Designing With Web Standards from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page. | <urn:uuid:7ccf0ee5-abb6-4922-9e71-83af7b3e7532> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.slashdot.org/story/03/09/30/1633204/designing-with-web-standards?sdsrc=prevbtmprev | 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 | 0.937723 | 698 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Jeff Bercovici, Forbes Staff
I cover media, technology and the intersection of the two.
There are mistargeted ads, and then there are egregiously, woefully, outrageously mistargeted ads. The one I saw when I opened Facebook this afternoon falls into the latter category. This is it:
It appeared at the top of the right-hand column of the browser version of my homepage. It looks to be a low-cost, high-volume Marketplace ad for a group dedicated to advocating for gun ownership rights. Unlike the premium ad units called Sponsored Stories, Marketplace ads aren’t social (ie. you don’t see them based on your friends’ activities and preferences) but they can be targeted in several ways, including demographically or by interest. “Broad category targeting” allows ads to be ”shown to people who’ve included information in their timelines relevant to that category.”
I suppose you could say that I’ve included information in my timeline relevant to the category of shooting guns. In the three weeks since a man wielding an assault rifle killed 20 children and six adults, plus himself, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, much of my Facebook activity has involved discussions about gun laws. In those discussions, I’ve argued for restricting the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines and guns capable of firing them, such as the one in this ad, which appears to be an AK-47 or similar weapon.
Facebook isn’t the only media company making this kind of faux pas. Several newspapers have apologized to readers after publishing ads for gun shows adjacent to or in the same edition as coverage of the Sandy Hook massacre.
But when Facebook does it, it feels that much more tone deaf. A newspaper publisher has no way of knowing what I think about assault weapons. Facebook does.
Most internet users have had the experience of feeling creeped out by targeted messages from marketers who knew things about them they never meant to volunteer. Ads like this are a reminder that the creepiest advertising happens when marketers think they understand us better than they actually do. A little knowledge is, as they say, a dangerous thing. | <urn:uuid:4e8bdfea-5404-4d08-a69d-611ef1b4bfd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/07/hey-facebook-dont-show-me-ads-with-assault-rifles-okay/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963026 | 452 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Beauty is indeed fleeting, especially when it is frozen in liquid nitrogen and smashed on a hard surface. New York photographer Jon Shireman soaked various flowers in a liquid nitrogen bath for up to 30 minutes to rocket them into a hard platform, recording their destruction with a high speed camera. The result is a mosaic out of shattered pieces, provoking questions as to our fascination with destruction, aesthetics, and dominion over nature. Jon described the project as ‘Great fun’ and says ‘I like to turn the idea of traditional flower still lifes on its head sometimes’.
All images © Jon Shireman | <urn:uuid:144481b1-67d8-49d8-8d25-bae30bb43a8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ignant.de/2012/09/18/broken-flowers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948548 | 125 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The lasting power of many web services is hard to gauge, especially when those services are at an early stage and require users to adjust some of their most ingrained habits.
Lunarr is a service going into private beta that promises to put an end to the habit of emailing documents back and forth to collaborate. Its creators want to simplify collaboration by placing documents within the web browser and equipping users with wiki-like editing functionality and, more importantly, an email-like messaging system that associates messages with particular documents.
Lunarr works like this: to begin collaborating on a document, you can either upload a file to Lunarr or give it a URL (for online docs hosted at places like Google or Zoho). Or you can start from scratch with a template. Then you can hit the tab located in the upper-right hand corner of the screen to “flip” the page over. On the “other side” exists a messaging tool that lets you send a message to others using their email addresses, whether or not they are Lunarr users. These messages can not only be used to discuss the document in question, but also to bestow access to the document to others.
There are essentially two value propositions to Lunarr: first, the wiki-like functionality and second, the document-associated messaging system. In both the short and long runs, the messaging system provides more competitive value than the wiki functionality. Currently, only documents that are created on Lunarr can be edited via wiki (no luck if you upload a Word document). But even if they extended the wiki capabilities to uploads, there’s no reason to think that they can build a better online office suite than Google or smaller players such as Versionate.
Rather, it seems to me that Lunarr only has a chance of gaining widespread adoption if it plays very nicely with these other online office tool providers and somehow maintains a substantially superior messaging system than those provided by office app providers themselves. The discussion capabilities of Google Docs, for example, is currently quite primitive; you can chat with other people editing a document but there’s no way to send email-like messages to targeted individuals. But would it be that hard for Google to create Lunarr-like messaging capabilities? I suspect not.
Even if this were to happen, Lunarr would have the advantage of being a 3rd-party messaging system that works with all online tools. In such a world, its importance would rely on whether or not Google Docs becomes as dominant on the web as Microsoft Office became on the desktop. So far it has not. Lunarr also has its simplicity and ease of use going for it. We’ll have to see whether it can build up its functionality without losing these core qualities.
The Lunarr team has offered to hand out invites to readers who request them by emailing this address. All accounts will remain free until 2009 and you can invite 50 of your friends (or users waiting at InviteShare). Check Lunarr out and let us know what you think about it in the comments. Is this a prescient tool of the cloud computing era or simply a feature that will be replicated by the online office suite providers themselves? | <urn:uuid:e9b3d2f0-7efb-4375-9fff-40b49e4bbeb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2008/02/06/lunarr-collaboration-system-of-the-future-or-reproducible-feature/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939612 | 656 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Almost every Mac user are waiting for the official release of Mountain Lion. However, after much anticipation, as soon as the upgrade was released this week, Apple Mac users start to experience problems with the download from the App Store. While it’s a great idea to be able to download it instead of buying it in CD form, if it won’t download correctly, it’s not a help. Here’s how to download it and get past the possible error code that is popping up for some users.
Open the App Store on your Mac. Make sure you’re connected to a power source if you’re on a laptop. It often prompts you to do so anyway when upgrading the system, and this is a long download. You’ll want to make sure your battery doesn’t run out in the process. Click on the download button and type in your password.
The download takes at least an hour, and once it moves to the installing stage it takes another thirty minutes or so before it automatically reboots your system. Once it has restarted, you’ll know that it has upgraded successfully.
Some users are reporting an Error Message when they try to download Mountain Lion. One message is just asking users to simply try again, another message is designating it to be Error 100, and another was saying the distribution file could not be verified.
The first solution is the easier and most obvious one. Quit the Apple Store and restart your computer. That should be the first choice of any error problem. Relaunch the Apple Store and attempt to download Mountain Lion again. Hopefully it will work and the situation will be resolved.
Simply waiting it out is the second option. Often when a new software, much-anticipated app, or new device is released, Apple’s servers can get overloaded with everyone trying to get the new product at the same time. If you can wait, it will make all the difference.
If the problem persists, it’s suggested to empty the cache for the App Store. This can be done for any problem you are having with the App Store. To do this, initiate a search for the “~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore” folder on your hard drive, but instead of using the search box, use the “Go to Folder” from the Go menu in Finder. Once you locate it, move it to the Trash, and be sure you perform an “Empty the Trash” as well. Relaunch the App Store and initiate the download again.
Getting past the error, downloading directly to your hard drive, instead of buying the upgrade on a CD, is certainly the better option. There may be some obstacles along the way, but as long as there are easy fixes such as this, it beats the prior method of upgrades.
Receive the latest update in your inbox. | <urn:uuid:7ed35d1b-e451-410c-8383-76d30a011083> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maketecheasier.com/fixing-mountain-lion-download-errors/2012/07/30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939148 | 598 | 1.5 | 2 |
by Jarek Skonieczny
Here is a fun little project that anyone can do with their kids.
Start off with a "Tetra Pak" juice box and some household arts and crafts items. Acrylic craft paint works best as it will flex and not chip off.
Start by cutting out the doors (approximately the centre 1/3 portion of the length and 1/2 the depth) then cut across the top at the rear of the door openings. Fold the windshield up and trim to size. Cut along the back of the fender wells and fold up the back. Use the existing straw hole as a headlight and cut out a second to match. Cut holes near the floor for axles.
Wheels can be cut out of corrugated cardboard to give them some thickness. Two straws, trimmed not to extend past the wheels, will be needed per jeep.
Two coats of paint may be needed to stop the juice box text from showing through. The back portion can be the same height as the windshield if you want a top on the jeep, or trim it down to simulate a rear seat. I was after an army look for my Juice Jeep while my son Jacob wanted a Fire Jeep. Cut the star out of white paper or paint the hood text on like my son's "FD".
Cardboard made a good top for the fire jeep, and popsicle sticks were used for ladders. A couple of army guys were recruited to the "red" side with a coat of acrylic. Hours of play with many cardboard box buildings saved by the miniature fire department make this a worthy family project.
The original instructions for this project (12K GIF) were published as part of a booklet by the Tetra Pak Corporation, manufacturers of the juice boxes.
Thanks to Jarek and Jacob for documenting a great project. -- Derek Redmond
For another project, see Pasta Jeeps.
Return to the Toy Jeeps Pages on The CJ3B Page.
CJ3B Home | Site Map | Search | Movies | Bulletin Board | <urn:uuid:b9a22860-97a3-4471-82de-e33f98d92091> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.film.queensu.ca/cj3B/Toys/JuiceJeep.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945156 | 427 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The Harlan Independent School District has again been recognized for cost effectiveness in providing educational services to the community, Superintendent David Johnson told the Board of Education during a special meeting on Tuesday.
In its report “Bang for the Buck: How efficient are Kentucky’s Schools?” the Bluegrass Institute listed Harlan Independent Schools as the second most cost-effective district among Kentucky’s 169 K-12 public school districts.
Johnson said the study, released on Sept. 17, rated districts based on their school achievement as measured by composite ACT scores versus per-pupil spending from 2011. The study found that the average ACT score among the state’s districts was 18.5, with the average spending of $10,503.57 per student. Harlan Independent’s average score was 20.9. The district’s average per pupil spending was $8,639.
In a press release from the Bluegrass Institute, Harlan Independent is noted for its performance despite a student poverty rate of 53 percent. Richard G. Innes, author of the report, stated that student poverty clearly does not stand in the way of efficiency in Harlan Independent School District.
“We are pleased to be recognized again for our efficiency and cost effectiveness in providing a strong academic program that prepares students for college and careers,” said Johnson. “Like all school districts, we would like to have more money for the education of our children. We have made significant cuts in recent years, but we have tried to minimize the impact on the classroom. The real key is the quality of teaching that takes place in the classroom and we have outstanding teachers and staff in our schools.”
Harlan Independent School District was also recognized by the Center for American Progress in its 2011 national study “Return on Educational Investment.” The district was then recognized as being among the nation’s most cost effective school districts based on a comparison of the average per student spending and the strong academic performance of its students.
“We take our responsibility to our community and all of our children, regardless of their situation or background, very seriously,” said Johnson. “This study helps confirm that we are using our community’s resources efficiently and effectively for the benefit of our children.”
In regard to the upcoming release of the Kentucky Department of Education’s Kentucky Performance Rating for Educational Progress (K-PREP) results, Johnson said Commissioner Terry Holliday wants the public to understand “under the new standards in the new assessment program it’s highly likely the scores will be lower than everyone is used to seeing.”
“That happens every time we implement a new assessment system,” said Johnson. “We went through it with KERA — every time we’d make an adjustment we’d have to work our way back up. Commissioner Holliday explained this is more than likely to happen again. It won’t just be true for us, but true for all the school districts across the state.”
In other the action, the board members:
*Agreed to pursue handbooks for substitute teachers and coaches as provided by the KSPA;
*Noted a vacancy position will be posted for Director of district-wide services, recently vacated by C.D. Morton who was hired as principal. Approved changing that contract from 230 days to a 220 day contract;
*Approved the hiring of a part-time hourly bus driver for three hours per day;
*Approved a transportation agreement with the Harlan County School District to transport county students to the Bell County Day Treatment Center at a cost of $100 per day.
Board members went into executive session per KRS 61.810 (1.b) and returned with no action taken.
Reach Nola Sizemore at 606-573-4510 or at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:ab26b141-132e-4e15-ba46-97ae071f3e57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harlandaily.com/pages/home/push?per_page=5&class=prev_page&x_page=152&rel=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961361 | 821 | 1.742188 | 2 |
An official iCheckMovies list.
Favorited 77 times, disliked 3 times, added to 66 watchlists.
The early years of the 40s decade were not promising for the American film industry, however, Hollywood film production rebounded and reached its profitable peak of efficiency during the years 1943 to 1946. Advances in film technology (sound recording, lighting, special effects, cinematography and use of color) meant that films were more watchable and 'modern'. The films themselves took on a more realistic rather than escapist tone, as they had done during the Depression years of the 30s. The 40s also were the decade that saw the birth of a new genre in film noir ("black film") pared with the revival of gangster films.
1 -1942, in 28 top lists Check
19 +11942, in 15 top lists Check
45 -1942, in 11 top lists Check
Last updated: May 16, 2013; source | <urn:uuid:e7cc68fe-f18e-45b8-9ea9-f610d40dad1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/1940s/?tags=year%3A1942 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968893 | 199 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Photo library cards the city of Memphis began issuing this summer can be used as valid identification for the Nov. 6 elections.
The Tennessee Appeals Court ruled Thursday, Oct. 25, that city of Memphis photo library cards are a valid form of state issued identification for voting under terms of a 2011 Tennessee that requires photo identification in order to vote.
The court accompanied the ruling with a one-page order that directs Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins “to immediately advise the Shelby County Election Commission to accept photo library cards issued by the city of Memphis Public Library as acceptable evidence of identification” under the 2011 state law.
Shelby County Election Commissioners had been notified of the ruling Thursday afternoon, according to Election Commissioner George Monger, and were preparing to comply immediately based on instructions from Hargett and Goins.
Early voters could present a photo library card as valid ID to vote, the commission decided based on word from Nashville, but those voter would be given a provisional ballot.
Hargett and Goins told The Tennessean newspaper late Thursday they intend to file an appeal Friday with the Tennessee Supreme Court specifically seeking a stay of the Appeals Court order that allows the use of the photo library cards during the ongoing early voting period.
The state is expected to argue complying with the order will mean new instructions for election workers with balloting already underway under a different set of rules.
“Anything that we can do to open wider the doors to the ballot box is indeed a step in the right direction and for the right reason,” said Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr., who inaugurated the photo library card program in July and led the legal fight first in Nashville federal court and then in Davidson County Chancery Court. “This is why we take great joy in the court’s ruling.”
Lt. Governor and State Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, who spearheaded passage of the law, said the library card “clearly violates the legislative intent of this law.”
But the rest of his reaction was to the part of the ruling that upheld the state law.
“Tennessee’s voter ID law is necessary, proper and completely constitutional,” Ramsey said in a written statement. “This has been made plain by the courts and remains undisputed.”
Wharton countered that critics of the city’s policy and program, which has issued 1,908 of the photo library cards since July, were being selective in their reading of the state law.
“What the court did is read the law in its entirety. What those who have opposed the library card have said is it ran afoul of the state’s responsibility to ensure the integrity and purity of the ballot box,” Wharton said at an afternoon press conference in front of City Hall. “But that same law states that it is designed to ensure maximum participation by all citizens. That’s what we were relying on – not to find ways to restrict participation. The policy of the state ought to be how can we get more participation.”
The ruling comes as early voting in advance of the Nov. 6 election day is already underway.
The city’s position went two ways. First, city attorneys challenged the constitutionality of the state law arguing it was an obstacle to voting. The second argument was that if the court upheld the law, it should interpret the law to allow the photo library card as valid for voting purposes.
“Showing a photo ID is not a significant intrusion or burden,” read the appeals court ruling written by Judge Andy D. Bennett, who decided the case along with Judges Richard H. Dinkins and D. Michael Swiney. Bennett cited photo ID requirements to board a plane, enter federal buildings and cash a check in upholding the state law.
“Photographic identification is probably the best way of making sure a voter is the person he or she claims to be,” Bennett added citing past U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the burden in terms of cost for such identification is not substantial.
State case law, he added, “supports finding that the city is a branch, department, agency or entity of this state” under past Tennessee Supreme Court rulings on that specific issue. | <urn:uuid:fca86130-4edf-4ce9-89c9-95bc592248fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2012/oct/26/appeals-court-rules-photo-library-cards-are-voter-id/print | 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 | 0.962642 | 891 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Weekly Addresses: Making Progress On A Budget [VIDEO]
President Barack Obama says he’s reaching out to lawmakers from both parties in hopes of untangling the gridlock that has stymied progress on budget issues in Washington.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says he’s talking with Republicans about ways to replace the automatic spending cuts that took effect March 1. He says immigration reform and gun control are other areas where he’s hopeful Democrats and Republicans can find common ground.
He referred to a dinner during the week with 12 U.S. Senator in which they had an “open and honest conversation about critical issues” facing the country including gun violence and the budget.
He says even though unemployment fell to 7.7 percent last month, expanding the economy is still his top priority.
In the Republican address, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama says he’s worried that Senate Democrats will unveil a budget next week that won’t curb the nation’s debt. He’s insisting that lawmakers balance the federal budget.
He proposed setting 3.4% as the rate of spending growth but was concerned Democrats would not abide by the limit and is worried the Democrat budget will echo the President’s solutions to cutting the deficit.
“I fear it will crush American workers and our economy with trillions in new taxes, spending and debt,” he added. “I fear Chairman (Patty) Murray will follow the president’s lead: raising taxes to enrich the bureaucracy at the expense of the people.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story. | <urn:uuid:1552924b-0fd4-45ac-b116-df88639a4828> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wobm.com/weekly-addresses-making-progress-on-a-budget-video/ | 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 | 0.953471 | 337 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Dark Sky sends me a push notification with a custom sound whenever it’s about to rain. I’ve become so accustomed to it that I no longer need to even take it out of my pocket when I receive an alert. The custom sound is enough.
Moves sends me a push notification every morning, telling me how many steps I took on the prior day. I don’t really need to open the app to learn more. A quick glance at the notification tells me what I need to know, and I am free to continue on with whatever I’m doing.
Moves and Dark Sky have no idea that they are providing value to me, since I typically do not take any action on the notification that is visible to the developer or even the OS.
The business impact is that companies are evaluated and funded on the basis of metrics like Daily Active Use, Monthly Active Use, Impressions, Visits. Notifications happen prior to all of these metrics.
The product impact is that if the goal is to deliver value in the notification itself, then these apps have no way of knowing whether or not their notifications are successful.
My hunch is that, for these two reasons, push notifications are an under-explored interface. Imagine an entire suite of apps with which you interact without ever opening. Imagine if app developers could send more data (images, videos) through push notifications, or even receive simple responses (“Yes” / “No”) from users without requiring users to launch the application itself.
Our phones and the apps within them are with us at all times — they are starting to feel more and more like extensions of the brain, augmenting its inputs with sensors that don’t come pre-installed in humans.
I’d love to see some forward progress in notification interfaces from the major mobile operating system. That’s the type of change that could unleash a massive wave of innovation in app development. | <urn:uuid:7fae44ec-b743-44b5-9862-7a181ad70ba2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jakelevine.me/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945596 | 406 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I haven't had my period in three and a half months. I wasn't too worried at the beginning, my periods are always late. However when the end of the third month started to draw near I was extremely worried, it'd never stopped for this long. I started going through the list of all the possible explinations because even though there was no blood, the cramps and the increased hormones continued normally as if it was all in check. Just recently I have found that my body is giving off very dark brown discharge with just the slightest bit of blood. I'm worried to think of what this might mean.
Right now I'm suffering from a cold, just before that I experienced a long standing, painful cramp and then the discharge started. I put a pantyliner in my underwear just in case, and 'my version' of a tampon (which is just rolled up toilet paper, I don't like having an excess of tampons just lying about so I go the bio degreadable route). More of the discharge started showing but it has stopped for the most part since my cold has come.
I've made it my decision that if by the next month I have still no period I will consult my doctor, but before I do that is there any information about what this might be? Any help and comments appreciated.
Ok, wow.. start using tampons!!!!! Using a rolled up piece of toilet paper and inserting into your vagina is DANGEROUS. You DO NOT want something bio degreadable in your vagina. If piece of this toilet paper ever break off (which they always will because toilet paper is so thin), these pieces can (AND WILL) float off of the main "tampon-like" roll and potentially can get stuck in your vagina. Not really "stuck", but when you pull the rolled up piece out, they won't come out with it.
Now this is the part where I explain why you shouldn't use this "tampon". These pieces are not fully bio degreadable When you are menstrating, no matter how much or how little, you are shedding the lining of your uterus. This contains blood, obviously. When this blood is soaked up by a regular tampon, it cannot stay inside your body for very long. This is why they suggest leaving tampons in for only 4-6 hours. Any longer and you are at risk of Toxic Shock Syndrome. When you use that "make-shift" tampon, and tiny pieces of toilet paper break off, the absorbed blood remained on these pieces and inside your vagina. This provides a perfect atmosphere for some really nasty bacteria to grow. Bacteria leads to an infection, especially if the foreign bodies (the pieces of toilet paper) remain in your vagina.
I suggest going to the doctor and getting check for a vaginal infection, or even a urinary tract infection. These might be the reasons for your missed/light periods.
Do your health a favor and buy tampons from now on. Get a cute little box to put them in, if you are worried about them "laying" around. Would you rather have tampons in a box in your house, or an infection that could be very dangerous to your health.
Last edited by Melissa1983; 08-24-2005 at 09:05 PM.
I'm very careful about cleaning out my vagina. I've had cases wear bits of toilet paper have floated off but they were found almost immediatly. I didn't mean bio degreadable in that sense, just that I could flush them which I something I prefer.
I understand the perameters for TSS perfectly and it couldn't happen to me because I take the 'tampons' (even regular ones) out whenever I go to the bathroom, which is anywhere from half an hour to three hours when I have my period.
You've raised some interesting points though and I will make sure to address them to my doctor when I visit.
Well, for me what I eat has a lot to do with how often my periods come. The more sugar/carbs that I eat the more irregular they come.
Did you change your diet or anything? Start working? New excersize program??? Anything at all???
It sounds like you might have some sort of urinary tract infection - the dark-ish brown discharge. These infections sometimes delay or cause you to miss periods. Also, as mentioned in the above post, your diet, exercise, stress level might be the cause. I'd go see your doctor to do a simple urine test to at least eliminate the UTI possibility. Then, from there, you and your doctor can try to come to some conclusions as to why you've missed a couple periods. Hope everything works out, and try not to stress about it. Also, is there a possibility you could be pregnant? Obviously that is something that causes a woman to miss her period. Although highly doubtful, just a question. Good luck!
Not really.. infections come with all sorts of symptoms. Some stay dormant, and you might not even realize you have one. Different bacteria act in different ways. Principle suggestion is to go the your doc.
all tampons are flushable, just the applicators are not other then the brand mentioned above. Invest in a box they are worth it. Toilet paper is a bad idea! If your young your body is still adjusting. I was having two periods a month when I first started and honestly I never became regulated until I jumped onto birth control.
If you are having the symptoms with now discharge or just a tiny bit then your body may not be producing a lot? I know I had one scare where I had no period while on b/c and i was schedualed for my yearly around that time and doc confirmed there was some "in there" it just wasnt enough to be noticible? I dont know why this would happen for 3 months my only guess is that your still adjusting? | <urn:uuid:61ac1567-576d-4913-9fc5-82d105fe1748> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthboards.com/boards/teen-health/318301-serious-worries-about-my-period.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974002 | 1,221 | 1.59375 | 2 |
It may sound like a funny idea, but lately we’ve been gabbing about how Doorsteps might help people choose between various mortgage options in a neutral, ideally inexpensive (or even free) way.
Turns out this idea already exists, sort of. They are typically called Housing or Mortgage Counselors, and the theory is they can help you decode and compare various mortgage options, or help you understand what to do if you start falling behind on mortgage payments.
We recently blogged about the CFPB’s effort to re-design mortgage disclosures, which we think is a major step in the right direction to helping all buyers really understand what they are buying.
But some people feel the re-design still doesn’t cut it - in fact, no amount of redesign could possibly help a novice homebuyer truly understand and make sense of some 40+ disclosures that could be part of any given mortgage option.
We stumbled across a rather frightening statistic, noted by Jeff Sovern in a recent New York Times article, in which he recalls a little experiment he ran:
When I had my assistant survey mortgage brokers in 2009, more than two-thirds reported that less than 30 percent of their borrowers spent more than a minute with the disclosures.
In other words, in 2009 - at the height of the much discussed housing crisis - most homebuyers still weren’t actually reading the terms of their mortgages.
Housing counselors are commonplace to help buyers understand their options if they face foreclosure. In fact, according to the HUD website, if you work with a housing counselor, the odds are 1.7 times larger that you will avoid foreclosure.
But a mortgage counselor is something else - it’s a preemptive strike, so to speak, to ensure you get the right mortgage to begin with.
It reminds us of some good advice for keeping a marriage healthy. Go to counseling before you need it, and you probably won’t. (Not that anyone listens to that chestnut, either).
So if you’re in the market for a mortgage, try reaching out to one of HUD’s free mortgage consultants. Click here to search for one near you.
We’ve never tried them out ourselves, but that’s our next experiment - and we’ll let you know how well they give advice given our (fictional) financial situation. But we’re all for unbiased opinions (that’s our mission, too!), so we’re anxious to learn from how such a service currently works.
We’ll post a transcript of the call, too, so you can follow along. And if any buyers have used this service before, let us know! We’d love to know if you feel they helped keep your financial life healthy. And if they helped your marriage, too, we’ll call that a bonus. | <urn:uuid:ec7ed208-5285-4793-b6bd-875c676723c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.doorsteps.com/post/28053129990/marriage-counselors-maybe-mortgage-counselors | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953978 | 600 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Dini's theorem is commonly seen in real analysis courses (possibly with the requirement that $X$ be a compact metric space if topological spaces are still off in the future), but suppose one wanted to give an example of how much it can fail without the requirement that the pointwise limit of the sequence of functions is continuous. The problem therefore is:
Exhibit a sequence of continuous functions $f_n: [0,1] \to [0,1]$ pointwise monotonically decreasing to a function $f: [0,1] \to [0,1]$ such that the set of points where $f$ is discontinuous has measure $1$.
This could for example be used to demonstrate how poorly behaved the Riemann integral is with respect to pointwise limits since the sequence $(f_n)$ is pretty much as nice as you can possibly get without being uniformly convergent and $f$ is obviously Lebesgue integrable, but it "maximally fails" to satisfy Lebesgue's criterion for Riemann integrability. Additionally, it would demonstrate the existence of comeagre Lebesgue null sets because the set of points where $f$ is continuous is comeagre by the Baire-Osgood theorem (does anyone have a good free online reference for this? (EDIT: I wrote one myself)).
PS: I know of an example myself (and I'll obviously be posting it later if noone posts one); I'm asking in order to have a reference to point to. | <urn:uuid:52f7f3b5-1b92-4164-a3b1-fe1dc3d8be50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/102482/how-badly-can-dinis-theorem-fail-if-the-p-w-limit-isnt-continuous/102505 | 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 | 0.957252 | 320 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
The days before Christmas begin in deep darkness, occasionally relieved by streaks of rose and purple in the eastern sky. Even on the darkest mornings, we wait in hope for those slim rays of light and their promise of more.
What does that promise of more actually mean? Women’s investment in Christmas in this culture often increases their workloads. The expectations of our families and friends – like a “perfect Christmas” or at least one better than last year – are intimately tied to how we respond in this season. Those expectations are often unreasonable and impossible. Part of growing into emotional and spiritual maturity includes letting go of those impossible expectations. We cannot “fix” the world for the people around us. What we can do is offer the best of what we know and the best of what is within us – and that is usually less about what we do than who we are.
How might you spend more time with family and friends this Christmas, rather than spend more money on gifts? How might you engage your loved ones in conversation, games, singing, or just sitting around and being together? The memories that come from that kind of spending are far more valuable than any purchased gift – and they last a lifetime.
We wait for the birth of a poor baby at Christmas, not a bag of gifts. Babies come only after months of waiting – productive and life-giving waiting. That productive waiting isn’t just “waiting on” demanding kids or others – it’s dreaming and hoping and being, rather than doing. How might you “wait with” your loved ones this year?
We wait for a poor child who blessed the world with the immeasurable wealth of relationship with the holy. How will you share your understanding of holiness with your loved ones this year?
Search for those signs of dawn in the eastern sky – you can’t hurry their appearance any more than the arrival of this child. Wait in hope, and gather others with you to dream about what this child represents – a healed and whole and holy world. Invite your loved ones to join you in that prayer, and then consider how you might help to heal one small wound in this world. That’s the more of Christmas, the greater light that dawns in this birth.
A blessed Christmas to you and your loved ones.
The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori is the twenty-sixth Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. She is chief pastor and primate to The Episcopal Church's members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses, and joins with other principal bishops of the 38 member provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion, seeking to make common cause for global good and reconciliation. | <urn:uuid:484ae895-9f43-4dcc-b4ad-36776db2ab70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womensconference.org/this-christmas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955068 | 578 | 1.789063 | 2 |
History TulsaNow evolved from a small group of citizens frustrated by the failure of revitalization referendums. Hoping to influence the process, these individuals began organizing monthly meetings and created an electronic mailing list.
“TulsaNow’s Mission is to help Tulsa become the most vibrant, diverse, sustainable and prosperous city of our size. We achieve this by focusing on the development of Tulsa’s distinctive identity and economic growth around a dynamic, urban core, complemented by a constellation of livable, thriving communities.”
- To achieve our Mission through:
- Providing information and guidance to citizens and civic leaders alike on key, strategic and topical issues;
- Encouraging and stimulating thoughtful, public discourse on those issues;
- Providing forums within which discussion may thrive;
- Participation: seeking ‘a place at the table’.
Our Core Values
TulsaNow believes the following are essential to achieving our Mission:
- A vibrant, walkable Downtown and revitalized, core neighborhoods at the heart of a regional strategy;
- Diversity (of people, cultures, the built environment, and economic base);
- Sustainable environmental and economic development policies;
- Prosperity of all citizens in all walks of life, in terms of material opportunities, livability of neighborhoods, and civic amenities;
- The role of Design – at all levels – in the physical planning and shaping of our collective future;
- Respect, civility and genuine engagement with all points of view.
TulsaNow will promote awareness of issues we consider important through:
- Public meetings hosted by TulsaNow; Advocacy at key, civic events; Our website;
- Offering guidance to Councilors, Commissioners and candidates for elective office;
- Working alongside other, complementary, citizen groups;
- The media.
TulsaNow: from whence it came
In February 2001, a precursor of TulsaNow was formed as a result of a conversation between four concerned citizens – Karen Keith, Linda Frazier, Marilyn Inhofe-Tucker and Roger Randle. Like others in the community, they expressed concern about the future of Tulsa and exasperation that voters had twice rejected major reinvigoration projects.
Randle stated his concern that “Tulsa was not bad enough to fix and that it would gracefully decay over time.” The four were discouraged that two recent Tulsa projects had failed – while acknowledging that neither was perfect. It was time, they reasoned, to bring together people from all areas and levels of the city to “get something going.” That day they put together a short list and soon started inviting people. On April 10, 2001 about 15 Tulsans who shared these concerns met in the living room of Linda Frazier’s home.
Wendy Thomas, at that time Executive Director of the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, brought flip chart and her keen abilities to effectively organize a disparate group. By default and later by acclamation she became the group’s “facilitator.”
This small cluster of concerned citizens brainstormed about “Where have we come from?”, “Where are we now?” and “Where are we going?” Randle gave a brief history of the past two Tulsa Plans, and in short order a series of ideas began to develop for ways to develop an action plan.
From that meager beginning a concept for action took off. Early meetings involved learning about what was really going on in our city. Developers, newspaper reporters, members of the Tulsa Development Authority, and others were invited to discuss both current situation and potential options.
The early organization purposely remained loose as early members reached out for others who shared similar interests. A name for the group, suggested by Larry Silvey, was adopted at an early meeting. “While we are concerned about the future of Tulsa, now is the only time we have to do anything about anything,” he said.
Karen Keith, who initially acted as program developer, arranged for TulsaNow’s first public event, a one-day bus trip to Tulsa’s urban neighbor at the other end of the Turner Turnpike, Oklahoma City. Those on the bus included motivated members as well as a contingent of politicos gearing up for the upcoming mayoral race. Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humprheys and other major players in that city’s successful MAPS redevelopment plan provided an all day red-carpet tour. Discussion on the way home reflected no small amount of envy about what Oklahoma City had accomplished with its revitalized brick town and new baseball stadium, canal, and new museum etc. But there was also a sense of new resolve that with strong citizen input, a new beginning could be generated in Tulsa.
While the OKC hosts did not hide its bragging rights, Humphrey and others were encouraging. Of particular resonance was a statement made by the mayor that Tulsa had so many amenities that Oklahoma City doesn’t – trees, a real river, rolling hills, and people who give their fortunes back to the city. Oklahoma City, he said, was so bad when they began their process that it had nowhere else to go but up! He also hinted that one way to achieve success was to get members of Tulsa’s leadership to quit fighting among themselves.
Soon after that bus trip, TulsaNow decided to put together a bus trip in Tulsa’s own downtown area – a neighborhood of particular concern to the original group. It was another big hit. LeAnne Ziegler of the Tulsa Foundation For Architecture provided a map and description of each site – which included The Tribune Lofts, Greenwood area, OSU-Tulsa, and TulsaNow member Jamie Jamieson’s Village at Central Park development. While the untimely economic downturn at Williams Companies prevented a subsequent and similar “CEO” tour, Karen Keith delivered packets of information to several CEOs along with the final mayoral candidates.
TulsaNow co-sponsored with Tulsa Opera the first-of-its-kind Mayoral Forum on the Arts at the Performing Arts Center. A packed room of more than 200 area residents heard chief finalists Bill LaFortune and Gary Watts address specific arts and downtown related questions. Watts, a longtime civic leader and former city councilman, said that it was the most energetic forum that the candidates had attended.
TulsaNow also turned to the task of research. TulsaNow stalwart Joan Seay’s Urban Models Task Force sought models from other urban areas, ultimately publishing two documents on guidelines that have been successful in “creating a vibrant downtown” and other areas. Those documents are just a click away at Downtown Revitalization Planning Resource and Regional Competitiveness Planning Resource.
Larry Silvey, the group’s original wordsmith, created the original logo and compiled the first summary of goals. He also recruited TulsaNow Webmaster Rex Brown, who single-handedly created the informative and ever-improving www.TulsaNow.org web site and ran the site up until 2007.
Several members of our group – Rodger Randle, Karen Keith, Linda Frazier, Wendy Thomas, Marilyn Inhofe-Tucker, and Larry Silvey among several others – played instrumental roles in the planning, implementation, and final report publication of the highly successful Mayor’s Vision Summit July 2002.
On a cold and rainy night in October 2002, TulsaNow staged a brash, successful and fun event called the Battle of the Plans on the University of Tulsa campus. More than 200 citizens, along with TV-crews, braved the weather as ten plans were presented – with major logistical help from Rex Brown. So successful was the event – which included exhibits around the room, that the City-County Vision 2025 organizers adopted the exhibition idea for a larger event held at the fairgrounds.
As the Vision 2025 vote drew close, TulsaNow debated among its members the evolution of the process as well as the final 4-part package. The organization helped break a hesitancy for actual public debate by staging an open discussion of the issues between those both pro and con at Harwelden, moderated by KWGS veteran Rich Fisher. While TulsaNow at first formed a nonaligned, neutral stance, straw polls conducted at both the Harwelden event and on line were firmly in favor of the Vision 2025 package. As a result of these votes and further discussion, TulsaNow came out firmly in favor of the proposals.
TulsaNow continued to evolve, and the public forums and website continued to expand and evolve. In 2008, TulsaNow began “DowntownLive!” a completely grassroots downtown education and marketing project. In early 2009 TulsaNow launched an all new website and forum incorporating areas for advocacy articles and adapting to the huge volume of traffic TulsaNow.org sees on a daily basis.
2010 found us working closing with PlaniTulsa and the small area plans as they were assembled and completed. We also mourned the passing of one of our members and long-time supporters, Rex Ball.
In 2011 we celebrated our 10th anniversary and hosted a public forum focusing on the debate between the City Manager and Strong Mayor form of governments featuring the former Mayors of Tulsa and OKC speaking in support of each method. We also launched “Talk Trash Tulsa” a simple informative program discussing upcoming changes to Tulsa’s residential trash system. DowntownLive! was combined with a city-lead marketing effort and became the official Downtown Tulsa website, DowntownTulsaOK.com.
2012 has seen us becoming a key voice in the debate over Vision2, the first tax initiative proposed to follow Vision2025. We also started a new program focusing on educating the citizens about zoning and land use issues which will be announced soon.
If you are interested in being a part of creating a better Tulsa, more livable, dynamic and economically viable city and region, we invite you to become a member of TulsaNow. You can make a positive difference: come aboard and help TulsaNow create Tulsa’s future from the roots up. | <urn:uuid:3e9446de-e2df-48ac-b0e2-4e8c9245f397> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tulsanow.org/?page_id=89 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960448 | 2,097 | 1.585938 | 2 |
As with yesterday's post, I was planning on talking about the ongoing sleep issues, but this morning as I was drifting in and out of being awake, and also hitting the snooze button on my phone every five minutes, I had a dream that replayed yesterday's incident at the checkout line.
In my dream I saw the scene played out from a third person's point of view. Seeing it, I realized just how big of a disadvantage it is to establish new relationships for those on the spectrum.
To make a comparison: would a soccer team agree to start the World Cup finals down one goal? Or how about a baseball team agreeing to start the World Series down a game. Or how about a race car driver saying that they want to start the Indy 500 down one lap. Why do I give these comparisons? Think of it this way; yesterday I was displaying all the signs that I wasn't okay, even though I was, and when I was asked I showed more and more signs that I wasn't okay when I was just irked at the question.
By displaying the wrong cues we are constantly starting behind in the first impression department. For those that know me, I have no problem communicating with them because I feel as comfortable as I am going to get. If I come across someone new, or a new situation, I will withdraw into myself and this is when my facial expressions go blank. When I go blank I get asked, "Are you okay?" and with that the first impression is lost forever and I am starting the game of socializing one point down.
I never understood this concept, or was able to explain it, until I saw it in my dream this morning. I don't know if I like realizing this or not because now I am going to be extra aware of it and will either try too hard, or get angry with myself for being socially awkward with people I don't know. At least I understand now. At least now I somewhat have an understanding with how the invisible score system works within the social society. I know I am somewhat capable at conversation once that first 90 seconds is passed, but getting there is the hard part.
As I have been writing this I now realize that I may not be alone in this boat of starting behind. In my travels across the state of Missouri this month I have heard the story repeated, "If only people didn't write my son off from the first sentence" to, "Once he has a friend there's no problem, but getting past hello seems to be impossible."
Think about it, if we are constantly having bad experiences due to reasons we don't know why on earth would we even try? If we constantly fail at establishing a relationship when we don't know why, can you expect us to be willing to listen? It's not so much to just say, "put on a happy face" because I don't know what that means or why I should.
After seeing it played out in the third person though I now somewhat have a better understanding and hopefully this entry can be used to help everyone understand how and why we have issues with relationships. We may be more capable than you think, but if we are always starting the socializing race one lap down, we will never be able to hold our own or learn because instead of starting one lap down some people may never get to start. What do you think? | <urn:uuid:8e26b198-19cf-4086-9741-b80fa9db64ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifeontheothersideofthewall.blogspot.com/2010/12/starting-behind.html?showComment=1291874306758 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979416 | 690 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Do you plan to retire? You would imagine that such a question is a “no-brainer” but that’s not necessarily true. Each person will make that decision when the time comes based upon a myriad of factors such as health, family and/or the physical requirements of their job.
Life expectancy is rising, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a Paris based economic think-tank. This organization has determined that governments will not be able to pay retirement funds for individuals who, by the year 2050, are expected to live about 20 to 24 years beyond the current retirement age of 65.
The report, released on Monday, notes that, “Extending working lives in a situation of slowly growing or declining workforces should provide an important boost to economic growth in aging economies.”
Looking ahead, how will changing the retirement age impact real estate, and will it make much of a difference? Let’s see. Right now, experts are concerned that the baby boomers – typically better savers than younger generations – will face financial hardships during retirement.
Doubtful. Many of these individuals have 100% equity in their homes. They’re willing to change their lifestyles to accommodate their needs during retirement. For example, as they begin to retire they sell their homes and move to more affordable locations such as Florida or Arizona.
According to the NY Times, Great Homes and Destinations writer, Fred Brock,
“Surveys among boomers who have retired early show clearly that college towns are a favorite because of their cultural and educational opportunities. Towns with strong, diverse economies are favored for the part-time jobs they offer. Also important are recreational opportunities, good restaurants and high-speed Internet connections, especially for those boomers who want to work from home.
The houses that many boomers will be building and buying also reflect a desire to downsize. “Many boomers are empty-nesters; big houses are all about kids,” said Blanche Evans, the editor of Realty Times. “There is a tremendous move toward condos and smaller, low-maintenance homes. The boomers want to pursue their own interests. They don’t want to spend time on home maintenance. They don’t want a trophy house. Many have done that already.”
Ms. Evans says many decorators are telling her that the boomers want to transform the style of their houses along with their lives, trading in a suburban house for an urban loft, for example. She added: “Baby boomers have always been experimental. That won’t change as they get older. They’re willing to go outside their comfort zones.””
What do you think? Please share your experiences as a real estate professional. Do you have any clients who have changed their lifestyles after retirement? | <urn:uuid:6c9094fc-a4c8-4d5c-8f33-f8ce24eea894> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://realtybiznews.com/the-changing-face-of-retirement-and-its-impact-on-real-estate/98713043/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970086 | 593 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Keeping Minnesota’s families and children healthy is critical to our state’s success. DHS offers programs that provide care for the well-being of eligible families and children.
DHS works to ensure effective, accessible mental health services and supports for children and their families.
Learn more about eligibility for publicly funded health insurance, how to apply, services and program changes.
DHS manages programs that help eligible people living with HIV/AIDS access medication therapy and medical care.
People enrolled in Minnesota Health Care Programs who have monthly payments for their coverage can use the Web Payments site.
DHS administers prevention and treatment programs for alcohol and drug dependency and abuse problems. | <urn:uuid:51b649d9-2f6f-46ad-81be-4295d5d1d3c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mn.gov/dhs/people-we-serve/children-and-families/health-care/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945415 | 137 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That at the meeting of European Standing Committee A on Wednesday 6th February, the provisions of Standing Order No. 88 (Meetings of standing committees), so far as they relate to the adjournment of the committee at One o'clock, shall not apply.—[Mr. Wood.]
§ Mr. Teddy Taylor (Southend, East)
In this wonderful democratic system, we have two minutes in which to discuss a vital constitutional issue. Tomorrow, the Standing Committee dealing with European instruments will be given time to discuss a vital milk quota agreement which the Government say is damaging the country, and which they have said that they will fight all the way. Is it sensible or tolerable to consider the motion to extend the sitting, given that the issue was settled yesterday in Brussels? We, the members of the Committee, have for two days been studying an issue that has already been agreed.
Let me ask a second question. How can it make sense for us to agree to discuss a motion to congratulate the Government on opposing a proposal to which, yesterday, they agreed without discussion? Thirdly, will you, Mr. Speaker, look at the motion passed by the House of Commons on 24 October, which stated that if a Minister agrees to an issue without its being considered by the Standing Committee he must come to the House and explain why at the earliest opportunity?
Sadly, this is yet another sign—we have had two such signs already—of the Government's treating European Community legislation with contempt—
§ It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned. | <urn:uuid:fb547070-da62-4c0c-97b1-7db2da34ff18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/feb/05/european-standing-committee-a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964381 | 325 | 1.515625 | 2 |
THE Pastoral Letter of the Dutch Bishops implacably opposing the deportation of workers to the Reich, together with similar protests from the Dutch Reformed Church, has tempted Reichskommissar Seyss Inquart to make a reply that is perhaps even more significant than the original protest. 'What the present state of Seyss Inquart's personal faith may at present be we do not know; but this Austrian comes from a Catholic milieu and was educated by the Jesuits. Reading his speech, one realises the degree in which the embracing, of utterly false political philosophies, together with devotion to an un-Christian political cause, can do to a serious man.
The remains of Seyss Inquart's Catholicity (he should, for example, be distinguished from a man like Hitler, who was never a Catholic, we imagine, except in a purely nominal sense) are apparent in what he says. He recognises, for example, the importance of the Bishops' complaint about the spiritual care about deportees as well as the urgency of the moral danger. He underlines the modus vivendi at present existing between German clergy and the Reich, 'and he seeks to defend the imprisonment of priests for what he describes as outrageous political conduct. His flash of anger is reserved for a Father Muckermann, who has laboured so long in demonstrating the root anti-Christianity of the Nazi idea. And there have been signs that Seyss Inquart in his present job did hope to establish conditions which would allow Holland to preserve a certain pride and dignity under Nazi occupation. In other words, Seyss Inquart's conscience is still troubling him.
Despite this, he makes the open choice of absolute service to his new master, National Socialism, and is therefore forced to defend in its name measures to which he may still personally have a considerable re pugnance. In particular, he seeks (and here he has his imitators in a lesser degree elsewhere) to show that neither the spiritual force of Christianity nor any Christian alliance of Church with State is in a position to stem the tide of political evil which for him, of course. is incarnated in Bolshevism. Hence his self-justification for allegiance to Hitler's temporal power. Unfortunately for him -or, maybe, fortunately, if through God's grace he recovers his reason—he has met in Dutch resistance, under the leadership of courageous bishops, more than his match. His words constitute no sort of answer, for Holland in resisting the political oppressor is also resisting an evil thing. Seyss Inquart's hope that he could afford to allow the Dutch dignity in captivity has been frustrated by the Dutch realising that there could be no dignity in captivity by that kind of gaoler.
The Ways of God
DEPORTATION of foreign workers into the Reich is a measure which even the Nazis would have hesitated openly to adopt, had there been any alternative. But the shortage of vital man-power in a war which has lasted far longer than they calculated, together with the growing menace of the weight of the fully armed and equipped United Nations, has left them no alternative. Their extreme need indicates their extreme wakeless. What the Dutch Bishops openly say is what the vast majority of the peoples under German occupation privately feel. And the halting, involved defence of Seyss lnquart indicates the bad conscience of even highly-placed Germans who have not absolutely sold their souls to the devil and political necessity. It needs little imagination to understand the Moral and physical vulnerability of a country which is becoming more and more dependent on the work of its enemies driven by the machine-gun to work for it in conditions of slavery and whose own people ' are becoming daily more worried about their whole moral position, forcing themselves to what they know in their hearts is evil as the only apparent alternative to national and personal ruin. We may well thank God that the course of the war has spared us the temptation to have recourse to such horrors. Even as things are, we cannot feel too happy about the consequences of our own totalitarian mobilisation, though it is evident that its incidental evils bear little comparison with what Germany has done to men and women over whom she possesses but the limited authority accorded to de facto occupiers. Still one is reminded of our own risks when one reads of the American Catholic opposition to the AustinWadsworth 'Bill for the registration of men and women with the ultimate intention of compulsorily directing them into the war industries. The proposal is described by the Administrative Board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference as " totalitarianism at its worst."
BRIDGEHEAD TO A SANER WORLD THE United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration has set itself a task the post-war urgency of which needs no stressing. In order to carry out its task of enabling effective help in all economic and material concerns to the liberated countries it will need vast powers and' the willing cooperation, to the point often of considerable self-sacrifice of the export-' ins nations of the world. If such help is truly available and if its .powers are wisely administered U.N.R.R.A. might well develop into a permanent international administration that could do more for the economic re-ordering of the world than was possible to the League of Nations itself. No rarely ad hoc . bodies in tackling specific problems which happen to have very wide repercussions turn out to be far more valuable than general bodies set up for unprecise, idealistic ends. It will, for example, be hard to discriminate between the needs of certain specific people and needs, not less urgent, of others, say. in India and China. Belligerent countries as well may be faced by urgent humanitarian and relief problems. Lastly, the line between accidentally caused distress and depressed standards of living through the cycle of slumps and booms or national poverty cannot always be clearly drawn. Moreover, the re sources available for relief will have to be measured in accordance aith all needs, whatever their causes; and if they are insufficientit will become imperative to take such international economic measures as may increase them even at the expense of vested interests.
Thus it will be seen that all kinds of possibilities lie ahead, and on the wisdom and courage of this first international plan for concrete cooperation between the victors in so noble a cause may depend the fate of many millions and, perhaps, in no small measure the future economic health of the world itself. May it at any rate prove to be a sound and strong bridgehead into that happier and saner world, the hope of which alone makes sense of these dark years.
LABOUR'S CHOICE mR. Morrison's Labour pro gramme, as expounded at the Labour Party Conference, was suminarised by one commentator as " peace during the war and a terrific war during the peace," peace and war referring, of course, to Labour's relations with other political parties. The comment usefully underlines another aspect of the fallacy from which we are all suffering in one way or another. The illusion is that you can suddenly hold up the sequence of cause and effect in order to deal with one necessity and then come hack later to where you started from and make up for lost time. We referred to this fallacy last week in connection with the present religious revival. Socialism, which is dedicated to the cause of the working-classes throughout 'the world, in a manner that has certain analogies with the internationalism of the Church concerned with the souls of all men. has twice chosen when it came to the test to side with war and to devote its resources to the nationalist rather than the internationalist cause. The history of Labour in Great Britain between the wars was decisively influenced by its decision during the last war. Throughout this war Labour has been co-operating in political acts calculated to make this country into a nationalistic bureaucratic machine. resembling the Continental totalitarian model far more closely than the original international Socialist conception kept alive to-day by the handful of the I.L.P. As Mr. Attlee hinted at the Conference, one kind of Socialism has already come into being, but he did not add that it has little to do with the Socialist ideal of Keir Hardie. British Labour has made its choice twice, and by that choice its future will be determined It is as certain as anything can be that Morrison and Attlee and Bevin will not he the leaders of " a terrific war during the neace." They will have 'to compromise with the State they have helped to make or go into the wilderness. They may have been right in their choice, but neither they. nor Christians, nor anyone else can have it both ways. The future is being moulded now. and only accidental and slow changes will be possible after. short of revolutions in which the Present leaders will certainly have no hand.
BOMBING ROME MANY of our readers appear to have ' been shocked by our apparent callousness in regard to the possible bombing of Rome. They are mistaken in supposing that we are callous about a matter which would have shocked every decent person before the war began. We happen to have been shocked much earlier. That is all. We were shocked by all bombing of general targets, even though in a totalitarian war there is little you can hit and not have some sort of effect on the war effort, We were shocked by the loss of life, injury and suffering to the " innocent," even though that theological term has ceased to have any very precise. significance except in the case of young children and the aged. It is only in relation to these horrors that the bombing of Rome ceases to stand out so conspicuously in a class of its own. None the less we have to recognise that as a war pursues its course it becomes practically impossible to stand back and make practical moral judgments about the legitimacy of conduct about which all the relevant facts cannot be known. Nor is it possible to get that degree of agreement between belligerents that would make any major change practicable. Our hope has to be rather that the war will in this respect at least teach mankind the lesson that it pays no one to drift from one degree of violence to yet another made possible by the abuse of the inventive power which God gave to man for the uses of peace. | <urn:uuid:061c5042-7bc6-4784-abcd-93f999ad53a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/18th-june-1943/4/the-conscience-of-seyss-i-nquart | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97237 | 2,080 | 1.773438 | 2 |
For the past several years, WordPress has been a proud participant in the Google Summer of Code program (aka GSoC). We’ve been accepted as a mentoring organization again this year, and are looking forward to working with a select handful of talented college students who are interested in developing for WordPress. Student applications are currently being accepted, and the deadline to apply is April 8. Are you a college student/developer looking for a summer challenge (or do you know one)? If so, read on to find out how you (or your friend) can make $5,000 developing for WordPress this summer. (Best. Summer. Job. Ever.)
- 175 mentoring organizations (including WordPress)
- Highly competitive and prestigious program (in 2010, 5539 proposals were submitted by 3464 students, and 1026 were accepted)
- You must be enrolled in an accredited college/university
- Coding period is May-August
- Successful completion of project = $5,000
- GSoC FAQ answers all your questions
- Mentors include WordPress core developers, plugin authors (including BuddyPress and bbPress), mobile app developers, and WordPress professionals.
- Projects are limited only by your imagination and ability.
- Previous GSoC students have gained responsible roles in WordPress core development, like Dion Hulse and Andrew Nacin (core committers), and Daryl Koopersmith (wrote the internal linking feature in 3.1 and much of the custom menus feature in 3.0).
- This year, in addition to accepting project proposals for the main WordPress web app, we’re also encouraging applications for projects with the WordPress mobile apps (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Phone 7), for community-developed plugins like BuddyPress and bbPress, and even standalone plugins that could become community projects. Check out our Codex page on GSoC 2011 for some ideas to get you thinking.
- Last year we mentored 15 students, and hope to take on about the same number this year.
If you’re a college student/developer, we encourage you to apply. If you’re a professor or a teacher of graduating high school seniors, encourage your students! If you just want to help us spread the word, download the WordPress GSoC flyer and post it on campus bulletin boards in your town. Remember, April 8 is the deadline to apply! | <urn:uuid:d387c7e8-ab3d-4d77-852c-aa040ec76f99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wordpress.org/news/2011/03/wordpress-summer-of-code-2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930144 | 500 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Right now, everybody’s talking about the MacBook Pros announced at WWDC earlier this month. That’s great; it’s always fun to talk about the latest and greatest. However, not everybody can afford to get the newest model every year. Most of us have to content ourselves with getting the most out of what we already have.
It’s in that line that we’ got some great info for those of you who bought a MacBook Pro last year. In an interesting development, it seems that although Apple sold and marketed the 2011 MacBook Pros as using 1333MHz memory, they are, in fact, capable of utilizing 1600MHz memory, just like the current crop of MacBook Pros.
Lloyd Chambers of Mac Performance Guide did some in-depth testing and found that a 2011 MacBook Pro with 1600MHz memory saw a 2% average performance boost over the same configuration with 1333MHz memory.
We’ve long established that adding more memory to your Mac is the most cost-effective way to get the most out of your Mac. For the 2011 MacBook Pros, it looks like using the faster compatible RAM speed can get you that extra little bit of speed you may be seeking. | <urn:uuid:d141a0bd-e301-4e79-b0a1-1eae4c64f28f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.macsales.com/tag/1333 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932282 | 248 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Risk Factors for Unsuccessful Treatment and Complications With Negative Pressure Wound Therapy
- 0 Comments
- 4454 reads
Index: WOUNDS. 2012;24(6):168–177.
Abstract: The aim of this retrospective study was to identify risk factors related to unsuccessful treatment and complications with negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT). Methods. A consecutive series of patients treated with NPWT for wounds of various etiologies (n = 87) from 2005–2007 at a general hospital in a large city (Stockholm, Sweden) were assessed for risk for unsuccessful treatment and complications associated with NPWT. Results. Twenty-nine percent of the patients treated with NPWT had unsuccessful treatment results. The strongest risk factors associated with unsuccessful treatment were pressure ulcers (OR 4.6) or a positive culture for Staphylococci (OR 3.4).
The complication rate was 21%, of which 14 patients had to terminate treatment. A positive culture for either Staphylococci or Pseudomonas was strongly associated (P = 0.001) with risk of complications during NPWT treatment. Patients with insufficient peripheral circulation in the extremities had a risk of both unsuccessful treatment and complications. Conclusion. The findings of the present study stress the importance of evaluating bacterial cultures and adequate antibiotic therapy when infection is suspected. The status of the patient’s peripheral macrocirculation in the lower extremities seems to have a significant impact on the risk of unsuccessful treatment or complications. Therefore, is it of great importance to evaluate peripheral circulation status before initializing NPWT.
Modern wound care consists of many different dressing materials and techniques. Commercial negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) has been used to treat wounds of varying etiology since 1995.1 The therapy has proven to be safe, and the treatment results are equal to other wound care methods.2,3 Nevertheless, in earlier studies, there are indications that NPWT results can vary among wound etiologies, and that patient related factors could have an impact on outcomes.4 Therefore, it is important to identify those patients who would likely benefit from the treatment, and more importantly, those patients who most likely would not.
Negative pressure wound therapy has become the gold standard for some diagnoses, such as open abdominal wounds5-7 and dehisced sternal wounds, following cardiac surgery.8,9 The effect of NPWT remains unclear for wounds of other etiologies, such as pressure ulcers, wounds of infectious origin, diabetic wounds, and traumatic wounds. Previous studies are questionable regarding their reliability and validity, due to problems related to sample size, methods of randomization, allocation concealment, and diverging results.2,3,10 Another problem is that the previous studies show a discrepancy in outcome measures and lack evaluation of the clinical importance of the different measure methods used.
Adverse events and risk factors with NPWT have not been the primary focus of most studies. A systematic review by Vikatmaa et al2 focusing on the effects and safety of NPWT, showed that infection, skin irritation, and pain during foam dressing changes, were adverse events associated with the treatment. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received reports of 6 deaths and 77 injuries associated with NPWT during 2008–2009.11 Bleeding was the most serious complication and caused all 6 deaths and 17 injuries. Vascular grafts, sternal and groin wounds, anticoagulant therapy, and foam dressing removal were factors that increased the risk of bleeding complications. | <urn:uuid:fa636fba-b750-41df-91f8-f5c00d52f567> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.woundsresearch.com/article/risk-factors-unsuccessful-treatment-and-complications-negative-pressure-wound-therapy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9567 | 718 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Monterey Parks are unique, and make life better, because they include well groomed lawns and landscape plantings, pristine forests, a lake in the center of town, and sandy beaches…all within a mile or two of each other. Families, youth, and seniors can enjoy a retreat from their daily lives by visiting our well-kept parks, beaches, and forested areas, and also experience a wide variety of quality leisure activities. Beginning in 1909 the City began acquiring park land so that most Monterey residents are now within walking distance of a neighborhood park.
Residents and visitors come to Monterey parks for a variety of reasons, including the fresh Monterey air. Some enjoy walking in our forested greenbelts or relaxing near our lakes and beaches. Others enjoy biking or walking on the ocean front Recreation Trail. Some come to our parks to play or watch sporting events or to exercise, while others bring their children to our parks to use the safe and creative play equipment. Monterey is also proud to offer areas for camping and group gatherings and picnics. Monterey parks provide services that enhance our lives in many ways, and indeed "Monterey Parks Make Life Better". | <urn:uuid:c19ebc40-8d24-48e1-8f59-e9fe6b7efce1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://monterey.org/en-us/departments/montereyrecreation/parksandbeaches/montereyparksmakelifebetter.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958031 | 239 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Last week I visited a local government organization that had a change of political leadership. The CIO, a brilliant guy who had come from the private sector about a year ago, had been let go, and so did other key people with whom I had interacted lately. The meeting was for me to comment on their strategic plan, which I had read and – to be honest – hadn’t impressed me much, especially given the good reputation of that organization in managing and using IT.
Actually, the meeting was meant to be with one of the staff member who had been let go just a few days before, so I ended up meeting an infrastructure manager who is acting CIO. He is a capable person, with a very mild interest in discussing the plan. Actually, as I expressed a few doubts about the plan, he started griping about it, admitting that it was a patchwork from different people in the IT organization, some of which had left and some of which were probably not at the right level (i.e. too technical) to author such a document.
It was quite clear that priorities are tactical: figure out the budget and focus on keeping the lights on until a new CIO is appointed. I sensed that part of the new CIO’s mission will be to review, undo or change course to some of the initiatives taken by the previous administration.
Now, this is not at all unique, and it is part of the democratic process. But how come that, doesn’t matter where you are in the world, most of what a previous administration has done is bad? How much money has been and will be wasted in reinventing wheels or turning round holes into square ones? Given the amount of politically-driven change, it is remarkable that anything can be accomplished in government IT.
Category: IT management Tags: | <urn:uuid:67e80e27-4d90-4c2d-8155-9d013c867c59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio/2011/02/14/even-the-best-it-cannot-survive-politics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987664 | 375 | 1.539063 | 2 |
As we watch the year come to a close, we’ve been blessed to see several of our apps make some of the year’s BEST OF LIsts, including:
Kirkus Reviews chose Spot the Dot , produced with our friend, the great pop-up artist, David A. Carter, as one of the Best Kid’s Apps List of 2011 calling him the Picasso of paper engineers (One Red Dot, 2005, etc.) displays a dab hand at concocting even more thoroughly interactive explorations of shape and color for touchscreens.
We love that School Library Journal selected our very own Spot the Dot as a top 10 kid’s app of 2011. They say that it “embodies the medium’s potential to create entertaining educational materials for all children, including those with special needs.”
Broxterman’s Bugle: Teaching with Technology included Chuck & Friends in a list of the best apps to use in classrooms, calling it a book app with the characters every little boy loves, embedded to reinforce letters, fine motor, and story comprehension.
Digital Storytime also chose A Present for Milo as one of the best digital books for kids, calling it one of the best books I’ve come across for children under age 6. The words in the book are very simple and the illustrations tell the story as much as the text.
Lil Sugar included Andrew Answers on its best of 2011 Kids Apps List, calling it a a fun, interactive app, Andrew Answers ($4) takes lil ones along on an adventure all the way to the Oval Office when Andrew is smug with his teacher. With mazes and games scattered throughout the tale, tots won’t be bored too soon.
We are so grateful for everyone’s support this year and hope that you all have a wonderful time bringing in 2012. See you next year! | <urn:uuid:17f3dfba-fcd7-4a70-82a0-1030919762a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ruckusmediagroup.com/category/andrew-answers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931669 | 391 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Well, it sure got people’s attention, we’ll say that for sure. But is it accurate?
Last week a blog post from an organization called the Institute for Natural Healing picked up on one of the 10 AICR/WCRF Recommendations for the Prevention of Cancer first published back in 2007. That blog post has since gone viral (it’s been shared tens of thousands of times across many different social media platforms), and has attracted the attention of the news media, who have now approached us for comment.
Neither AICR nor our international partners, the World Cancer Research Fund, have any connection to the Institute for Natural Healing, whose website sells “natural” dietary supplements to treat conditions ranging from cancer to heart disease to male potency. (AICR/WCRF’s report and continuous updates have found that when it comes to cancer, it’s better to rely on whole diets, not dietary supplements, to reduce your risk.)
I had the pleasure of attending the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) awards lunch in Philadelphia last week – celebrating the success of the 2013 C-CAP finalists in the region.
It was inspiring and, at times, quite emotional as I witnessed literally life changing moments for some of the students. One of the top awardees was stunned when his name was announced for the four year full tuition scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America in New York, and the teachers I sat with during lunch could not contain their joy on hearing their student’s name called for a full scholarship to the Art Institute for Philadelphia. They were on their feet instantly clapping and cheering at his success.
It was a fascinating glimpse into the culinary world where young students at the start of their journey sit with chefs who do it all: run their own restaurants, are Executive Chefs, teach culinary arts and at least one who had “done Chop’t” (she couldn’t tell us the outcome as it has not yet aired). Continue reading →
Could you meet the New American Plate (NAP) challenge?
So far over 1,500 people from around the US (and the world) are ready to start. Beginning next week, these Challengers are stepping up to the New American Plate Challenge to lose weight healthfully and lower their cancer risk through healthier eating and increased physical activity.
Every Friday, you will receive a teaser email to prepare for the upcoming weekly challenge, describing what you need to buy at the grocery store or ways to prepare for moving more.
The Monday morning email will reveal that week’s challenge and you’ll find more specifics, including tips, tools and recipes on the NAP Challenge website to help you meet the week’s goals. Continue reading → | <urn:uuid:fe0a9d3b-f60e-4000-9488-3f087deb4f5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.aicr.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963079 | 576 | 1.65625 | 2 |
CHENNAI: The police may be quickly solving the 11 murders committed in 10 days this year, but not many are likely to get convicted. Going by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) statistics for 2010, in close to 50% of Indian Penal Code (IPC) cases in the state, the accused were acquitted.
NCRB statistics suggest a direct correlation between a state's population and its conviction rate in heinous crimes. While less populous north-eastern states like Mizoram (93.6%), Nagaland (78.5%) and Manipur (68.5%) had high conviction rates for IPC cases, states like Maharashtra, Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal fell below the national average of 40.7%. The lowest rate was reported in Maharashtra (9%) followed by Odisha (9.9%). In all, 22.2 lakh IPC cases were registered in the country in 2010, of which 10% were in Tamil Nadu.
Even within a state, there is a stark difference between the conviction rates in densely populated urban regions and rural areas. "Our experience shows that conviction rates are higher in rural areas where the society is closely knit. People in cities refuse to turn up as witnesses. This weakens the prosecution," said P Kumaresan, a former state public prosecutor.
Tamil Nadu's conviction rate is much higher than the national average. Still, it is a matter of concern that 44.4% of the accused in IPC cases are acquitted. This includes murders and attempts to murder.
Former city public prosecutor M Shahjahan said, "The prosecution has to prove a case beyond all reasonable doubt to ensure conviction. Delayed investigation weakens the case once it reaches the court."
NCRB statistics show that 17 states and union territories (UTs) fared below the national average and an equal number surpassed it. Eight states and UTs failed to cross the 20% mark. Conviction rates were higher than 60% in five states and Puducherry.
The conviction rate was highest (52%) across the country in cases of sexual harassment. Cases registered under special and local laws (such as the Arms Act and Excise Act) had a conviction rate of 91.7%, across India. Cases registered under Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act saw 93.1% convictions.
"In many murder cases, the prosecution crumbles in court owing to the investigating officials not adhering to the rule of law," said S Jayakumar, former state public prosecutor. "Most officials emphasise on material evidence and go in search of the weapon, without realizing that a strong eye witness is more important. They should know that courts will convict the accused even if they do not trace the weapon," he said.
He added that delays in registering FIRs weaken the case. "In many cases they fix the accused before registering the FIR. The FIR and inquest report reach the court simultaneously, and the delay is inexplicable. Ultimately, the courts suspect the bonafides of the investigation. Lack of experience of the government-appointed assistant public prosecutors is another reason for poor conviction rates. The government should consider appointment of more experienced special public prosecutors to assist police," he said. | <urn:uuid:99ebf4d4-6771-4203-afc9-5f44ef7e7288> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-11/chennai/30615543_1_conviction-rates-public-prosecutor-murder-cases | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966131 | 661 | 1.570313 | 2 |
George Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist who died in 2001, and his wife, Olivia, built an isolated sanctuary on Australia’s Hamilton Island in 1987. They planted the property with dense tropical vegetation. “George always had a major conflict between the trees and the views,” says Olivia Harrison. “Every few years I would persuade him to cut back some foliage to reclaim the views.”
The entrance gate.
The couple first visited the island for the Australian Grand Prix. “I wasn’t at all enthused,” Harrison remembers. “But one visit to the Whitsunday Islands opened up a continent entirely new to both of us.”
The living room of the main house features a peaked bamboo ceiling, a tree trunk the musician found on the island and a curved wall of windows. “It’s a great room when it’s pouring with rain.” Birdlife frequently spotted from the house includes swooping lorikeets, cockatiels and curlews.
Bamboo—“a favorite material,” says Harrison—clads the bar in the dining area, which is decorated with art from New Guinea. Sydney-based Pamela Mathieson Croci, working with Angus Leendertz, designed the interiors, using pieces from both Australia and England. Kravet sofa print.
In the master suite, a low, curving stone wall separates the sleeping and meditation areas, which look east toward the Coral Sea. The vibrant mix of patterns in the space includes a carpet with a Tibetan snow leopard print. Doors lead to a private garden, spa and shower.
The musician worked closely with landscape designer Malcolm Hunt on the gardens and pool area. “George handpicked the big boulders from around the island,” says Harrison.
The main guest hut has a loft accessed by a ladder.
The compound has three guest huts, at right, and the main house. “George sketched his ideas for Roger Parkin, the architect, and together they designed the house,” says Harrison. Waterfalls feed into the organically shaped pool. “We swam a lot in the natural ponds in Hawaii and tried to create that feeling.” | <urn:uuid:8d30fdbe-c8de-46da-aa35-3d612328aa6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.architecturaldigest.com/celebrity-homes/2007/george-harrison-home-slideshow.print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953869 | 470 | 1.695313 | 2 |
TOP STORY > >Bankers reassure depositors
and JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writers
Area banks say they’re safe and sound and are attracting new depositors who are fleeing bigger banks because of their financial problems.
Mark Stocks, president of First Security Bank in Cabot, said that overall, bank customers want to make sure their money was
FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) insured, which is the kind of safety local banks offer depositors.
The deposits are guaranteed for up to $100,000 per account holder, and $200,000 for retirement accounts.
“We are seeing some of the local investors move from mega-banks to the local community-oriented banks,” Stocks said.
“Overall, the banking industry in Arkansas will be fine,” said Stocks.
Stocks said he has not seen a run to pull money from local banks.
Larry Wilson, president and chief executive officer of First Arkansas Bank and Trust, said, “We have had more inquiries than normal about the FDIC insurance and the condition of our bank in general.
“We are proud to say that our bank is one of the strongest in the state,” he continued. “Its capital ratio based on information sent to the FDIC June 30 showed that the bank had the highest capital ratio of any large bank in the state.”
The capital ratio is an indicator of a bank’s “cushion against economic downturn or other problems that a bank may have,” Wilson said.
His bank was ranked 14th in the state, with more than $100 million in capital assets and $500 million in total assets.
The 13 banks ahead of First Arkansas Bank in higher capital ratios were all smaller banks with an average size of just $70 million.
Total assets include loans, mort gages and real-estate holdings that a bank is responsible for.
Wilson said that it is important for the public to understand that Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch are investment banks, not commercial banks. Although there have been a few commercial banks that have failed, “the vast majority of them are safe and sound, especially in Arkansas,” he explained.
In 1933, the FDIC was established to protect deposits under $100,000, Wilson pointed out.
“The vast majority of deposits are under $100,000, so there is nothing to worry about if they are in an insured bank.”
Dewitt Yingling with Regions Bank in Beebe said Monday that he believes his customers, like most people, are monitoring the situation, but they don’t seemed particularly worried.
“On the local level, there really hasn’t been any panic,” Yingling said. “And I don’t know that there is any reason to panic. Everything still works.”
And like his customers and almost everyone else, Yingling said he also has more questions than answers about how the economy has reached the point where the government is considering a $700 billion bailout for investment bankers, more money than he can even conceptualize.
Yingling said he has been in banking for 30 years and when he worked with mortgages, they were simple to understand.
“Mortgages were cut and dried,” he said. “Either you could afford it or not.”
What he doesn’t understand, he said, is why that changed.
“For 75 years, no one has ever lost a penny of insured deposits,” said FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, “but as with any type of insurance, depositors are responsible for knowing how FDIC coverage works in order to ensure their money is protected. While awareness of the FDIC is high, understanding of deposit insurance is not. We want to encourage people to learn the basics and provide reassurance that, if they are within the coverage limits, their money is 100 percent safe.”
“No one should ever lose a penny of their deposited money, but Americans need to take the time to look at their accounts to ensure they’re covered,” said Suze Orman, who will be doing public-service announcements for the FDIC.
“I have donated my time to this FDIC campaign because I want everyone to go to EDIE the Estimator — an online tool that provides customized information about their insured accounts — and follow the simple steps to make sure their money is 100 percent FDIC protected,” Orman said.
Depositors can go to the FDIC’s Web site, MyFDICinsurance.gov.
Leader staff writer Joan McCoy contributed to this article. | <urn:uuid:5def8431-8d2c-4c64-a7e5-86d6c3f04836> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arkansasleader.com/2008/09/top-story-bankers-reassure-depositors.html | 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 | 0.969606 | 985 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Case 4: Ms. Carter
Ms. Carter is a 42 year old woman who is a bank vice–president. She was sent to the ED because of her abdominal pain. It is epigastric and associated with nausea, no vomiting. It has been getting worse over the past few weeks, and today it was so bad she called her doctor and he told her to come to the ED.
Mrs. Carter is in generally good health. She is a little overweight. Her blood pressure is 130/88, higher than normal which always has been 120/80. Her abdominal exam reveals some tenderness in the epigastric area, no rebound or guarding. Her stool shows no occult blood. Her LFTs are slightly elevated.
She drinks daily.
She reports at least 2 Bloody Mary’s (2 drinks each) and 2–3 glasses of wine each night. Greatest amount of drinks per occasion is around 6.
Abstinence for now as you think she may have gastritis. You prescribe some H2 blockers and refer her to a GI specialist who her internist recommends. You also think that this amount of drinking could be related to her increase in blood pressure, and you want her to have it checked at her primary care doctor’s office this coming week.
Patient: Mrs. Carter
You are a 42 year old woman who is a bank vice–president. You have a very high–stress job. You have come to the ED because you were having abdominal pain and your primary care physician referred you. You have no vomiting and no change in bowel patterns.
You drink every day. You have at least 2 bloody mary’s (2 shot glasses of vodka in each) while making dinner, and 2 or 3 glasses of wine during dinner. The most number of drinks that you have on any occasion is 6.
You don’t see the connection between your drinking and your abdominal pain. On a scale of 1–10, you choose a 4.
Drinking relaxes you, and you look forward to it. You do not drink during the day. Drinking makes you tired and helps you to fall asleep at night.
You fall asleep on the couch and are not available to your kids to help them with their homework in the evenings. You are not sleeping well at night and have disrupted sleep patterns.
You will try to have no more than 1 drink per night.
You will not drink and drive. | <urn:uuid:8109b102-9dc3-4df1-b5b7-ee2d54d18ada> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicine.yale.edu/sbirt/curriculum/case-studies/case4.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976323 | 506 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Working with public libraries
This page describes some of the ways we work with public libraries. Also in this section are pages for the Laser Foundation.
Hidden Treasures Brought to Life
In spring 2007 the British Library, in collaboration with the Society of Chief Librarians, Scottish library chiefs and Microsoft, launched a spectacular competition to put treasures held in public libraries online. Five winning libraries have had 30 pages of their nominated treasures digitised, converted into Turning the Pages 2.0 format, and hosted online by the British Library for three years.
Public Libraries Training Package
This introduction to the British Library’s collections and services was created by Sue Cook of Leeds Library and Information Services on secondment to the British Library, specifically for staff in public libraries and in association with the Society of Chief Librarians
Society of Chief Librarians
The Society of Chief Librarians in England and Wales is a professional association made up of the Chief Librarians of each library authority in England and Wales. SCL aims to take a leading role in the development of public libraries by influencing statutory, financial and other decisions. Together with Society of Chief Librarians, the British Library has established an annual senior forum with the aim of exchanging information, exploring current issues across the UK library and information network, and fostering shared and DCMS objectives.
The British Library and SCL jointly sponsor a delegate each year to attend the Public Library Authority Conference.The successful candidate is also to be invited to spend a day at the British Library en route to the conference.
British Library Champions
Each year the British Library invites librarians to come and learn more about their national library. Champions Days are open to all public library staff but will be of particular interest to new librarians and those currently working towards certification or chartership. For further information please contact email@example.com
The Laser Foundation
The Laser Foundation was a grant making trust that supported applications from libraries, academic institutions and all other organisations striving to improve library facilities available to the public. The Laser Foundation operated from September 2001 to April 2007.
Business & IP Centre
The Business & IP Centre provides a range of services for people who are starting or growing a business. The Centre is keen to build links with public libraries, and offers tours and workshops for library staff. If you would like to arrange a tour of the Centre, or receive leaflets to display, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org. To find out more about the Centre visit www.bl.uk/bipc | <urn:uuid:9413d524-ad60-4082-9fac-b45771711044> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://portico.bl.uk/aboutus/acrossuk/workpub/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937796 | 518 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Islamabad, Aug 1: The death toll in rain-related incidents in Pakistan has climbed to 1,300, while over one million people has been affected across the country, officials said on Sunday, Aug 1.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has been the worst hit in the floods, with over 500 houses washed away by flood waters.
Rescue officials have confirmed the presence of contagious diseases, such as diarrhoea and skin infection, among the survivors in KP.
Over 90 highways were damaged and many big thoroughfares in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have been closed for traffic, Geo News reported.
Many road infrastructure in the KP province remained paralyzed after 45 bridges were destroyed by flood waters.
The UN has said rains and floods affected over one million people in the country.
Eleven members of a family were killed when the roof of their house collapsed in Kabal area.
According to the sources the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government has waived off all provincial taxes, while the Punjab government has lifted agricultural tax and the Balochistan government announced to write off all agriculture-loans | <urn:uuid:e3c56a42-e4d0-466a-a903-6afae9a40b8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.oneindia.in/2010/08/01/pakistan-flood-toll-reaches-1300.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977924 | 236 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Ingenious and compact wireless storage device
File access must be made through the Wi-Drive iOS app
$139 (32GB); $200 (64GB)
With the new iPad’s Retina display, developers are able to create apps that have more of a visual impact. However, apps that support higher-detailed graphics end up occupying more storage space – so you may find yourself running short.
iCloud is there to help and you can rely on other online storage services, but perhaps you don’t want to have to depend on an internet connection. You could consider an external storage device for your iPad, such as Kingston’s Wi-Drive.
The Wi-Drive is a small flash drive, available in 32GB ($139) and 64GB ($200) capacities. Roughly the same size as an iPhone 4, the Wi-Drive can be easily stashed in your pocket or bag. You’ll need to use a USB cable (included) to connect it to a Mac or PC and transfer files from the computer and to charge the Wi- Drive’s battery.
To load files on the Wi-Drive, you connect it to your computer via USB and drag-and-drop files onto it.
It is formatted using FAT32, so both Macs and Windows can read and write to it.
When you’ve finished copying files to the Wi-Drive, you must disconnect it before your iOS devices can access it. You also need to install the free Wi-Drive app on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
As its name implies, the Wi-Drive is equipped with 802.11g/n wireless technology, which is used by your iOS device to connect to the drive. Kingston says the drive has a 10m range; we had no problems connecting and streaming videos from as far as 15m.
To connect to the Wi-Drive, you go into your iOS device’s Wi-Fi settings and find the Wi- Drive as an available network. By default, when you connect to the Wi-Drive, you won’t have internet access.
However, the Wi-Drive can be set up so that it essentially acts as a Wi-Fi extender of your router, in which case you can access the internet as well as the drive.
When you watch videos or listen to audio, the media streams smoothly to your iOS device. With photos, the app displays a set of thumbnails which you can tap on to see a larger image.
There’s one major limitation to the Wi-Drive: Files on it can only be accessed through the Wi-Drive app. There’s no way to, say, move a video from the Wi- Drive into Video in iOS so it can be used in iMovie for iOS. (You also can’t move a file from your iOS device to the Wi-Drive.)
There is a workaround you could use at a pinch: You can email files smaller than 10MB from within the Wi-Drive app, so you can email a file to yourself and hen save the attachment in the appropriate location on your iOS device.
Kingston’s Wi-Drive is a nice companion for your iOS device, especially if you are on a long trip and you’re unsure about internet access while on the road. The file transfer limitation may be frustrating for people who are using the iPad for content creation, but it works well for content consumption | <urn:uuid:6d52de63-11ba-4762-9c30-110883fb822f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.com.au/reviews/kingston-wi-drive-3-58620/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93351 | 719 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Every artist that touches the cartoon and every mood he/she or it is in when contributing, and the tastes of the bosses, the mood of the era...all these go into the feel and look of the final image and film. ...If they work at a studio that allows them to have creative input...
Change any one of these variables and leave the rest the same and you'll get a different look. Change them all and it will be a drastically different look.
Art Lozzi said:
As HB grew, we “unified styles” As the bg dept grew, we did our best to unify our styles, although Bob G always was recognizable, and Montealegre was too. Few of the other bg painters at Hanna-Barbera actually attended Fine Arts colleges. They took art lessons or went to Chouinard's -period. My art training began, as I told you, from the age of 8. This is basically the explanation of how -to me- green is not simply green. There are dozens of other tones included: blue-greens, myriads of shades of forest colors. I don't know if this can be called a theory but it certainly helps explain particular tastes...and techniques. It also touches on "how you choose your colors, textures". They're not actually chosen in the sense of selecting; they come out, I guess, depending on what my mood was the day I began those bgs. I think by 'frisket' you mean the cut-out cel we used to sponge in a color, especially for the repeats?
"Threadbare Bear" (1961)
1) The Layouts are bland and evenly composed, not as graphic or cartoony as 3 years earlier
2) The colors are realistic. Skies are blue. Grass is olive green.
All the elements that made their early cartoons so unique, fun, cartoony and imaginative were year by year sanded down and blanded out until all the cartoons began looking the same. And sounding and acting the same, and repeating the same stories over and over again. The irony is, as they had more money to put in the cartoons, they took out more of the creative elements.
These Lozzi BGs are still great, even though they aren't as obviously striking as the earlier ones. The caves here are much like the great caves and rocks he did in the Flintstones-and I'll go into that later.
When Huckleberry Hound came out in 1958 something happened that had happened in many cartoon series and comics earlier-a secondary star became more popular than the title character.
Yogi Bear was so popular, that 2 years after he debuted in the Huckleberry Hound cartoon, Hanna and Barbera did something that actually took common sense-something they usually were devoid of.
They spun off Yogi into his own show in 1960. Makes perfect sense right?
But while they did that, they made a whole bunch of decisions that I would call completely against any logic or sense. They purposely undid their good luck in discovering a star character by accident.
The original premise of Yogi and the characters that worked with him-Ranger Smith and Boo Boo - was a perfect sitcom.
Yogi is an overbearing slovenly greedy shifty but lovable oaf.
Boo Boo was his naive underage conscience who goes along with Yogi's schemes but always tries to steer him to do the right and responsible thing.
Ranger Smith is the republican authority figure whose mission in life is to make forest animals follow his regimented man made ways.
Boo Boo is always torn by his loyalty to Yogi and his obedience to Ranger Smith.
It's a perfect formula for conflict and laughs and imaginative stories.
Had HB taken all the great elements of the early cartoons and built on them and made more and more cartoony and imaginative cartoons and utilized the personalities of their characters, they could have saved animation and started another golden age.
Instead, when they made the Yogi Bear Show they must have assumed that since he was so popular, they wouldn't need to pay much attention to the cartoons.
One of the things that made the 1958 Yogis unique from each other was that there was a different mix and match of artists on each cartoon.
In Yogi's own show they decided to give every cartoon to the same layout artist ... and the weakest one of all.
The layout artist back then had a lot to do with the look and the acting in a cartoon. He would draw all the main poses of the characters and their expressions and he would design, draw and compose the backgrounds around the characters. When stars like Ed Benedict, Mike Lah or Walt Clinton drew a show it added a lot of style and life to the episodes. Animators like Carlo Vinci and Ed Love would use the poses and then add some of their own and the combination of styles made every cartoon look and feel new and different and alive.
You would see these same animators animate from Tony Rivera's layouts and the cartoons were a lot weaker -really primitive actually.
I used to watch these badly drawn Yogi cartoons, not knowing who drew them and just wondering why some Yogis looked like a kid drew them. I thought it was funny, until I realized there were so many of them. Mike Fontanelli and I, after watching the Huckleberry Hound DVD and being amazed at the variety of styles in it, cracked open his DVD set of the Yogi Bear show and watched a couple whole sides of Yogi cartoons in succession. We were stunned. Every one had terrible character drawings and bland background layouts. Many of the paintings were still good technically and interesting but had lost the charm and surprise of the 1958 stuff.
Even the music was different-it was now depressing. The voices were still professional but less distinct and had fallen into formula line reading rhythms, although Don Messick still did some hilarious acting for Ranger Smith-if only the artists had taken advantage of it!
Now, while sabotaging the creativity and fun of their most popular characters seems kind of crazy, Bill and Joe went even further!
Since Yogi was no longer in the Huckleberry Hound Show that was still running with new episodes on TV, they had to replace his spot with new characters. So what did they do? They invented a fake Yogi and Boo Boo!
Instead of bears they are wolves. Insane!
But this time the chemistry of the shifty oaf and his little buddy just isn't there.
Why would they purposely undermine their own star characters by competing directly with them and watering down two shows at once?
This became the pattern for Hanna Barbera (and the rest of the cartoon business) for decades to come. Eventually they would do cartoons with their star characters and they took out every part of the characters' personality that made them successful in the first place. Yogi eventually became a citizen of the world and flew around in Noah's Ark saving the environment!
All this bad decision making that gave HB the horrible name it had later started really early in their TV career. Studios today, without even realizing it still follow the self-sabotaging formulas devised at the Hanna Barbera studio during the 1960s and 70s.
Here's some fake Yogi and Boo Boo:
Hokey Wolf "Hokey Dokey" (1960)
Hokey Wolf "Pushing Wolf Around" (1960)
Look how skinny the lines are around the characters now and how uncartoony everything looks.
No more one of a kind poses or expressions.
Hokey Wolf "Too Much Too Bear" (1960)
Hokey Wolf "Phony-o-Juliet" (1960)
Hokey Wolf "Robot Plot" (1960)
Completely symmetrical composition.
Hokey Wolf "Which Witch is Which" (1960)
Here comes the garish colors!!
What a strange thing to do with a studio full of some of the greatest talent in the history of animation. You can have all the talent in the world in your studio and not know how to take advantage of it. Just design a system that doesn't allow the talent to get their stuff on the screen.
I understand when an executive run studio is set up that way since they naturally fear creativity, but when artists themselves do it, it baffles me. | <urn:uuid:b68d1606-d3ae-41b8-8a1a-770138c000ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2006/12/art-lozzi-3-hb-starts-to-standardize.html?showComment=1165715460000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981618 | 1,734 | 1.601563 | 2 |
State officials and lobstermen meeting yesterday to discuss trends in the lobster industry reached a troubling conclusion: The convergence of warmer water conditions in the Gulf of Maine, earlier molts for lobsters and the resulting soft-shell prices of below $2 per pound are likely to be long-term problems.
Stakeholders agree if those trends continue, many of Maine's 5,000 licensed commercial lobstermen – as well as the associated dealers, processors and others who depend on the lobster fishery – might be forced to consider other livelihoods, according to the Bangor Daily News. Members of the Maine Department of Marine Resources and lobstermen were unable to agree on a plan to respond to the market trends and improve the sustainability of Maine's lobster industry, which brought in 104.8 million pounds in 2011, a catch the DMR pegged as being worth $334 million. Ideas ranged from reducing the number traps each fisherman can use, to not allowing fishermen to haul gear on Saturdays and improving the handling of soft-shell lobsters to reduce their mortality rate before they go to market.
The DMR's Lobster Advisory Council is expected to discuss the ideas at its next meeting, Aug. 16. | <urn:uuid:4901ea80-d510-4cfa-88da-63c8d8dde7a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainebiz.biz/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120802/NEWS0101/120809992/0/NEWS0101 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944071 | 240 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Following the sunshine: light, bright eco-home moves with the times
TWENTY-EIGHT wheels, two motors and less power than a light bulb - that's all it will take to move this rotating home.
Dubbed Girasole, meaning follow the sun, the house will be able to complete a full rotation in less than 10 minutes.
Under construction in the northern Canberra suburb of Crace, the four-bedroom home designed by DNA Architects and Industrious Design will allow its owners to take full advantage of natural light and solar efficiency by rotating the house using a touch screen panel.
Round house ... Girasole under construction. Photo: Supplied
Builder and owner of MAG Constructions, John Andriolo, said the house would also be able to track the sun automatically.
''Girasole will encourage a change in thinking away from needing to find perfectly oriented blocks and will demonstrate that even the most ambitious undertakings can be seen as a prototype for future environmentally friendly homes,'' he said.
Mr Andriolo said the eco-friendly home also included a sloping roof hosting 10,500 kilowatt solar panels to power the home and its hot water system.
An aerial view of a "change in thinking". Photo: Supplied
Peter McCabe, from Industrious Design,said the design work took several months.
He said there were a number of safety elements involved in the design, which has no overhang and includes fixed components such as the walkway and verandah.
''It's only the home itself that rotates,'' he said.
Mr McCabe said the rotation also used minimal energy, due to the lack of lifting involved in the process.
''We think it's about 100 watts, which is about the same as a bright light bulb.''
Rotating homes were likely to remain a niche market, however the eco-friendly design could inspire other projects.
''It's never going to be the main type of houses people design, but it has its benefits.''
Ross Norwood, from DNA Architects, said there were two or three rotating homes in Australia, but all were different and noisier than the Canberra model.
Despite the unique design, Mr Norwood said the planning process for Girasole was relatively normal. The design did raise some initial concerns regarding privacy, but he noted that the home faced either the street or the backyard for the majority of the year.
The home, on a 704 square metre block, with a large underground water tank, is expected to be finished by February. | <urn:uuid:36f8a5c6-5676-4db1-af73-5d8cac378606> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/energy-smart/following-the-sunshine-light-bright-ecohome-moves-with-the-times-20121114-29ck6.html | 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 | 0.966787 | 524 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The users of iPhone should always ensure the products have a warrant before purchasing it in case of iPhone repair needs. This will ensure it is repaired in the event of getting spoilt. It is important for the users to keep in mind that when the iPhone gets into contact with water, it is not always possible for the company to do any iPhone repair on it. This is because this is a result of carelessness on the part of the users.
When the product is not under warranty, the users are always advised to get services from a certified technician who will be able to perform iPhone repair. The technicians are usually honest but it is advised that the users search through the internet and find the right technician. When you find a good technician, it is recommended that you also checks the costs of iPhone repair in the internet as some technicians may want to charge more for their benefit.
In the process of repairing the iPhone it is usually important to know if the iPhone repair service has good shipping services which will ensure it is shipped back to the users on time and the iPhone repaired in one or two days. When the iPhone is ready they are usually sent back to the owners in time.
Good iPhone repair companies focus on the importance of hard work and commitment to their customers. This has ensured all the customers are attended to without any problems. The quality of services provided should also be improved over time because of improvements of technology as a whole. If you follow these clues, you will be able to select the best repairers. Good repair firms always strive to increase their networks. As usual, this makes it easy to reach many customers from almost all regions. iPhone repair shops deal with all kinds of iPhones from 2G, 3G, 3Gs and even 4s; hence the companies makes repairs for all available iPhones and ensure they are sent back to the users immediately they are ready for use.
Your option should be in a company that ensures the most important aspects of repairs in these machines are dealt with conclusively. All the iPhones usually have different problems. Good repairers should be in a position to unveil all the services that were not done in the past. Expect all services ranging from battery repair, iPhone screen replacement and glass replacement. In the case of battery replacement, the users are advised not to overcharge their iPhones as this will make the battery useless in the event of using the machine.
There are several situations that will make the user know that the battery has a problem. For starters, they usually want to be charged almost every time. On switching on the product, the logo is found to be very dull. All these are signs that the battery is low and needs replacement or repair. The company ensures the battery is repaired instead of throwing the whole product away.
The iPhone’s screen or LCD is always repaired. The LCD is usually very important in the iPhone because the machine always relies on the screen for all its functions. In the event of any problems with the screen it is virtually impossible to use without iPhone repair. | <urn:uuid:322613d7-20ed-42df-a720-99d5972dce9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myapplerx.net/reliability-quality-guide-iphone-repair/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96412 | 611 | 1.539063 | 2 |
|Article Title: Reflecting Upon a Uranus Transit
- by Bil Tierney
Uranus is a planet that seems to have little respect for our
human need for stablity and permanence. It act as the Joker
or Wildcard of the Universe. But it's also a Cosmic Thumbnoser,
ignoring the standard applications of reason in favor of its
own unique brand of "logic." Yet its actions are typically
inexplicable. Uranus has no desire to first go thru the
standard protocols of behavior or normal channels of conduct
as set up by regulatory Saturn. This planet doesn't feel
under any obligation to apologize for breaking the rules and
abruptly shifting its focus. It's nature is to erratically
move from flash point to flash point in an arhythmical manner.
The humanness in us is baffled as to why we would even need to be dealing with such a off-the-wall principle to begin with. Why do we need periodic disruption of our carefully laid plans? Why suffer personal inner and outer "earthquakes"? What's so wrong with sticking to past tried-and-true ways of handling life? They worked then, so why quit on them now? What's so great about flirting with the fickle fates of the Unknown? And isn't Chaos usually destructive in nature rather than creative?|
Uranus transits do not waste time explaining such questions to us, but get right to work scanning the "deadbeat" or dormant factors in our current life. And in no particular order of importance. Seemingly at random, Uranus zaps any old and outworn patterns we've adopted whenever an sudden opportunity has opened up; expect Uranian to work swiftly and unambiguously.
If you want to really experience a more robust thrust of the Uranian experience, go out of your way to stifle change and progress in your life. Refuse to experiment with new avenues of self-expression. Shun all state-of-the-art technologies and at all times—be mulish and do things the slow, hard way! But then also be prepared to put on your seatbelt and let the rollercoaster ride begin—for you have thus set yourself up for a major vulnerability regarding the Uranus principle; the planet is therefore compelled to shake things up for you in no uncertain terms during its next major transit.
Such a Uranus transit can be a time for us to feel stunned and jolted out of our complacency. And for once, we are not allowed much manipulation over the outcomes in store. If we were, we'd get in the way of our own best chance for true progressive freedom. That's because we'd let insecurities and self-doubts take over and stop us in our tracks from making new moves and letting go of old baggage. And so, Uranus grabs that dumb black control box from us and reuses its parts to invent a mind-powered flying machine instead! My point is that Uranus will opt for a better, ingenious way at times to help us out of our stale ruts and our heavily mismanaged Saturn scenarios.
But to go with Uranus' challenging agenda is to open ourselves up to greater levels of spontaneity. Like Jupiter, Uranus thrives on risk-taking (although Jupiter is more conservative regarding the chances it will take; it always wants to come out on top as a winner. Uranus instead often values in itself the thrill of a sudden change, even if the end-results bomb out). Uranus energy is paradoxical in that it can be all fired up and electric in its drivenness one moment, and then detached and impersonal the next. It plugs into the "peak" moment of any action or condition and quickly withdraws its focus shortly thereafter. But real life is not one continuous string of exciting peak experiences.
And so expect Uranus transits to stimulate intense but short-lived interests in people and situations that offer a momentary opportunity to break up routine patterns and introduce fresh social stimulation. We need to seize the moment and try out a few different approaches to things before the opportunity peaks out and Uranus abruptly demands another (unrelated) avenue of release.
We can't afford to sit on our Uranian potential and mull things over or procrastinate until we think we feel absolutely sure about things. There are no guarantees of security with Uranus and its doubtful if our timing under its influence ever feels completely right. Part of the Uranus experience seems to be the unsettledness in the pit of our stomachs that it often creates, along with the adrenaline rush it pumps. Uranus needs us to be sufficiently wired up and ready for the break-ups and breakthroughs in our personal life it helps instigate. This doesn't have to be a weird experience, but we will need to approach life with a gutsiness and a straightforwardness that we seldom have shown in our past.
Uranus is like Saturn on steroids -- with attitude, in that it also signals our need to let go of the unworkable and the stagnant in our life. But it also speeds up the process and adopts an "I don't care, it's gotta go. Now!" stance when confronting the blocks and barriers we have created or have unconsciously allowed the environment to erect. Saturn carefully eliminates while Uranus triggers swift removals. Remember, it's the planet of lightning strikes. Sudden turnabouts in our affairs are common during Uranus transits, as the old and the obsolete are quickly shattered and swept away.
What might take their place depends upon our attempt to know the truth of our individual selfhood. Living an authentic life free of socially-conditioned distortions seems to be an ultimate goal for this planet. But achieving this requires a lot of courage and the willingness to go against the grain (Uranus will always go opposite of where the mass consciouness want to go, and thus experiences exclusion from status quo endorsement.) Of course, a Uranus transit doesn't have to mean a drastic change of status for us. But even in less dramatic ways, we can free up our energies and psychologically rearrange our priorities in order to support our individualism and further experiment with our potentiality.
Uranus suggests we learn to wing it alone, without our former dependencies, at least for a while until we reorient ourselves better. Uranus/Venus transits pose a problem here, since Venus (our urge-to-merge) has needs contrary to what Uranus (our will to separate) strives for. We could fall hard for someone during such a transit and then later realize we'd do better being alone. Or the partner we choose gives us the Uranus impersonal-distancing routine and drops out of our (emotional) life. Somehow, we learn not to lean on someone else for all the wrong reasons. We are here to discover what we can do for ourselves on our own terms. I say go for it!
Copyright: Bil Tierney
Bio: Bil Tierney
Bil Tierney has been certified and licensed for professional
astrology since 1972. He has written two books, including Dynamics of Aspect Analysis,
and has written several articles for astro-journals
and newsletters. Bil has lectured and given workshops across the USA
and Canada. He is currently working on a new book about Saturn.
Dynamics of Aspect Analysis is all about aspects and aspect
configurations (T-Squares, Yods, Mystic Rectangles), plus excellent
information about retrograde planets, unaspected planets, and more. Dynamics of Aspect
Analysis is recognized as a unique source of ideas found nowhere else in astrology. Bil's
clarity and precision make this a classic appreciated by beginners and professionals alike. It
is published by CRCS Publications, and retails for $13.95. It is a 277 page softbound edition
(first published in 1983), and is now published in five languages. | <urn:uuid:f4d41ad7-8d7e-4a22-8025-4defbd72f306> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astrologysoftware.com/community/sessions/getarticle.asp?ID=93&orig='?orig=Erl769' | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943695 | 1,655 | 1.757813 | 2 |
By: David Piangerelli
Companies seeking ways to gain operational efficiency and increase reliability often turn to technology. Increasing productivity with reducing operating costs has become a mandate for managers. Maintenance plays an important role in increasing equipment reliability through condition monitoring of critical assets, using tools such as oil analysis, vibration analysis, thermography, etc. Each concept or tool must often be sold to the management team, who is looking for a return on the investment.
Although the technology for automatic lubrication systems has been available for many years, there is a relatively large number of people who remain unconvinced, simply rejecting the use of these systems altogether for a variety of reasons, or perhaps waiting for more data to support their use and the impact they could have on their operations.
Skilled craftspeople, like their manager partners, are generally overwhelmed with tasks and responsibilities that continue to increase as companies reduce personnel and seek lean strategies. Yet, when labor-saving devices like centralized lubrication systems are proposed, objections and observations are often put forth that contradict the proven reliability and relatively simple technology automatic lubrication systems provide. A lack of awareness of the actual return on investment system installations provide is prevalent. Even more telling is that those that have systems don’t understand why anyone would resist their use.
In my opinion, the resistance to the use of lubrication systems stems from a basic lack of understanding of how these systems work. In fact, the many comments we receive as marketers, designers, and installers of automatic lubrication systems, as well as premium lubricants, suggests there are a number of objections that have no merit. While there are those that have a catastrophic story to tell, there is invariably a sound reason or set of circumstances that contributed to the failure that in almost every case could have been avoided.
Why we don’t want one!
Following is a litany of what we often hear from those that resist the concept of an automatic lubrication system.
- We used to have one on that machine, we took it off.
- Systems are not reliable.
- What happens when a line plugs?
- Lube systems are for lazy people!
- They’re too complicated; we like to keep things simple.
- If we put one on, no one will look at it!
- If a line breaks, the reservoir will empty.
- If a line breaks, all of the lube will go to the path of least resistance and nothing will get greased.
- They’re too expensive; we would never even consider that.
- We’ve never needed it before, why do we need it now?
Although these comments represent only a sampling of our own experiences in the New England states we serve, it is safe to say that many equipment caretakers hold similar opinions or thoughts regarding the use of automatic systems. In fact, I offer here a few examples that stretch credibility:
- A major corporation has spent $25,000 this year to date on replacing bearings in an application that is extremely wet, hot, and dirty. Several types of lubricants have been evaluated, as well as bearing types. A proposal was made for an automatic lubrication system that would serve 48 bearings, for a cost of $10,000 (not installed). The maintenance team states that management does not believe that the system will address the issue.
- 12 lubrication systems were installed on new Kenworth trucks. The systems worked reliably for 6 years, at which time the company was sold. The new owners experienced a failure on a universal joint on the steering box input shaft. They declared that the presence of the systems caused the mechanics to ignore this lube point, resulting in all 12 systems being removed from the trucks and discarded.
- A wheel loader system was proposed for a challenging environment. ROI was calculated at 17 weeks. This did not include the projected extended component life, reduced lubricant usage, or personnel safety enhancement. The cost of $6,500 was rejected by the company management, a waste hauler with over 120 trucks and several recycling facilities. Two years later the machine was line bored and rebushed at a cost of $10,000. A system was installed then. This company implemented a policy of installing systems on every piece of equipment they procure. After installing 18 systems, the company hired an outside consultant to review the maintenance of their equipment. The consultant declared that the purchase of lubrication systems should cease. His reasoning was that the systems cause the mechanics to believe that since everything is being greased automatically, they have no need to inspect the components they would typically see when being greased manually. A suggestion was made that if the mechanic was directed to inspect all of the components when the unit is in for service that this concern would be addressed, was rejected.
Leakage should not be tolerated. Tubing runs allowed to fly freely will not last.
Componeents are properly mounted: Two pressure gauges, one at the pump discharge and one at the furthest run from the pump.
Education is critical
In order to install auto lube systems, they must first be sold, so many of the objections and observations listed must be overcome in order to do so. Our task becomes one of an educator. Our mission is sharing knowledge as to the actions one must take to minimize the notion that systems are not reliable or cannot be justified economically.
Owners and potential purchasers of any lubrication system, regardless of type, can benefit by being aware of the following list of areas of concern we often see as being causative factors in poor system reliability.
Method of refilling - Some grease system designs expect the user to remove a reservoir cover and refill it with their hands or a paddle or board. System refilling should not be an afterthought but rather a part of the system itself. A manually operated pail pump with a hose and QD coupler or a Fluid SafeTM container or similar vessel should be provided.
Pressure gauges - These allow personnel to confirm the pump is creating pressure and are used as a convenient diagnostic tool. Yet, many systems, particularly on heavy equipment, lack this simple and valuable component. Any system moving grease or oil through progressive divider valves, injectors, or flow meters (Single Line Resistance) should have a pressure gauge on it.
Allowing the reservoir to be refilled by removing a spin-off lid, is a sure recipe for system contamination.
A grease and oil system serving a rotary dryer in a paper mill. It utilizes QD couplers to properly fillt he reservoirs, pressure gauges, oil and grease filters, proximity switches on divider valves, and redundant controls, allowing the machine it serves to start up only after the system is energized and a lube cycle has been completed. It also provides visual confirmation of a failure to complete a lube cyclem as well as a signal to be the mills’ DSC.
Lacking a pressure gauge, it is not possible to verify operation.
Filters / strainers - Rarely seen on grease systems, filters and strainers provide basic protection of the components downstream from contaminants that may have entered the reservoir, ensuring longer, more reliable service from the system itself.
Lubricant selection - Ignorance of the appropriate type of lubricant suitable for a specific system is one factor leading to condemnation of systems in general. If system hardware mandates the use of an NLGI # 0 grade grease or softer, it will not perform properly when an NLGI # 2 grade lubricant is used. Systems using and/or calling for an NLGI # 2 grade grease, particularly parallel injector systems, have a vent valve that relies on the grease’s venting characteristics to ensure proper re-priming of the injectors in a timely manner. Inability to vent in a timely manner results in injectors that do not cycle properly, causing the resultant failure of the bearing the injector feeds. Greases that may be susceptible to separation of the oil and thickener can cause piston seizure in progressive divider valves, leading to system failure.
Quality of lubricant - Some believe that since a lubrication system meters lubricant so frequently, the quality of lubricant used is insignificant, giving license to use a cheap lubricant. Some lubricants may not possess the load carrying properties, or have the resistance to oil/thickener separation, that a superior lubricant will have. Oil/thickener separation results in the oft-cited complaint of blocked lines. Especially prevalent in progressive divider systems where residual pressure exists, separation can stop the system cold. Hence, the system malfunctions and bearings may be lost, all because of an inappropriate lubricant, not a poorly designed system or hardware failure.
The lubricant must be capable of carrying the load and reducing or eliminating metal-to-metal contact. We have serviced systems that were using inferior lubricants that operated as designed yet experienced unacceptable component life simply because the lubricant was unable to maintain an adequate film while in the contact zone. It didn’t matter if the lubricant was being replenished every minute; if it was incapable of carrying the load, wear occurred.
Lack of caretakers - In my opinion, this is the most unacceptable reason why a negative opinion is formed. The initial purchaser believed there was a return on the investment and that the system would be expected to work as desired. By caring for the system and ensuring it functions correctly, one can easily ensure years of trouble-free performance and the resultant benefits lubrication systems provide. For those that may not be familiar with these benefits, I list them here for your review:
- Enhanced personnel safety
- Reduced lubricant consumption
- Dramatically extended component life
- Increased machine productivity
- Reduced product spoilage
- Reduced man hours
- Improved operating efficiency
The caretakers’ responsibility comes down to a few basics:
Pump operation - When the lubrication system controller initiates a lube cycle, the pump will create pressure. A means to verify or confirm the pressure rise should be available, and doing so should be a routine task. When the system is energized, one can check for proper operation. Confirming the ability of the pump to build pressure and pump lubricant should be done on a routine basis, be it daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the system and application.
Lubricant use - We have received calls from those who suddenly realized the pins were squeaking on their wheel loader, or that a bearing failed, yet no one can remember the last time the reservoir was refilled. Properly operating systems will use lubricant, so the reservoir will require periodic refilling.
Visual inspection - The person charged with the responsibility for ensuring the system operates properly should have a checklist. On that checklist should be a general inspection of the tubing/hose runs, as well as the system distribution components, and of course the bearings or lube points. A “collar” of lubricant should be visible at the lubrication points; tubing, hoses, and components should be properly attached; and there should be no signs of leakage anywhere within the distribution system. In short, we like to say…
- the reservoir will go down
- lubricant will appear at the bearing points
- nothing should leak
- the pump should build pressure
System knowledge - Lacking a fundamental understanding of how the system operates and what must be done to properly maintain it is at the root of many failures. A progressive divider type system is not designed to allow elimination of a discharge port one no longer wants to use. Doing so results in a no lubricant condition; as this is one of the benefits of a progressive divider design, a blocked lube point will alert personnel to that condition. Yet the system will be non-operational because of personnel intervention, and of course a negative opinion will be formed.
Vendor support - Providing proper support to our clients to ensure reliable system operation is a mandate. The lubrication system vendor has the responsibility to the owner and purchaser to educate and share information freely to ensure that the system performs as expected for many years with minimal maintenance cost.
Summary - A properly designed and installed system will provide years of reliable service. It cannot, however, do so without proper care. Like any other machine or asset, it requires care and understanding of system functionality and a partner vested in their success. About the author:
David Piangerelli, CLS, MLT II, is the President of Lubrication Technologies, Inc., a New England-based company serving industries of all types for 35 years. www.lubetechnologies.com | <urn:uuid:7a3e62fa-79b3-4152-a310-5bfda836190e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reliabilityweb.com/index.php/articles/automatic_lubrication_systems_-_dont_work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951174 | 2,608 | 1.632813 | 2 |
British gas producer BG Group has agreed to purchase 170.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas over two decades from Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC, a Cheniere Energy subsidiary that operates a liquefied natural gas terminal in Cameron Parish, officials said Wednesday. The deal represents the first long-term LNG purchase agreement from a project on the Gulf Coast, allowing the gas producer to export LNG to international gas markets, potentially as soon as 2015.
In May, the U.S. Department of Energy authorized Cheniere to export up to 803 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year from its Sabine Pass LNG terminal, a project that is expected to create thousands of jobs when expansion work on the facilities begins next year.
By comparison, the U.S. consumed about 23 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
Frank Chapman, chief executive of BG Group, described the agreement as a "landmark deal" that "builds upon our proven track record in capturing and developing new opportunities that continue to drive the global growth of our LNG business."
"This is a ground-breaking agreement for BG Group, giving us first-mover advantage in securing LNG export volumes from the U.S. Gulf Coast," Chapman said in a statement. "It is the first agreement of its kind in this region, and it secures us early access to the rapidly emerging commercial opportunities driven by the recent material increases in US gas reserves."
Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle called it "incredible news for Louisiana" that "brings opportunities for the development of new and existing businesses and increased revenue for state and local governments as they work to fund services such as education and transportation."
"The Sabine Pass LNG export facility has opened Louisiana's energy industry to new markets and new consumers, and this first agreement solidifies the opportunities for new exploration and jobs in the both energy industry and support industries all across the state," Angelle said in a statement.
In recent years, while the petroleum industry was making plans to develop dozens of new North American terminals for importing liquefied natural gas, the development of shale gas plays across the country, including the Haynesville formation in northwest Louisiana, changed all that by making natural gas more readily available from domestic sources.
In Lake Charles, BG Group is working with Houston-based Southern Union Co. to expand an existing LNG import terminal to handle LNG exports. The Energy Department has authorized the terminal to export up to 730 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year from the Lake Charles LNG terminal to countries that have a free trade agreement in place with the U.S., and it is reviewing an application to export natural gas to countries that do not.
Freeport LNG in Texas has also applied to the federal government to export LNG.
Richard Thompson can be reached at email@example.com or 504.826.3496. | <urn:uuid:6d25fcb7-f2af-4f15-a1b0-9c2e30585bcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2011/10/british_gas_producer_will_purc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938961 | 611 | 1.664063 | 2 |
By Steven Broussard
Summer is already winding down and the most recent class of high school graduates and their parents are crowding shopping malls and department stores in a scramble to find all the items essential for university living. This first shopping experience is an important initiation to campus living.
The trick is to take some time and imagine a typical day in your new surroundings. Think of what you'll need to operate on a daily basis, and formulate a list of necessities. While this task can appear arduous at first, it doesn't have to be. One of the best ways to alleviate some of the stress is to go with the flow and heed the advice of those that have already been in your situation. Here's a list of college living essentials and where you can find them.
Dorm Room Essentials
- Miniature refrigerator. This item is listed first for a reason. It is perfect for easy access to a variety of soft drinks and bottled water, as well as sports and energy drinks. Don't forget your favorite stickers or magnets to decorate the door!
- Microwave. For reheating leftover pizza and food sent from home, or heating the two traditional college staples: popcorn and Ramen noodles.
- Area rug. Be sure to inquire whether or not your dorm room is carpeted. If not, the bare tile floors of some dorm rooms are less than desirable for bare feet and may be cracked or worn. Area rugs are great for solving this problem.
- Garbage cans and bags. Some colleges surprisingly don't provide either of these essentials. You'd be amazed at the amount of refuse that just two roommates can produce over the course of a week.
- Storage bins. The goal of dorm living is to make the most out of the small space you're given. Thin plastic storage bins work well for sliding under the bed, and more bulky rectangular containers can be stacked in the provided closet space or armoire.
- Twin-long bedding. Be sure to buy the appropriate sized sheets and comforter. College beds are typically longer than the traditional twin, but double-check with your school to get the right size. Install a layer of egg-crate foam over your mattress for additional comfort.
- Alarm clock. Varying class times, social engagements, and frequent (hard earned) naps make this item a must to overcome irregular sleeping patterns and maintain punctuality.
- Shower sandals. Sharing community showers is a humbling experience after a lifetime of washing at home. With so many people using the facilities on your floor, it's wise to say goodbye to your previously barefooted bathing luxury and invest in a pair of sandals.
- Plastic basket for shower products. Toting your shampoo, soap, and other shower products to and from the floor bathroom can be cumbersome. Make it a point to pick up a plastic shower basket for easy transport.
- Fan. Unfortunately, not many college dormitories are equipped with the plush air conditioning units that many prospective freshmen are accustomed to. When you arrive at your room, crack the window and set up a fan or two for improved air circulation.
- Office chair. Your dorm room should be equipped with a desk and a chair. While the desk will be solid wood and more than likely wholly adequate, you'll find that the accompanying chair may be made of the same material and will be less than desirable for extended studying sessions or time at the computer.
- Desk lamp or clip-on lighting. Desk lamps are important at school for obvious reasons. However, if you consider the subtle nuances of dorm living, a form of clip-on lighting may be more appropriate for its versatility (i.e. adjusting desk lighting or moving locations due to a sleeping roommate).
- Printer and ink cartridges. Check with your university to verify its printer availability. Some colleges provide printing clusters scattered around campus, while others may only contain printers at a central location such as a library. Since such services are usually at a cost, are at a high demand, and often require travel (which is of greater importance depending on the season), it's a great idea to bring your own printer and install it in your room.
- Extension chords and surge protector. Dorm rooms have a limited amount of electrical sockets. Since college students need the services of a multitude of outlets for the use of their appliances, don't forget to pack a surge protector and a few extension chords for more power use and greater versatility.
- iPod. No matter where you travel on campus, you will see fellow students utilizing these compact mp3 players and sporting their signature white earphones. Depending on the size of your campus, you may need some entertainment to make the walk to class seem a little faster.
- Laptop and accompanying backpack. Desktops have become virtually unheard of in the realm of college student culture. With many universities providing outlets and wireless hotspots around campus, laptops have become students' top choice computer style because of their size, portability, and practicality. Make sure you find a backpack or other bag with a compartment for carrying your machine.
- Posters. Dorm living would not be complete without the traditional smattering of posters to cover up blank white walls, dents, and stains. You'll be able to find posters for any taste and personality.
- Corkboard. Purchase a corkboard to compliment your poster collection. Use it to post photos, concert or athletic event ticket stubs, and syllabi.
- Television. When they're not immersed in the rigor of the academic setting or taking advantage of various other social and athletic activities, you can find most typical college students glued to a television set. Don't forget yours on move-in day.
- DVD Collection. Considering the hard work some students put into their home entertainment systems and the satisfaction derived from their use, it makes sense that many would bring along favorite DVDs. Students watch movies to relax alone or unwind with their friends after a long day.
- Local bank account. Be certain to open an account at the nearest bank if your current bank does not have any locations in the area. This will enable you to avoid costly ATM service charges.
- Facebook and/or MySpace account. These two social networking sites are staples of contemporary college culture. Students will often ask whether you have an account on these sites before taking time out to write down your contact information. Register for free.
- Sporting equipment. Make a conscious effort to include some recreational items. Pack a Frisbee, soccer ball, or football to enjoy nice days and socialize on the quad.
- A friend with a car. As a freshman, most colleges nationwide will not allow you to park your car on campus. To avoid feeling trapped on university grounds and to meet people outside of your graduating class, try to befriend an upperclassman with some transportation!
The shift from high school to college living is drastic. Although nobody can realistically expect an entirely smooth transition, if you follow these preparatory tips it will make your job a lot easier. Living away from home, meeting new people, and adjusting to a college workload may seem daunting, but it will all become natural in a matter of a short while.
Lastly, once you've completely settled into your new college lifestyle, don't forget to buy a box of envelopes and a book of stamps to write the people you've left at home. Good Luck! | <urn:uuid:1180ca72-cd5a-4882-8f02-23b672c30298> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siouxlandnews.com/story/5249951/college-living-essential-tips-for-first-year-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945372 | 1,522 | 1.5 | 2 |
A leader in an organization can’t do everyone’s job. Instead of micromanaging, strong leaders use organizational leadership to coordinate, communicate, motivate and delegate among employees and team members. For comprehensive organizational effectiveness, each individual needs to be seen as a contributor, with the leader at the helm.
Most importantly, best-practices leadership involves keeping employees motivated throughout the process, adapting your scope or strategy as necessary, and developing an effective communication strategy.
Some people never make it to the other side because they’re more successful at being doers. This is a crucial point in determining if you’re going to move up the ranks.
Browse our articles, tools and advice on best-practices leadership.
The secret to new product innovation? Keep the boss away. A study by The Nielsen Company of 30 large consumer packaged-goods companies found that those whose managers kept a light touch generated 80% more new-product revenue, compared to those with heavy management involvement.
Your office probably relies on the integrity of its people and its computer systems to secure sensitive information. But is that enough? In an office where sensitive information is at risk, make the “rules of trust” more visible. Joe Larocca, an asset protection advisor, offered these tips on Retail’s Big Blog:
What’s the most satisfying reward you can receive for a job well done? Respondents to a “SmartPulse” survey, conducted by Smart-Brief on Leadership, were roughly split three ways: | <urn:uuid:73eadd34-f269-4269-8661-54529eeba445> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/leaders-managers/best-practices-leadership/page/30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943465 | 320 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Houston VA Opens Outpatient Clinic for Displaced New Orleans Veterans
HOUSTON - As part of a multi-level plan to provide health care to the Veterans who were evacuated from New Orleans, the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (MEDVAMC) will open the New Orleans Houston-based VA Outpatient Clinic on Thursday, September 8, 2005. This clinic will be located in the Recreation Therapy Gymnasium on the VA complex and provide primary care, pharmacy, and mental health services for hurricane-affected Veterans.
Staff members from the New Orleans VA Medical Center are already at the MEDVAMC and working to provide care to evacuated patients. In addition, VA health care providers including nurses, social workers, pharmacists, administrative personnel, and health care technicians, from North Carolina, California, and other VAMCs are arriving to assist in opening additional beds, clinics, programs, and services.
In order to reach out to displaced Veterans and provide assistance with housing, clothing, health screenings, VA and Social Security benefits, and employment, MEDVAMC outreach coordinators and social workers are working with Houston-area shelters including the Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center.
The MEDVAMC Homeless Program has already placed 61 homeless Veterans from Louisiana in the Mid Town Terrace, a facility operated by US VETS. U.S. VETS is the largest organization in the country dedicated to helping homeless Veterans, and a nationally recognized leader in the field of service delivery to Veterans.
The MEDVAMC Patient Reception Team (PRT) at Ellington Field has accomplished its mission. The great majority of sick and injured have now been evacuated from New Orleans. A small team remains at Ellington Field in the event of an emergency medical transport flight. Since opening on August 31, 2005, the PRT triaged 726 patients from 21 military transport flights, admitting approximately 100 patients to the MEDVAMC.
The VA has established toll free information numbers for Veterans from VA Gulf Coast Health Care System (Biloxi and Gulfport campuses) and the New Orleans VA Medical Center, 1-800-507-4571. Families and friends requiring information about patients from those VA Medical Centers (VAMC) and Veterans with questions such as where to access health care, how to receive their prescription drugs, or any other concerns they may have about their care. The phone line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
# # # | <urn:uuid:1838df3e-f825-475b-bbec-d50b2ba14f86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houston.va.gov/pressreleases/News_20050907.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942719 | 513 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Marc Muselli was born in Bastia (Corsica Island), France, in 1971. He received the Ph.D. degree and the H.D.R. degree (Research Habilitation) from the University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli (UC PP), France, in 1997 and 2007, respectively. Since 1994, he works at the Physical Sciences of the Environment Laboratory of UC PP. In 2000, he became a Research Assistant Professor at the UC PP. Presently, he serves as a Professor. He is mainly interested in renewable energy systems: energy production, storage with electrochemical batteries or H2 chain, resource (solar and eolian) estimation, and prevision using satellite remote sensing or artificial intelligence (artificial neural networks). Since 2000, he has been working on an original research allowing to define new radiative materials for passive diurnal climatization in buildings and nocturnal fresh potable water extracted from air by radiative cooling. He authored about 150 publications and conference communications, and he have produced 2 patents and obtained 3 scientific prices.
Biography Updated on 6 June 2011 | <urn:uuid:14f66aa3-b477-4193-b4ee-244409e9b269> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindawi.com/21849496/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951954 | 227 | 1.78125 | 2 |
by Democrat reporter
NORTHAMPTON LABOUR MP Tony Clarke recently expressed concern that support for the Good Friday agreement could ebb away and that the six-counties could witness a return to levels of violence seen in the past.
Mr Clarke, who represents the Northampton South constituency and is a member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, made his comments at a public meeting in the town’s Guildhall sponsored by the local branch of the Connolly Association.
The select committee was in the process of finalising a report into the funding of ‘terrorism’ in Northern Ireland. The report would not make good reading, he insisted. The committee had heard evidence of how some of those previously involved in paramilitary activity were now involved in smuggling, especially cigarettes and diesel.
Unless normal politics was established and those paramilitaries withdrew from criminal activity the functions of the Northern Ireland Assembly could be put in question, he said. He also called upon paramilitaries to allow excluded persons to return to Northern Ireland.
Referring to the call by Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble for a border referendum, Mr Clarke said that, in his opinion, this would be used as a sectarian stick to divide people and reinforce the extremes. Besides, only the British and Irish governments could instigate a referendum, he said.
However, he stressed that, for the first time in some 40 years, there was a real chance of resolving the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland. The assembly was working and its members were beginning to get the feel of each other.
Sectarianism would slowly fade, he said. The various groups would have to live with each other and would have to find an accommodation for each other’s political beliefs. The Good Friday Agreement was a vehicle for this and all outstanding issues in the due course of time could be resolved.
He proposed that those who accepted the Good Friday Agreement and who were ‘on the run’ should be allowed to report to the police, be formally detained for a short period and then let out on the same licence as the other former prisoners.
The conflict in Northern had had a detrimental effect on both the British and Irish people. Injustice had been inflicted on all those involved. The Bloody Sunday Inquiry would not show the British government in a good light, he said.
Other outstanding issues, including the killing of solicitors Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson and Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill case required investigation, however public inquiries were too expensive and cumbersome, he claimed.
r. Clarke proposed that a peace and reconciliation committee should be set up to look at all outstanding cases -- including ‘selected assassination’ cases where stateinvolvement is suspected. This had worked in South Africa, he said.
However, a member of the audience pointed out that in South Africa the system of government was changing and those who killed for the state could ‘relieve their guilt’ by confession.
Responding to an assertion that, outside the obvious Bloody Sunday massacre, it was unlikely the British government would accept responsibility for its misdeeds, Mr Clarke replied that perhaps many British soldiers also needed to clear their conscience and a truth and reconciliation committee could facilitate this. Outstanding issues must be resolved. A line must be drawn on the past so that we can move on, he insisted.
The next task of the Northern Ireland Select Committee was to look at the number of legally held weapons in Northern Ireland. There were over 100,000 legally held weapons in the area. It was a scandal that post Dunblane nobody had looked onto and addressed this issues. Decommissioning meant all weapons not only those carried by illegal paramilitary groups, he insisted
Thanking the MP for his contribution Peter Mulligan, Northampton Connolly Association secretary, stressed the Association would continue to work for peace unity and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
Connolly Publications Ltd, 244 Gray's Inn Road, London, WC1X 8JR
Copyright © 2001 Connolly Publications Ltd | <urn:uuid:c3d93ed3-9078-49fd-94cf-28fdcda1e849> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irishdemocrat.co.uk/news/2002/northampton-meeting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981596 | 819 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The excitement is filling the air at Sneak Peek Friday today as we are gearing up for an amazing weekend! The Festival takes place Saturday from 10-6 and Sunday from 10-4 at the Walter E Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Please visit our “Plan Your Day” section on our website for important information regarding attending this FREE event. Those attending the Festival will be in for quite a treat with over 3,000 hands-on science and engineering activities and over 150 stage shows!
We have had some incredible events leading up to this weekend including our AT&T Sponsored Nifty Fifty Program. The ‘Nifty Fifty (times 2)’ are a group of one hundred noted science and engineering professionals who visited Washington, D.C. area schools to speak about their work and careers. We were absolutely thrilled with the speakers and the students seemed to really enjoy this talented group that presented with such passion and enthusiasm.
Some of the Nifty Fifty Speakers included NIH Director Francis Collins, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Beth Shapiro, Nerd Girls Founder & Engineer Dr. Karen Panetta and many more! Students learned about the need to preserve coral reefs, sustainable ‘Styrofoam’ made from mushrooms, how diseases are cured and best of all the importance to follow their dreams and overcome obstacles.
This weekend the Festival will be jam packed with entertainment for the entire family. The Expo exhibits and stage shows are suitable for ALL AGES! We have a huge line up of entertainment for the little ones including PBS Kids, a plethora of exhibits and events for students of all ages and of course some in depth STEM exhibits for those with the advanced scientific palate. We have some big name science celebrities that will be in attendance including Bill Nye the Science Guy, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from the Mythbusters, Big Bang Theory’s Mayim Bialik, Sleight-of-hand Artist Apollo Robbins and Discovery Channel’s Jeff Lieberman. Our Book Fair features 36 of the TOP science authors such as Homer Hickam, Robin Cook, Carl Zimmer, Lisa Randall and Ken Denmead.
The Many Worlds of Lockheed Martin. Check out more than 25 new exhibits from Lockheed Martin, the official host of the Festival! Immerse yourself in the cockpit simulator of an F-22 fighter jet, tour cities of the future; delve into the wonders of robotics and the Hubble telescope, plus many more exciting adventures!
Meet the Scientists/Engineers. Chat one-on-one at this Career Pavilion location with some of the nation’s top scientists, engineers to learn about such fields as medical research, oceanography, national security with the CIA, microbiology, and technology intellectual property law!
Innovative Entrepreneurs. Hear these exciting entrepreneurs who are changing the course of technology: Elon Musk, creator of rocket manufacturer SpaceX, and legendary computer video game innovator Richard Garriott who became the sixth private citizen to journey into Earth’s orbit.
Music by Monty Harper. Dance like a dinosaur and spin like a planet. You’ll do it all to the music of this science singer-musician who was recently named a winner in the Festival’s songwriting competition.
Ready for the Science Olympiads? Learn how to compete in the Science Olympiads from Olympiad student teams in the DC Metro area who will demonstrate vehicles, structures, musical instruments and other devices they’ve developed for the competition!
Saving the Humpback. Nan Hauser, founder of the Center for Cetacean Research & Conservation, will inspire you with her fascinating expeditions to save the endangered humpback whale and other marine species.
Circus Physics. How do all those clowns fit in one car? What’s involved in the physics of the ferris wheel and roller coaster? Come to the circus exhibit of the American Institute of Physics and other partners to find out!
The Science of Bubbles. The fascinating Keith Michael Johnson (as seen on the Discovery Channel’s Time Warp), uses soap bubbles to explain liquids, solids and gasses, geometry, tension and pressure.
Enjoy yourself this weekend and take time to explore as much as you can. We hope the Festival ignites the “Inner Scientist or Engineer” in you! Thank you for all of your support and have an amazing time!Read the comments on this post…
Klout is kind of evil. Basically, it’s the impact factor for the Web, where this random company uses a mysterious algorithm to quantify and rank people’s standing on social media — Twitter, Facebook, etc.
There’s been some interesting commentary about it on teh interwebs these lasts few days, such as It’s terrifying how important your Klout score has become, Klout Is Important Even If You Aren’t Using It and What Your Klout Score Really Means. Lots of interesting and mostly measured and rational commentary and analysis.
And along comes Klouchebag.com into the fray and blows it all up.
From the home page:
What is this?
This is Klouchebag — the standard for measuring asshattery online!
No, seriously, what’s this?
I got annoyed with the fuss around Klout, the horrible social-game that assigns you a score based on how “influential” you are online. This is the result.
Who made it?
Hello. I’m Tom Scott. I live at tomscott.com, and you can email me or follow me on Twitter or Facebook.
It called me names!
Sorry. Don’t take it personally. This is about as scientific as Klout’s own measurements — which is to say, it’s pretty much a crapshoot. You’re probably a lovely person. Although you might want to cut down on the swearing a bit.
What do the ratings mean?
Klouchebag uses the ARSE rating system. Anger: profanity and rage. Retweets: “please RT”s, no or constant retweeting, and old-style. Social Apps: every useless checkin on foursquare or its horrible brethren. And English Usage: if you use EXCLAMATION MARKS OMG!!! or no capitals at all, this’ll be quite high.
Why no achievements? Ooh, or perks?
I don’t want people to actually start competing! (And I’m a bit lazy.)
But… but my Klout score is important!
No it’s not. It’s like search engine optimisation, only for yourself. Ignore it. Concentrate on making amazing things, caring about the people around you, and not being a douchebag. If you do that, then you’ll soon realise that it doesn’t matter one jot what an algorithm thinks of you.
And to further emphasize the most important point of all:
Concentrate on making amazing things, caring about the people around you, and not being a douchebag. If you do that, then you’ll soon realise that it doesn’t matter one jot what an algorithm thinks of you.
If you’re on Twitter, give it a try. I’m a 39 and a bit of a pratt. Guilty as charged, I guess, though I was a 43 and a bit noisy earlier today.
And of course, there’s a bit of delicious irony involved here as well. I tweeted about Klouchebag earlier this morning which inspired a flurry of tweets and retweets with a wide variety of other people. Which is going to end up giving my Klout score a bit of a boost. I’m a 46 and a networker.
So what’s your score?Read the comments on this post…
If you are in/around the OKC area, you arent going to want to miss the FREE event the OK chapter of Americans United is throwing this Saturday!
Oklahoma City ChapterThe speaker line-up:
Americans United for Separation of Church & State
Saturday, April 28, 2012, 10:30 am to 1:30 pm
Midwest City Public Library Forum Room, 8143 E. Reno
- Dr. John Starkey, Milhouse Professor of Theology, Oklahoma City University, “Personhood, Pluralism, and the First Amendment: The Test case of Abortion”
- Professor Joseph Thai, Presidential Professor of Law, University of Oklahoma, “An insider’s view: How the Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit Court Decide Cases”
- Katherine Stewart, author, “The Good News Club”, “Breaking Down the Wall of Separation Between Church and School: Author Katherine Stewart discusses a range of initiatives, by the Religious Right, to infiltrate and undermine public schools in America”
Again, this is a FREE event!
Read the comments on this post…
It’s always amusing to see creationists try to explain why Charles Darwin was wrong, especially when they make up lists of reasons “Darwin’s theory of evolution does not hold up to scientific scrutiny.” These are always people who wouldn’t know what scientific scrutiny was if it knocked them immobile with a carefully measured dose of Conus snail toxin, strapped them to an operating table, and pumped high-intensity Science directly into their brains with a laser. As I often wish I could do.
Anyway, some ignorant jebus-lover hacked together a list of 10 “mistakes” that Darwin made. Strangely, they completely miss his actual errors (probably because they’ve never read anything by Darwin and don’t have enough knowledge of biology to recognize where he has been superceded) and babble on about what are actually creationist errors.
1. “Warm little pond” theory: There is no solid evidence of life arising spontaneously from a chemical soup.
Actually, there is. We know that organic chemicals arise spontaneously all the time in nature — they’re even detectable floating about in space. We also know that biology is chemistry, and that every process driving biological phenomena is ultimately physical and chemical. We also know that life arose in a geologically brief period early in the history of the earth. It’s certainly a better explanation than that some invisible guy said some magic words and poof, life appeared spontaneously with all the complexity of extant forms.
By the way, the “warm little pond” wasn’t part of Darwin’s theory. It was a brief speculation made in an 1871 letter to Hooker.
“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, - light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.”
That’s actually still an entirely reasonable hypothesis, and not a mistake at all, especially when you recognize that he was suitably cautious in his publications. Here’s what he said in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, for instance.
“As the first origin of life on this earth, as well as the continued life of each individual, is at present quite beyond the scope of science, I do not wish to lay much stress on the greater simplicity of the view of a few forms, or of only one form, having been originally created, instead of innumerable miraculous creations having been necessary at innumerable periods; though this more simple view accords well with Maupertuis’s philosophical axiom ‘of least action.’”
2. Simplicity of the cell theory: Scientists have discovered that cells are tremendously complex, not simple.
Total fiction, but an oft-repeated lie by creationists. Scientists in Darwin’s day had access to light microscopes with resolution as good as ours today; they were actively studying the structure of the cells, identifying and naming organelles, teasing apart the choreography of cell division. They were entirely aware of the mysteries and complexities of the cell’s contents.
And again, there was nothing in any of Darwin’s writings that presupposed that cells had to be simple.
3. Theory about the cell’s simple information: It turns out cells have a digital code more complex and lengthy than any computer language made by man.
Wait, isn’t this the same as #2? I’m seeing some padding going on already.
But no, the genome is not a computer program written in a complex computer language. The words “digital code” are not magic, nor do they imply any supernatural origin.
4. Theory of intermediate fossils: Where are the supposed billions of missing links in the evolutionary chain?
5. Theory of the variation of species: Genetic adaptation and mutation have proven to have fixed limits.
They do? Where is this “proof”? When I can see from the molecular evidence that a fruit fly, a squid, and a human all share a common core of related genes, I have to say that if there are such limits, they are very wide — wide enough to encompass the entirety of life on earth.
If he means that there are limits such that a mouse will not give birth to an orangutan or a cabbage, I’d agree…but no biologist proposes any such ridiculously saltational view of evolutionary change. It’s always the creationists who demand that a cat give birth to a monkey before they’ll believe in evolution.
6. Theory of the Cambrian Explosion: This sudden appearance of most major complex animal groups at the same low level of the fossil record is still an embarrassment to evolutionists.
They are so embarrassed about it that they keep writing about it and studying it!
Remember, though, “sudden appearance” means over tens of millions of years…and it’s a creationist who believes the whole of the earth’s history is about a thousandth of the length of just this one geological period who is claiming that 20 million years is untenably sudden. It’s also not true that that animals abruptly appeared: we have evidence of precursors, and even within the Cambrian we see patterns of change from beginning to end.
7. Theory of homology: Similarity of structures does not mean the evolution of structures.
This is the one case where this creationist has dimly caught a glimpse of a real argument within biology. We’ve been wrestling with the concept of homology for a long, long time — with problems of definition and implementation. These arguments, however, do not cast doubt on the evidence for evolution, so I’m not about to get into them here (this is where a philosopher of science would be much more useful!)
8. Theory of ape evolution : Chimpanzees have not evolved into anything else. Neither has man.
But a proto-chimp/human — our last common ancestor — evolved into both humans and chimps.
This is a very silly argument. It’s like claiming that because none of my children have yet reproduced, it is impossible that my wife and I produced them.
9. Theory of the tree of life: Rather than all life branching from a single organism, evidence has revealed a forest of life from the very beginning.
Goddamn you, New Scientist! Ever since they ran their stupid, misbegotten cover, the creationists have been crowing about Darwin being proven wrong. The tree model is still largely accurate for multicellular life, but we have to add a component of horizontal gene transfer, and we recognize that at the root of the tree of life, in all those single-celled organisms, the profligate exchange of genes across species is much, much more common.
But this is still evolution! It’s also an entirely natural mechanism; there aren’t angels or gods mediating bacterial conjugation or viral transduction.
10. Rejection of an intelligent designer: This opened the door for many to reject God, the Bible and Christianity.
That’s no mistake. You should reject gods, holy books, and various cults, because they’re all bullshit.
That was a pathetic effort, so typical of creationists. I’ve seen many such lists of Darwin’s errors, and there’s a lot of overlap…but there’s one thing I’ve never seen appear on any of them. Why don’t they ever mention Darwin’s biggest mistake, his theory of blending inheritance, pangenesis? It was completely wrong, it was even incompatible with natural selection, yet the creationists never seem to latch onto it as a tool for defaming Darwin. Is it because then they’d also have to understand that another natural mechanism, one that is intrinsically about chance and statistics, so thoroughly replaced Darwin’s mechanism? Is it because they neither understand the theories Darwin proposed, nor Mendelian genetics?
(Also on FtB)Read the comments on this post…
Almost exactly a year ago, I came across a bit of woo so incredible, so spectacularly stupid and unbelievable, that I dedicated one of the last segments I’ve done in a long time of Your Friday Dose of Woo to it. Basically, it was about a movie called Eat the Sun, which described a bunch of people who believe that they can imbibe the energy they need to keep their bodies going by “sun gazing,” which involves, as the name implies, staring directly into the sun. The idea is to stare directly into the sun for as long as possible at sunrise or sunset, so as not to burn out your retinas by staring at the noon day sun. Sun gazers seem to think that mammals are like plants in possessing an ability to absorb energy directly from the sun. We’re not, of course, as I explained in my inimitable way a year ago. Sun gazing also leaves out the fact that plants get the organic building blocks they use to produce their actual structures from the ground in which they grow. Humans have no such capacity. Even if humans could absorb enough energy directly from the sun to keep their metabolism going, they’d still be faced with the problem of what, exactly, they’re made of. Food is more than energy. It’s amino acids, sugars, fats, and other building blocks necessary to make proteins, DNA, and in general the very chemicals that make up the very structure and metabolism of our bodies.
In brief, sun gazing is a lovely fantasy, but that’s all it is: A fantasy. Unfortunately for people who try to rely on sun gazing as a means of nutrition in a serious way, this is reality:
A woman starved to death after embarking on a spiritual journey which involved giving up food and water and attempting to exist on nothing but sunlight.Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…
The Swiss woman, who was in her fifties, apparently got the idea after watching the documentary film ‘In the Beginning, There Was Light’ which features an Indian guru who claims to not have eaten anything in 70 years.
The Zurich newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported Wednesday that the unnamed woman decided to follow the radical fast in 2010.
The prosecutors’ office in the Swiss canton of Aargau confirmed Wednesday that the woman died in January 2011 in the town of Wolfhalden in eastern Switzerland.
9:30am Thursday, Starbucks
Work steadily on the work-in-progress, researching a few points here and there, adding a bunch of words, making various line edits.
11:15am Thursday, Starbucks
Realize that the stuff I added would work better if split off into a new subsection.
11:30am Thursday, Union College
Meeting with the Dean. No writing. Sigh.
1:30pm Thursday, Barnes and Noble
Revise material written earlier in the day to split new stuff off into its own subsection. Research some additional points, add a whole bunch of words. Struggle with transition between old stuff and new subsection.
5:45pm, Thursday, in my car on the way to pick SteelyKid up at day care
Realize that vexing transition problem would completely go away if the sections were in a different order, and more material was added to a different section to bring it up to parity with the others. Arrive at SteelyKid’s day care, commence parenting. No writing. Sigh.
And so, here we are back in Starbucks, hoping to do the revisions from last night, and wondering what brilliant idea I’ll have five minutes before I need to leave to go to a meeting on campus at 11.Read the comments on this post…
The attention of the Two Little Cousins and Huxley the Baby was easily diverted to the back of the house while Cousin Randy slipped out the front door into the cold dark night wearing the red suit and fake beard, carrying a bag of toys and a strap of sleigh bells. Suddenly, Cousin Chris exclaimed that she heard ringing sounds, and this made everyone stop talking and listen, theatrically. Sure enough, there was the sound of bells from somewhere outside! The two little cousins had a good idea what this meant; Huxley the Baby did not. Then, Grandpa exclaimed that he thought an animal had passed by the side window … a deer, maybe. No, said Grandma, a reindeer! Then there was a thud on the side of the house, and moments later a loud knock on the front door, which promptly flew open, letting in a cold draft, a few flurries of snow, and a large man with red cheeks and a gleam in his eye.Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…
Somebody on Twitter linked this article about “brogrammers”, which is pretty much exactly as horrible as that godawful neologism suggests. In between descriptions of some fairly appalling behavior, though, they throw some stats at you, and that’s where it gets weird:
As it is, women remain acutely underrepresented in the coding and engineering professions. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study, in 2011 just 20 percent of all programmers were women. A smaller percentage of women are earning undergraduate computer science degrees today than they did in 1985, according to the National Center for Women in Technology, and between 2000 and 2011 the percentage of women in the computing workforce dropped 8 percent, while men’s share increased by 16 percent.
Specifically, that last sentence. How is that even possible? The only way I can see for that number to make sense is if at least 8% of the workforce in 2000 didn’t provide gender data, but if that’s the case, you can’t really say anything sensible about changes in those numbers. You could probably arrange some distribution in which those figures are percentages of percentages (that is, the fraction of women started at some value, and decreased to 92% of that original value), but it would require the initial fraction of women to be higher than the initial fraction of men (so that the same decrease in absolute terms is a larger percentage for men than women), which is obviously not the case.
Of course, being traditional journalists, they don’t make it easy to find the source. They sorta-kinda attribute it to the National Center for Women in Technology, whose scorecard makes a similar claim for 2000-2009, though the disparity is smaller (11% and 13%). They source it to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but the relevant-seeming tables don’t break out men and women separately, so I can’t see how you would get a bizarre claim like the quoted bit. If you want to know the male participation in these industries from those BLS tables, the only thing you can do is subtract the women’s percentage from 100, which obviously cannot give you a different change in the fraction of men than the fraction of women. Unless they’re working from some more complete data set with more fine-grained demographic information, but if so, it’s not obvious where you would find that.
I have too much other stuff to do to keep trying to track this weirdness down, but this is going to bug me all day, so I’ll throw it out to my readership in hopes that one of you either knows how you would get such an obviously weird result, or can track down an explanation with superior Google-fu.Read the comments on this post…
Have you been getting bitten by a lot of spiders lately? Are you concerned about Brown Recluse Spiders?Read the rest of this post… | Read the comments on this post…
Read the most popular feeds:
- dealnews - Today’s Edition
- MacRumors Forums
- Digg Top Stories
- ScienceBlogs : Combined Feed
- The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Fark.com RSS
- BBC News - Home
- Global Voices
- Recent Uploads tagged graffiti
- Boing Boing
- Recent Uploads tagged screenshot
- Latest Items from TreeHugger
- NYT > Home Page
- Engadget RSS Feed
- Recent Uploads tagged moleskine
- CNET News
- Recent Uploads tagged tatoo
- All Salon
- Engadget RSS Feed
- NYT > Technology
- Hacker News
- Recent Uploads tagged rust
- Truthout - All Articles
- CNN.com Recently Published/Updated
A feed of all posts across all blogs in the ScienceBlogs network.
Find or add a new feed:
Drag this link to your browser bookmarks bar, then click it whenever you want to add the site you're viewing to RSS2.com.Add to RSS2.com | <urn:uuid:8e4e2ddb-6791-4055-9863-fa67b59ebc0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rss2.com/feeds/ScienceBlogs-Combined-Feed/10556/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942362 | 5,533 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Primary consideration will be given to:
- Nonprofit organizations providing direct services to the residents of San Mateo County, California, through programs that benefit: children, youth, families, immigrants, the elderly and the ill, the disadvantaged, needy and homeless, the mentally and physically disabled, and those suffering from drug, alcohol or physical abuse. These services include: counseling, rehabilitation, job training, respite and child care, family planning, health education, and programs that meet basic human needs.
- Schools, community colleges, universities, adult and vocational schools and related organizations serving the needs of students in San Mateo County. Grant topics include: counseling, remedial and/or enrichment activities, student financial aid, day care, health and vocational education.
- United Methodist Church and ecumenical or church-related organizations reaching out to serve the material or social welfare needs of communities in San Mateo County. Selected support for other denominations and theological education.
- U.S. nonprofits providing assistance, support and training in Mexico and Central America for the sustainable development of water and food resources; for economic initiatives such as cooperative banks, agra-businesses and micro- enterprise; and for programs such as sanitation, nutrition, health education, and family planning.
New Creation Home Ministries
Requests are viewed more favorably if they are for specific purposes, rather than for policy, advocacy or general promotional activities. Additional positive factors include: demonstration of cooperation with other donors and/or service providers, indication of community support and potential for replication.
The following are NOT funded by the Foundation:
- Grants to any organization which does not have proof of current IRS tax-exempt status.
- Grants, scholarships or loans to individuals.
- Grants designed to influence legislation.
- Grants for doctoral study or research.
- Grants for sponsorship of, or travel to, conferences or events.
- Grants for films, videos or publications.
- Donations to annual campaigns or fundraising events.
- Sponsorship of sports groups.
- Grants to national or statewide umbrella organizations. | <urn:uuid:39b781aa-a075-4c60-a15f-535399127aaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atkinsonfdn.org/grant.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930659 | 423 | 1.789063 | 2 |
This week, I had the opportunity to visit a state that many Americans never see: Alaska. The wilderness and coastline of America's 49th state are absolutely beautiful and the people I met were wonderful, but as I learned this week, the folks on our "Last Frontier" also have many unique transportation challenges and needs.
One of Alaska's star modes of transportation is the scenic Alaska Railroad, which I rode south from Anchorage. This historic railroad is a great way for tourists to experience Alaska's natural beauty. It also generates a lot of economic activity for local businesses.
In Girdwood, Alaska I met with transportation officials and community members to talk about regional traffic safety challenges -- particularly the need to find ways to reduce the fatality rate on the Seward Highway. Since 2006, stepped-up enforcement and public awareness efforts have improved safety, but we can do better. I made sure state and local officials know that DOT will continue supporting their efforts to bring the highway's fatality rate down even further.
One of the most interesting parts of my visit, and one of the transportation resources that really provides Alaskans a wealth of economic benefits is the Port of Anchorage. I toured the port with U.S. Representative Don Young, U.S. Senator Mark Begich, former Governor and current Port Director Bill Sheffield, Anchorage Mayor Sullivan, and representatives from a number of shipping companies that use the port.
Through rail, road, and air connections, this port receives approximately 90 percent of all goods heading to Alaskan homes and businesses across their vast state. It stages 100 percent of the exports of refined petroleum products from the state’s largest refinery in Fairbanks and facilitates petroleum deliveries from refiners on the Kenai Peninsula and in Valdez. And, it has been designated by the Department of Defense as one of 19 "National Strategic Ports" because it provides valuable supplies to Alaska's military installations. In fact, the Port has deployed more than 18,000 pieces of military equipment around the world since 2005. | <urn:uuid:21f233a6-88c2-4cbc-a437-77b65b335d94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fastlane.dot.gov/2011/09/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962804 | 409 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Krigsman, Wakefield Error Highlighted
A study this month in Paediatrics tackles head-on the ‘science’ that is still yet to be published (a number of years later) by Arthur Krigsman in which he claims that he has found evidence of persistent measles virus in autistic kids and thus backing up the work of his business partner Andrew Wakefield.
In layman’s terms what this study did was replicate the result of Krigsman et al and then eliminate the poor science that led Krigsman to his erroneous conclusions. Of the samples that still showed as positive, no trace of MV was found.
The real-time assays based on previously published primers gave rise to a large number of positive reactions in both autism spectrum disorder and control samples. Almost all of the positive reactions in these assays were eliminated by evaluation of melting curves and amplicon band size. The amplicons for the remaining positive reactions were cloned and sequenced. No sample from either autism spectrum disorder or control groups was found to contain nucleic acids from any measles virus gene. In the nested polymerase chain reaction and inhouse assays, none of the samples yielded positive results. Furthermore, there was no difference in anti-measles antibody titers between the autism and control groups
Now thats pretty hardcore science language. I’ve emailed the authors to see if they are willing to explain (and be quoted) on an English translation of the above but in essence, the facts are as I state them above. Krigsman et al (and Wakefield before him?) failed to eliminate false positives and counted them as part of his result set. When these false positives are eliminated then the samples left contain no MV.
I’m hoping that Bart Cubbins, No Mercury, Maria, Ms Clarke et al (who are wise in the ways of this terminology) might offer more input into the meaning of the exact phraseology used and as I say, I’ve mailed the authors for clarification too. In the meantime – Krigsman’s (unpublished) work is now pretty much refuted (by published work).
Daubert’s Revenge – Martha Herbert
As reported by Autism Diva, Dr Martha Herbert has now reached the dizzy heights Boyd Haley and Mark Geier have scaled in having her ‘expert testimony’ found severely wanting following a Daubert hearing.
Herbert basically claimed that a childs autism (diagnosed by her following a differential diagnosis) was caused by mold. Yes, mold. However, upon being cross-examined:
When asked whether there is ‘any evidence that mold is a trigger [for autism],’ Dr. Herbert responded by referring to research regarding brain inflammation and immunological abnormalities in autism. Asked about research showing that ‘any of the mold or any of the mildew or any of those other things also cause brain inflammation,’ she responded ‘that’s a hole in my knowledge. In terms of autism, I don’t believe that’s been done.’
Right. Well, thank goodness she’s so rigorous. Wouldn’t want to just make assumptions right? That would just be a waste of everyone’s time right?
In another classic piece of thinking Herbert goes on to say:
Dr. Herbert commented, ‘she doesn’t have any of the known genetic syndromes, or known in-utero infections. I personally consider it symptomatic, but not in the established set of categories, in that I hope that when more research is done she’ll move in the symptomatic category.’
In other words she doesn’t know what caused the childs autism (gasp!) but that it doesn’t fit any known profile but that maybe some research at some unspecified point in the future might help categorise it (whatever ‘it’ is).
Oh, it gets better.
Dr. Herbert was asked, ‘[c]an you say to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that if Emilia Ward had been in a sterile environment, she would not suffer from autism” She responded, ‘My guess would be, yes, that she probably would not.’ The basis for that ‘guess,’ she testified, was ‘her having regressed after the mold exposure and that she gets worse with exposures.’
Wait… _guess_ – her _guess_ ? Well surely she meant ‘informed opinion’, or ‘scientific judgement based on the evidence to hand’…..except there _is_no evidence to hand:
In response to questions she acknowledged that she has never done any research on mold or mildew as an environmental toxin, and is not aware of any published peer review articles that link mold and mildew exposure to autism.
And so it is no great shock to find the court saying:
Dr. Herbert’s publications indicate that she is an outspoken advocate of increased attention to the possibility of environmental influences. Even she, however, despite that acknowledged perspective, speaks in her published work of possibilities and potentialities, rather than of the ‘reasonable degree of medical certainty’ to which she offers to testify under oath in this case.10 Neither Dr. Herbert’s publications, nor any others cited, identify mold exposure as even a suspected, still less a known or proven, trigger of autism……Dr. Herbert’s method, to the extent the Court can discern it from the materials offered, is a series of deductions based on possibilities…..*Clearly, Dr. Herbert’s method is not generally accepted in the scientific community*. Dr. Herbert’s theory of environmental triggers of autism may some day prove true. It has not yet. *Her proffered testimony does not meet the standard of reliability required by the case law*, and cannot be admitted in evidence at trial.
FDA Spanks Mercury Milita
Back in 2004, Dr Paul King of dr-king.com, uh, fame, submitted a ‘citizen petition’ to the FDA requesting:
[The FDA]…take numerous actions pertaining to vaccines and other FDA-regulated products containing thimerosal or other mercury-based preservatives….After review and consideration, we deny the petition for the reasons stated below in this response.
The response is very detailed (the whole thing is available at Kathleen’s site) but can be summed up in one quote:
The evidence on which your petition relies either does not support your requests, or is too flawed to be considered valid scientific evidence.
Which seems to be something of a growing refrain for the mercury (and apparently mold!) militia.
Damn science with its rigorous pursuit of accuracy eh? If only we could rely on opinions and guesses. | <urn:uuid:4bd8d452-438b-456f-affd-73fed589d6d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/10/03/crumbling-science/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953541 | 1,425 | 1.648438 | 2 |
- Other Rooms >
- Design a Home Gym
Design a Home Gym
Create a workout space that’s safe and structurally sound.
- Photo: home-designing.com
Many homes have a treadmill or dumbbell these days, but a home gym is more than just an accumulation of equipment — it’s the product of a well-conceived design that’s as functional as it is motivating.
The good news is that it doesn’t take much space — nor does it require plumbing or a lot of rewiring — to set up a home gym. It does, however, take careful planning to optimize the square footage and create a sound, safe, and inviting workout space.
Before you start equipment shopping, settle on the location of your home gym. Space limitations will impact the size, quantity, and layout of your apparatus. According to the American Council on Exercise, free weights require 20 to 50 square feet of space to use properly, treadmills need about 30 square feet, and a multi-station gym necessitates 50 to 200 square feet.
“Maximizing smaller space comes down to choosing the right equipment,” says Jeff Thomsen, president of Fitness Solutions Direct in Hoboken, NJ. Thomsen works with homeowners to design gyms based on their space, lifestyle, and fitness goals. “There are pieces of equipment that are very functional and take up minimal room,” he says. Thomsen also suggests you select a square or rectangular area as “odd-shaped rooms tend to result in a lot of wasted space.”
Basements are a natural for an exercise area. According to Cary, NC-based architect William J. Hirsch, Jr., author of Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect , “It’s best to place the home gym on the lowest floor of the house to reduce noise transmission from the exercise equipment.” Sound is a top issue in designing a gym. Treadmills, stationary bikes, and elliptical machines produce droning vibrations that can be transmitted through a wood-framed floor. On the other hand, the concrete slab floors usually found in basements absorb the vibrations. Another plus? Basements are cooler.
Architect Joshua Zinder of JZA + D in Princeton, NJ, recently finished a large basement for a family that included about 250 square feet for a home gym. “Because it was all subterranean, we had to make sure the gym felt light and airy and open even though it was in a small section of the basement that didn’t have windows” says Zinder. who achieved that airy feeling by using bright lighting, reflective white acoustical ceiling tiles, and mirrors. “Lining the room with mirrors made it feel twice the size.” Mirrors play a dual role, as well, since they help you monitor your form to ensure you’re exercising properly. There was also a green aspect to Zinder’s design: The ceiling tiles and rubber flooring were made from recycled materials.
Prior to Zinder’s completion of their basement gym, homeowners Michael and Lori Feldstein had their exercise equipment in the bedroom. Lori Feldstein says it was used “more as a towel bar” than for its intended purpose. “I love that the space is in the basement, in a room intended for exercise,” she says. “When I go down to work out, I can tune out the chaos that my three kids may be making upstairs and enjoy some well-deserved time to do something for myself.”
Attics are another popular location to house a home gym. An advantage of attic gyms is they often have high ceilings that can accommodate tall pieces of equipment. Most have windows, too, and natural light can be especially motivating. One drawback is that vibrations can carry down to the rooms below. If the gym is being planned in a newly constructed home or as part of a remodeling where the floor system is accessible, “then placing sound-deadening insulation in the floor is a good idea,” suggests Hirsch. The walls and ceiling should be insulated for sound, too. “This can be done with fiberglass sound-deadening batts, sound-deadening drywall, or a sound-deadening board installed between the drywall and the studs.” If you opt for a gym in the attic or an upper level, additional bracing might be required to ensure the floor is strong enough to support heavy exercise equipment.
Of course, any space — from a spare bedroom to a small alcove — can be repurposed for a gym. “The important thing,” Zinder says, “is a space that’s going to encourage you to use it.”
The choice of floor surfaces is critical. Gym floors are susceptible to perspiration drips, so sheet vinyl, tile, or hardwood flooring with a polyurethane finish are low-maintenance choices, Hirsch says. Another smart option is using carpet tiles, which are resilient, sound-absorbing, and easy to replace. And if one gets damaged, there’s no need to replace the entire floor.
If you have a free-weight area, think about heavy-duty mats that will protect the floor. Zinder recommends half-inch-thick recycled rubber flooring available online from retailers who specialize in both residential and commercial-grade products such as Rubber Flooring Inc. “It’s going to be able to take the impact from the dropping of weights a lot easier,” he says. If your fitness area is comprised mainly of machines, rather than free weights, you can opt for flooring that’s more stylish and less heavy-duty.
Engage in a vigorous workout and suddenly a home gym becomes hot and humid. For that reason, many prefer to have the room cooler than the rest of the home. Architect Hirsch says, “It’s a good idea to have the home gym on a separate heating and air conditioning system, or at least be controlled as a separate zone off the main system” so it won’t affect the temperature in other rooms of the house. Installing a ceiling fan to circulate the air will also keep the room comfortable.
Televisions, DVD players, and stereo systems are almost a prerequisite in home gyms today. To keep your workout space clutter- and hazard-free, mount audio-video equipment on a swiveling ceiling bracket or recess it in a niche in the wall. Be sure to position the TV at a height that’s comfortable to view when you’re on a raised piece of equipment like a bicycle or elliptical machine.
“The most important thing is designing something that’s integral to the way you use your home,” says Zinder. “For us, aesthetics are everything. If you improve the finishes and make it a place you want to be, it’ll encourage you to use the gym and not feel like working out is a chore.”
- 10 Popular Driveway Options to Welcome You Home
- 12 Hobbit Houses to Make You Consider Moving Underground
- 12 Wow-Worthy Woods for Kitchen Countertops
- 15 Ways to Make a Small Bathroom Big
- 20 Clever Ideas for Repurposed Storage
- 10 New Ways to Store Kitchen Necessities
- 12 "Expert Picks" for Fail-Safe Colors
- 10 "Neat" Garage Storage Solutions
- 10 Reasons to Love Architectural Salvage
- 10 Design Inspirations for Mudrooms and Entryways
- Painted Cabinets: 10 Reasons to Transform Yours Now
- Kitchen Flooring: 8 Popular Choices
- 10 "Dream-Worthy" Swimming Pools
- Paint Guide: 10 Essentials for Successful House Painting
- Murphy Beds: 9 Hide-Away Sleepers
- 10 Low-Cost Ways to Improve Your Home Security
- 12 Ways to Put Your Home on an Energy Diet
- 13 Easy Ways to Repurpose Antique Armoires
- Bob Vila's Guide to Historic House Styles
- 10 Things to Do with... Cross-Cut Trees | <urn:uuid:d776ab61-eaf0-47d7-bfde-efb1027ed862> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bobvila.com/articles/279-design-a-home-gym/pages/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933065 | 1,726 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.