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Posted by susan
on 2009-05-25 02:36:00
I have a honeysuckle that grows all fall and winter and as soon as spring starts, the leaves begin to fall off and it looks as if it's dead. I do not see any "pests" on the leaves or anything else obvious to be causing this. Any ideas? | <urn:uuid:4373205a-ad65-4a2c-9ed7-6cf08da5e235> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.garden.org/boards/index.php?q=view&id=21241&board=18&top=21241 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971326 | 75 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Transcript for 'Stand Up for Heroes': Soldier's Journey
Since his head was nearly blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq are ABC news colleague Bob Woodruff. As a special understanding of the obvious and hidden wounds of war. Tonight his foundation kicked... See More
Since his head was nearly blown off by a roadside bomb in Iraq are ABC news colleague Bob Woodruff. As a special understanding of the obvious and hidden wounds of war. Tonight his foundation kicked off the New York comedy -- the -- with another star studded stand up for heroes. We thought would follow one wounded warrior to the event to better understand life after deployment. And how much one night of laughter can mean. -- Funny where life -- how one moment changes all the rest that follow. Tonight he's on -- red carpet but almost exactly five. Years ago marine lieutenant Andrew kinder was on patrol. He's Smart strapping son of a surgeon Naval Academy grad it was only six weeks into his first deployment when he took -- one fateful step. And -- couple months later Maryland hospital. His first thoughts where's my rifle. And why is my dad in Iraq. They realized half of them was gone and as my point man turned around to sort of direct. Us to -- when you go this way that's when the bomb exploded. It threw me through the air I've been told thirty feet or so. After this guy and I just fell to a crumple. We've seen it in Iraq and Afghanistan how cutting -- battlefield medicine is saving troops it -- died in any prior war. He has and you take your right foot hasn't yet taken place today's soldiers actually put on turn it gets before the battle. Kind of grim self awareness that makes them harder to kill that any wars in history again -- -- Tina writing thank you deserve them. So instead of families learning to live without a son we have unprecedented numbers of men learning to live without arms and legs. In day to -- life people discount me so much for being a wheelchair I -- talks down to and patronized. On a regular basis I -- helped all the time when I don't need help you know I'm a marine officer try to help other people who I don't need help. These 75. Surgeries changed his body but didn't remove his pride or his drive. Andrew has hand -- a couple Boston marathons and is now working on a law and MBA degree at Harvard. But he took the night off from New York City little -- there something he believes in since that moment in the hospital and a fellow at BT made him laugh. The first times last. When he came to my room hands. -- -- Its holdings. Blasted himself in Thailand let them. I didn't I was to find them. Meanwhile some of his fellow heroes are getting the kind of pampering they never imagined back home. Especially compared. Air force captain to -- Fred -- the purple heart after his suicide bombing burned 30% of her upper body. This year then. Torn off and. But they -- greatly affect on and I can't hear well. And there are make overs for the caregivers as well bungle means realized by Lee Woodruff. In those grueling days nursing bombed back to help it was a woman pushing a wheelchair with -- Vietnam veteran husband -- said to me at an event. -- guys get to go on vacation here but we don't we're still pushing wheelchairs it was -- and around -- -- you know we have an opportunity do is make part of this weekend. Just making them feel like queens her. A day. As the crush of the red carpet intensifies captain friends arrives looking radiant. And there's Andrew -- probably must -- look at what is here from the boss is bracing for yeah yeah I want to thank you for for for being. It's one of those nights that hits the extreme emotional polls there's joy. Relief that they all made -- home you know I'm. Happy to be here tonight for a number of reasons. -- is that I'm -- But then lumps in throats as Andrew remembers a marine in his unit who just last month took his own life. You know for some -- the deployment never really ends. When we come back home. We suffer not just from injuries of our bones our muscle. We suffer injuries of the mind it's not a call for pity but a reminder that support the troops. It is not a -- It's an action. In the first four years these -- have raised eleven million dollars to help these warriors that their lives that it's an animal and. Good for the grand finale. The boss as a regular at this event it's customary for Bruce Springsteen to auction off his car. I'm 45000. -- -- -- 130. And tonight that precious acts brought a 160000. Dollars Bob release foundation and the bitter. Well he gave that guitar. This engine. I.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate. | <urn:uuid:ce6a9c25-86a9-47f1-9a2b-8fa736b81175> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/stand-heroes-soldiers-journey-14920872 | 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 | 0.974846 | 1,004 | 1.570313 | 2 |
By Jim Combs
When a property owner makes the decision to develop a self-storage facility, there are a number of important decisions to be made. In most cases, the first thing the owner will do is hire a site engineer who is familiar with local building codes and their enforcement, and who understands property-line issues and setback requirements. Once the site engineer has done his job, the owner can move on to the next phase.
The Owner's Options
At this point, the owner has a few options. He can hire an architect to prepare a set of drawings for the project, then hire a contractor to put up the buildings, or he can hire a contractor who will both design and erect the buildings. But there is still another important option that owners should seriously consider: the full-service self-storage manufacturer/erector.
"As a turnkey manufacturer, we design our own buildings and actually include the cost of the drawings in the price we quote our customers," says Tom Brandon, vice president of engineering at Statesville, N.C.-based BETCO Inc. "This can mean a substantial savings in engineering fees.
"In other cases, an owner might hire an architect before contracting with a manufacturer, and this can lead to trouble," Brandon continues. "For example, if concrete slabs are poured before components are specified and manufactured, the building may not agree with the manufacturer's standard designs. And 'specials' will result in increased project costs, as well as architect's fees."
More often than not, the engineering department of a full-service manufacturer has years of experience specifically designing self-storage buildings. This knowledge is not always found with some architects, who may not be well-versed in self-storage design. However, there are occasions when a local architect should be involved.
The Architect's Seal of Approval
There are at least two instances when a manufacturer's drawings may be scrutinized and will need an architect's seal of approval before construction can begin:
1) Some localities require an architect of record to provide design services and project coordination. It's the law. Always check with local authorities to determine specific requirements.
2) Some self-storage facilities may include a free-standing office building that is separate from the units themselves. In these cases, an architect will usually be retained to design the office structure.
In terms of getting the components to the building site, some manufacturers have the capacity to ship them on their own trucks. In addition, they may also be able to erect the buildings with their own professional crews. Once again, by choosing a full-service manufacturer, the owner can eliminate extraneous suppliers and simplify the process.
The Importance of Timing
Once the owner's property is ready to receive the components, timing becomes a critical issue. "If an owner isn't able to get his buildings up to suit his schedule, it can mean losing valuable leasing time and can translate into dollars as well," says Terry Huber, BETCO's vice president of manufacturing and construction, and chief operating officer.
"As a single-source supplier, we are in a better position to deliver on time because we can control the manufacturing process and the shipping schedule. When an owner deals with separate suppliers, timing can suffer," Huber says.
Dealing with a single source also means certain cost efficiencies. It can be cheaper to deal with one supplier rather than two or three. The manufacturer who knows that a package deal is in the offing--including design, manufacturing, shipping and building erection--will make sure that the owners gets every financial advantage possible.
Even if the manufacturer's components are more expensive than the competition, the overall investment cost may be lower. This is because buildings made of high-quality materials, such as Galvalume, will withstand the test of time. The owner can look forward to many years of maintenance-free buildings. Unfortunately, some owners make the mistake of trying to save money by buying cheaper components in the beginning, only to pay more in maintenance costs down the road.
Selecting the Right Manufacturer/Erector
If you are an owner who does not have an ongoing relationship with a self-storage manufacturer, has had an unsatisfactory relationship, or has had no experience selecting a manufacturer, there are certain criteria that will help you with the decision. Make sure you choose a manufacturer that will offer the following benefits:
- Full-service capabilities, from building design to building erection.
- Top-quality materials that are prime USA-manufactured to American Standard Testing Materials (ASTM) standard.
- Sales consultants who are knowledgeable and whose experience can be invaluable, particularly to the first-time owner.
- A project manager who will be available to the owner at all times during the project, from start to finish.
- Warranties on all materials and workmanship.
- A history of successful projects and satisfied customers.
In the final analysis, the facility owner who considers all options at the outset of the planning process will benefit most in the long-term. Some options may be better for some owners than others, but just as in the medical profession, it's better to get a second opinion, even a third.
BETCO Inc. is a full-service, self-storage manufacturer/erector based in Statesville, N.C. For more information, contact Jim Combs at (800) 654-7813; www.betcoinc.com. | <urn:uuid:1a24bd23-b5da-4bf6-b3a9-41293e0ad432> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insideselfstorage.com/articles/1997/10/building-self-storagethe-advantages-of-a-full-ser.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967405 | 1,121 | 1.671875 | 2 |
last month a friend informed me, through email, of an essay writing competition organized by the unfpa or the united nations population fund — and it was about population control, and how the government ought to circumvent the population menace by strictly adhering to birth control, and other similar measures.
the inner geek in me was intrigued, and i just let him be as i wove my words and paragraphs into an essay which juxtaposed the population problem with the current diaspora of filipinos into foreign lands just to have a good life. likewise, i related (or at least tried to, hehe) the current NFA rice crisis with the exponentially -multiplying filipino population.
it was a national essay writing competition so when i had (the) confirmation that i got second place, i was, well, overjoyed. hehe. the adjective sounds so subdued to the hysteria that ensued earlier today. haha.
although i would’ve wanted first place (fidel ramos will be giving the award, sheesh), i am still thankful i got second place because being second also means receiving a gift certificate from national bookstore worth so-so pesos.
not being a book reader, i wonder if the prize can be traded for a few bottles of beer. kidding. hehe anyway, i would like to share parts of the essay in my blog, and i hope you don’t doze off as you read it :p
‘‘The scarcity of food, the mass migration of Filipino workers: all these are indicators that the Philippines’ third-world economy cannot sustain a population that is way beyond what is statistically manageable for the government to maintain; more importantly, these serve as warnings that if the present population rate continues to exponentially multiply in light of the rapid depletion of resources, then our direction as a country is headed in a fatal path.
The current rice crisis, amid the efforts of some sectors to quell speculations of its damning repercussions, is a testament to the growing inability of the government to ensure that its people do not starve to death, or that its citizens, especially those who belong to the middle and lower classes, are still able to afford rice – a staple food for most if not all, and one which signifies the living condition of Filipinos. If the condition right now is terrifying, whereby the prospects for food sustenance and sustainability go dimmer as each day passes by, and there exists an apparent lack of viable government programs to arrest this problem, how much more when the population doubles in twenty to thirty years time?
The mass diaspora of Filipinos, for another, is a sad reminder that our collective sense of nationalism has been diluted. Families go abroad in hopes of seeking better opportunities there, students opt for courses which can guarantee them residency in a foreign nation later on, and the sense of fulfillment among some Filipinos culminate when they become naturalized in some foreign land: it is a sad picture really, but one which we have grown accustomed to. It would even be sadder when, in the course of being constantly exposed to these realities, what little sense of nationalism we have left will completely disappear, and all consciousness of being a Filipino will dissipate eventually.
Again, we see that this problem has, at its heart, the population problem, and the lack of opportunities that are available in the country. People are compelled, by circumstance, to momentarily or permanently leave the country for practical reasons – and again, if this trend continues and there is no government intervention to this modern-day phenomenon, then the possibility of the Philippines re-emerging as a strong nation will remain elusive.
It is precisely for these reasons, and presumably a lot more, that the government ought to consolidate its resolve to make the living conditions of its citizens more humane and just. Intrinsically, it has the immense power of effecting change if only it wills itself to do so and rise above its inherent susceptibility to external factors – because what is at stake here is the fragile life of the nation and the citizens that it has vowed to protect.
The right to family planning is an indispensable requisite for economic, political, and social progress – and as concerned citizens of this country, we should take it upon ourselves to demand that the government steer us in that direction – otherwise, we will succumb to the fate of continually disregarding the population problem: eventual self-destruction.’ | <urn:uuid:7d6e061f-457f-4350-b30a-c3735066f23c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blogabs.com/2010/06 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954283 | 906 | 1.507813 | 2 |
I'd heard of Linux before, and had even installed in on an old machine. But when I booted into it, I ended up with a command prompt that wouldn't take any of my old DOS commands. I gave up on it. Recently though, I'd heard some good things about Ubuntu and decided to try it out. Ultimately, I wondered if it would help with my fractal rendering by eliminating a lot of the bloat-ware in memory that is commonly called Windows. I have to say that I was a pretty shocked at the outcome.
I downloaded a free copy of the latest version of Ubuntu and burned it on a CD. When I booted to it, I was fairly surprised at how intuitive the graphic interface was. At that point, I decided it was worth installing it on my laptop in a dual-boot mode so that I could choose to boot into Windows or Ubuntu. After shrinking my primary partition and installing Ubuntu on the leftover space, I looked in the software repository and told it to install Wine (a program that allows you to run Windows applications), browsed to my Windows folder for Apophysis, and was pleasantly surprised again at the fact that it ran right away. The initial launch time was a tad bit longer, but it ran like a charm. The big test came when I loaded up a flame and told it to render. In native Windows Vista, the most memory I could squeeze out of my 1GB of RAM for a render was 490MB. Usually though, I have some other processes running and the figure is about 350MB. When I loaded the same flame up in Apophysis running on Ubuntu though, I had 765MB free...and that is with a chat application and Gmail alert program running in my system tray as well.
What this means is that when I render my fractals in a large resolution for sale on ShutterStock ([link]
, I rarely have to resort to multiple strips. This saves a tremendous amount of time. I haven't actually run any speed tests, but I would not be surprised if the rendering time was faster as well.
Anyway, the bottom line is that if you have a couple gig of free hard drive space and only a gig (or less) of RAM, you should probably check out Ubuntu. It's free, and the hour or two that it takes you to set it up could very well be recouped by the time savings in your first renders. The whole process of downloading the Ubuntu CD, re-partitioning my hard drive, and installing Ubuntu and Wine only took about 45 minutes. The total cost, including time, was 45 minutes. Definitely fit my budget.
If anyone wants more detailed step-by-step instructions on what went into this, let me know.
PS. I just hit a milestone on ShutterStock ([link]
my first 21 days, I've sold over 200 images and am guaranteed a first check of at least $75. I'm thrilled! If you haven't checked out ShutterStock ([link]
, you should. It is free for artists/photographers to join, they'll take just about anything that is categorized properly and isn't noisy, and the earnings add up fairly quickly. | <urn:uuid:de5a140e-6471-4000-819d-71cbba5b8f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://djeaton3162.deviantart.com/journal/Apophysis-on-Ubuntu-238967129?offset=30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97452 | 657 | 1.53125 | 2 |
fables98 via Flikr
The situation in Jefferson County has been a slow-moving disaster for some time, but from the moment the tentative deal to restructure out of court was announced, the challenges were apparent.
There were legislative hurdles, as a new entity backed by a state guarantee was demanded by creditors and a revenue gap for the county needed to be addressed.
There were the inevitable disagreements between creditors and debtor over the level of indebtedness Jefferson County could bear. And finally there were mundane but crucial political realities: politicians were eager to limit the size of rate increases.
With this outcome we are beginning to see the outlines of how the municipal distress issue will play out across the U.S. in the coming years.
Creditors seeking state backing for their debts will encounter legislative challenges or the simple but inescapable calculus of local politics (i.e. it is more desirable for Financial Guarantee Corp, JPMorgan, et al to suffer losses than it is for voters to suffer onerous reductions in services or rate/tax increases). And with states facing their own financial challenges, the ability to backstop troubled municipalities may vanish irrespective of any desire to do so.
Plans based on increased revenue from taxes and fees will need to take into account what is politically feasible.
The historically low default rate for municipalities is irrelevant, as the weight of pension and healthcare liabilities, as well as revenue challenges, place financial pressure on local governments the likes of which they have not experienced since the 1930s (a time of considerable municipal distress).
A 35% haircut was insufficient to keep Jefferson County out of bankruptcy. Bondholders, this is the new floor.
We are fortunate to live in interesting times.
About the author: David Johnson is a partner with ACM Partners, a boutique financial advisory firm providing due diligence, performance improvement, restructuring and turnaround services to companies and municipalities. He can be reached at 312-505-7238 or at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:1a2bc148-d0d4-46be-ae83-7f8eecce0d4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/jefferson-county-bankruptcy-a-harbinger-of-things-to-come-2011-11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963618 | 407 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Contact with ET using Math? Not so fast.
by, 10th June 2012 at 07:56 AM (1048 Views)
It is often said that mathematics is a universal language that we could use to make contact with another intelligence. But is that really the case? Or is this just a disguised version of anthropocentrism?
Dr Keith Devlin has written 31 mathematics books and over 80 published research articles. He is the recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio (For more information see http://profkeithdevlin.com).0 Thanks, 0 Likes, 0 Dislikes
Total Trackbacks 0 | <urn:uuid:da5d35d8-8c15-4e5c-969f-f79e5603b0dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.volconvo.com/forums/entry929.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 | 0.95653 | 193 | 1.703125 | 2 |
SPRINGFIELD, Ark., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Material Science company NanoMech Inc. and KDH Defense Systems are working together to improve body armor for U.S. military and law enforcement personnel.
Improvements to KDH's body armor include use of NanoMech's nGuard, a bacteria-resistant shield. The two are also developing a structured coating to prevent hard armor plates from damage during transportation and storage.
"We are very excited to announce our partnership with a U.S. defense manufacturer of the caliber and reputation of KDH Defense Systems," said Jim Phillips, chairman and chief executive officer of NanoMech.
"Our companies have worked together secretly for the last two years, backed by a Department of Defense grant award, to develop innovative strategic solutions for our soldiers."
"nGuard delivers unsurpassed performance such as elimination of bacteria, fungus, and odor, while retaining color fastness, extending the efficacy and life of the product," added NanoMech's founder and chief technical officer Ajay Malshe.
"Our patent-pending technology is inspired by unique but simple phenomena in nature. nGuard is bio-inspired, providing the most effective and safe method for bacteria removal."
NanoMech Inc. creates advanced engineering materials through patent and patent-pending nano-inspired and nano-manufactured product development.
|Additional Security Industry Stories|
SAN ANTONIO, May 20 (UPI) --BP has take "a significant step" toward selling a California oil refinery and regional retail networks to Tesoro Corp. after getting U.S. federal approval.
WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) --Commercial space activities may soon utilize a NASA launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida that was designed for the Apollo space program. | <urn:uuid:84def475-50dd-4dfb-b61c-459c15cb452b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2012/10/05/Companies-team-for-body-armor-improvements/UPI-41781349453882/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942413 | 365 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Who's it by?
Wonder Woman #1 is written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Cliff Chaing.
What's the history?
Wonder Woman is perhaps DC's most iconic character outside of Superman and Batman. The Amazonian heroine was created by William Moulton Marston in 1941, first appearing in All Star Comics #8 that year.
DC has published an ongoing Wonder Woman title ever since. Aside from a brief hiatus in 1986, the comic has enjoyed an uninterrupted run.
Writers to tackle the title over the years include Gerry Conway, Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, John Byrne and J. Michael Straczynski. Artists such as Gene Colan, George Perez and Mike Deodato and Don Kramer have also made noted contributions to the book.
Wonder Woman was created as a feminist role model, battling for the Amazon ideals of love, peace and sexual equality. Her powers include super strength, flight (in some incarnations), animal-like cunning, super speed and agility. She is also wields the Lasso of Truth - which prevents those bound by it from lying - as well as indestructible bracelets and a tiara which serves as a projectile weapon.
The modern costume design introduced by Straczynski and Jim Lee in Wonder Woman #600 has been abandoned in favour of a more traditional take on the Amazonian. There's a harder edge to the character now, though the differences to classic interpretation are subtle.
Wonder Woman has always been subject to continuity changes, and the story Azzarello has chosen to tell is no exception. It's a modern take on the Greek myths, set entirely in the Earth realm of the DC Universe (so far at least), and the controversial alterations introduced during the 'Odyssey' plotline have been jettisoned.
The story begins in Singapore, where a dapper looking Apollo transforms a band of groupies into oracles to yield a prophesy. The foretelling reveals that an unborn brother of his could one day rise up and become a threat.
Meanwhile, fellow Pantheon member Hera has also gotten wind of the prophesy, and has tracked down a mortal woman named Zola, who is unknowingly pregnant with Zeus's child...
What's the verdict?
Wonder Woman #1is a bold taken on the Amazonia princess. Previous continuity has fallen by the wayside and gore and horror elements mark a shift in tone for the title. These changes will no doubt be welcomed by long-term readers, many of whom have been dissatisfied with recent takes on the character.
Newcomers will find this a good jumping-on point due to the standalone nature of the story, although those without basic knowledge of the Greek myths might struggle to identify some of the key players. Apollo and Hera are never mentioned by name, merely outed by recognisable features.
Wonder Woman is characterised as strong, confident and powerful. She finds herself caught up in the midst of the Pantheon's latest conflict, and isn't afraid to use lethal force when it is called for.
There are several brutal moments in the book, from Hermes's compound fracture to the dismemberment of one of the centaur assassins. Writer and artist resort to shock tactics on occasion, though most gruesome moments serve to unsettle and emphase the sense of creeping horror throughout the comic.
Placing these characters in a modern setting works well, presenting figures of legend in an entirely different light. Chaing's character designs are inspired. Apollo looks like Doctor Manhattan's evil cousin, and Hermes a rejected Avatar character design with bird-like talons for feet.
Colourist Mathew Wilson should be praised for his visceral depictions of day, night and dawn. The grisly battle takes places on a sundrenched farm, which creates a heightened sense of dissonance, and the use of darkness and shadow is harnessed equally well.
Wonder Woman is off to a promising start. The first issue gives us a prophesy hinting at big things to come, as well as an action sequence and some genuinely unsettling moments. The creative team deserves much credit for playing to the character's strengths and delivering a title ideal for new readers to pick up.
> Buy the digital version of Wonder Woman #1
> Read our review of Blue Beetle #1
Watch The New 52 introduction video from DC Comics below: | <urn:uuid:66439b05-ec01-415f-8c25-c2e279f6d94b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/comics/news/a342526/dc-comics-new-52-wonder-woman-1-review.html | 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 | 0.95465 | 895 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The choice of yacht charter in Thailand is wide and includes; bareboat yacht charter, luxury crewed yacht charter, skippered yacht charter, monohull and catamaran charter and both sail and motor yacht charter.Many of beautiful islands of Thailand are only accessible by sea and a yacht charter is a great way to explore this area. The main yacht charter area is amongst the islands of the Andaman Sea.Different indigenous cultures have existed in Thailand since the time of the Baan Chiang culture. Due to its geographical location, Thai culture has always been greatly influenced by India and China as well as the neighbouring cultures of south east Asia. The first Thai state is traditionally considered to be the Buddhist kingdom of Sukhothai founded in 1238.
Not for nothing do they call Thailand the ‘land of smiles’. There is a good reason why the country has by christened by that name. Thai’s are one of those who are known for their hospitality and well mannered behavior. These people are very good at heart and make sure that all the people who visit their country have the best time of their life. This is a very good reason to visit Thailand but there are more in the list of ‘why you should visit Thailand’.
Unlike the organized treks in the Himalayas, Thailand’s “hill-tribe treks” focus on the ethnic-minority villages that you walk to, rather than on the walking itself or the scenery. The hill tribes live way out in the sticks, but their villages are connected by tracks, so the hiking is not difficult. Most treks last two to four days and feature nights in the villages, as well as an elephant ride and river rafting. The main trekking centres are the northern cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, but routes out of both are hugely over subscribed, so it’s better to start from Mae Hing Sin, Pai, Kanchanaburi or Umphang instead, where trails are quieter and more rewarding.
Dating from the thirteen century, Sukhothai is a beautiful example og thoughtful city planning enlivened by lakes and elegant statues of the Buddha. The 300-year-old temples and palaces of Ayutthaya display a refined mix of Hindu and Buddhist sculpture and are fun to explore by bicycle. Both sets of ruins are now conserved as historical parks. There are plenty of sobering World War II sights in the town, as well as reasonable range of trekking, rafting and cycle options that make the most or the fine river scenery, plus some appealing rafthouse accommodation too.
Shopping is another reason why people would visit Thailand. Bangkok is becoming shoppers stop for many around the world. There are gigantic shopping malls all around the city with some great prices that they offer for their products. Siam, Paragon and Central World are the names of the biggest shopping malls in Bangkok, if you want to do some branded shopping. Having been done with the malls, do not forget to miss out the weekend Chatuchak market, which is the biggest open market in the world with more than 15,000 stalls and hundreds of thousands of people visiting the market.All these factors attract visitors from all around the world and there is no wonder that Thailand ayutthaya thai history
is such a ‘must visit’ place. Everyone should visit Thailand at least once in their lifetime.
Learn more about Ayutthaya The Home Of Thai History. | <urn:uuid:974033d9-54a3-40ce-80a9-bbb8f7bed359> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.world-hotels-travel.com/ayutthaya-the-home-of-thai-history-what-are-thailands-main-tourist-attractions-and-activities | 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 | 0.961698 | 723 | 1.648438 | 2 |
One of the design faults of most modern cruisers that annoy me is the positioning of the water inlets. I don’t think I have ever been on yacht where there hasn’t been problems with some water inlets being above water at some points of sail.
The effect can be bad, for example not being able to flush the toilet. Or not getting water to the galley. There is also the problem with making water. All watermakers require a salt water supply free of air bubbles. With bubbles in the water the watermaker stops working. And when you’re sailing there is always a lot of bubbles under the hull, even if the water inlet is well below the waterline. So usually you have to stop to make water. For 6 hours or so. Pretty boring.
So for the Journeyman 60 I decided to fix this:
This picture shows the water inlet tank. All seawater will come in through this tank. It sits in the center of the boat at the deepest point of the hull, so it is always under water. Inside the tank there is a system for separating air bubbles from water. The air is let out again and all devices in the boat that need water gets an uninterrupted supply free from bubbles.
No more getting water in a bucket from the galley to flush the toilet on the port tack! | <urn:uuid:72ab4b57-ac14-4ac6-a1c4-b2cd8aee7591> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journeyman.se/2010/02/09/the-devil-and-the-comfort/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937928 | 279 | 1.78125 | 2 |
In its page-one article today, the Journal noted that while just 22 retraction notices appeared in 2001, there were 139 in 2006, 339 last year and 210 so far this year. Retraction Watch, in a blog celebrating its one-year anniversary, said it has recorded 200 retractions over the last 12 months, compared to an annual average of about 80 over the previous 10 years.
Why are retractions on the rise? According to the WSJ, some journals argue that the increase indicates their rising vigilance in detecting errors. Others blame the increasingly competitive environment for research grants and career advances in science and medicine.
I would point to two other key factors. First and foremost, there’s the pressure that the pharmaceutical and medical device industry exerts on researchers to come up with positive findings in clinical trials. (This starts with cherry-picking pliable researchers for specific studies and ensuring their cooperation with lucrative speaking and consulting gigs and then having the studies themselves ghost-written to make the drug or medical device in question look safer and more effective than it really is). This is known to have happened with clinical trials for Paxil (which Side Effects focuses on), Celexa, Zoloft, Vioxx and Avandia and several medical devices including a widely used bone growth product made by Medtronics (which The Spine Journal just devoted an entire special issue to).
This kind of industry-academia collusion, of course, has been going on for awhile. What’s different now is the heightened scrutiny of scientific misconduct by the media and the steady drumbeat of blogs like Retraction Watch, POGO and Pharmalot. As a result, many journals are now adopting a tougher line and investigating errors more thoroughly. And that’s exactly how it should be. | <urn:uuid:4c67131a-e1ab-4a08-8f00-c0d37d38c442> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alison-bass.com/blog/2011/08/whats-behind-the-growing-rate-of-scientific-retractions/ | 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 | 0.956932 | 367 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Italian "Extraordinary Rendition" Victim Still Held In Morocco Based On Tortured Confession
Rights Groups Ask U.N. Special Rapporteurs To Investigate And Take Action
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; firstname.lastname@example.org
NEW YORK – Human rights groups today asked two U.N. Special Rapporteurs to investigate the case of Abou Elkassim Britel, an Italian citizen and victim of the CIA's unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program who is currently held in a Moroccan prison based on a confession coerced from him through torture. The American Civil Liberties Union and Alkarama for Human Rights requested that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism investigate the circumstances of Britel's forced disappearance, rendition, detention and torture, and raise his case with the governments of the United States, Morocco, Pakistan and Italy.
"Victims of the 'extraordinary rendition' program detained at Guantánamo and other prisons around the world are being ignored by the U.S. government, whose unlawful program landed them there in the first place," said Steven Watt, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The U.S. has failed to take responsibility for its most egregious actions, leaving Mr. Britel and countless other victims of the 'extraordinary rendition' program with no choice but to turn to the international community for justice."
Britel, also a plaintiff in the ACLU's lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the rendition program, is one of the few victims of the program whose identity is known, and who is still detained outside of Guantánamo Bay.
Britel was initially apprehended and detained in Pakistan by Pakistani authorities on alleged immigration violations in February 2002. After a period of detention and interrogation there, he was handed over to U.S. officials.
In May 2002, U.S. officials stripped and beat Britel before dressing him in a diaper and overalls, shackling and blindfolding him and flying him to Morocco for detention and interrogation. Once in Morocco, U.S. officials handed him over to Moroccan intelligence officials who detained him incommunicado at the Temara detention center, where he was interrogated, beaten, deprived of sleep and food and threatened with sexual torture.
"Given Mr. Britel's own account of his treatment and the long documented history of torture and abuse in detention facilities run by the Moroccan government, we have a firm foundation for believing that Mr. Britel has been, and is currently being, subjected to torture," said Rachid Mesli, Director of Alkarama's Legal Department. "Mr. Britel and all other victims of "extraordinary rendition" deserve their day in court and fair trials not tainted by evidence obtained through torture. We hope the Special Rapporteurs will immediately act on our request to bring swift and much-needed attention to Mr. Britel's case, before the conditions under which he is held do further damage to his physical and psychological health."
According to the request, after being released from custody by Moroccan authorities in February 2003, Britel was again arrested and detained in May 2003 as he attempted to leave Morocco for his home in Italy. While detained incommunicado in the same detention facility where he had been brutally tortured only months earlier, Britel falsely confessed under torture to his involvement in terrorism. Britel was later tried and convicted by a Moroccan court on terrorism-related charges and is currently serving a nine-year sentence in a Moroccan prison.
In 2006, an Italian investigating judge dismissed a six-year long investigation into Britel's alleged involvement in terrorism after the judge found a complete lack of evidence linking him with any terrorist-related or criminal activity.
Today's filings with the Special Rapporteurs are available online:
More information about the ACLU's lawsuit against Jeppesen DataPlan is online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen | <urn:uuid:f08d7712-ab75-4636-af13-b2909e0c1de1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/italian-extraordinary-rendition-victim-still-held-morocco-based-tortured-confession | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962509 | 846 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The Bank of Japan could usher in a growth spurt unseen in a generation by stepping up stimulus and ending deflation, according to Haruhiko Kuroda, the head of the Asian Development Bank and a potential contender for BOJ chief.
“Japan’s economy has suffered from prolonged deflation that must be eradicated -- that would raise short-to-medium term growth prospects significantly,” Kuroda, 68, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday. “Two percent plus for calendar year 2013 would be quite possible and for some years could be sustained,” he said, referring to a pace of expansion not maintained in Japan since stagnation set in in 1992.
Kuroda, who said he was “satisfied” with his current job amid Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s preparations for unveiling a nominee to succeed Masaaki Shirakawa, said that additional BOJ stimulus could be justified for 2013. The BOJ last month said it would start open-ended asset purchases only in January 2014, and the board is forecast to keep its policy unchanged at a Feb. 13- 14 gathering, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts.
Japan, along with other nations, has “really substantial room for monetary easing,” he said. There’s the equivalent of trillions of dollars of financial assets that could be bought by the BOJ, according to Kuroda.
He didn’t specify how policy makers ought to add liquidity. Asked whether the BOJ could buy stocks, Kuroda noted that it has already been purchasing some. Decisions on how to add quantitative easing are up to the central bank, he said.
Kuroda, a former career Finance Ministry civil servant and Tokyo University graduate who studied economics at Oxford, declined to comment on whether he was a contender to lead the central bank. He said he was “satisfied” with his current job at the ADB, with about four more years left on his term.
The head of the Manila-based development lender supported the yen’s slide as a “natural adjustment” from overvaluation and said that the “global standard” for central banks to achieve their inflation targets is about two years.
“The identities of the new BOJ executives are of critical importance” to the policy outlook, Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Tokyo, wrote in a Feb. 8 note. “We anticipate the BOJ will move steadily to adopt the course charted by the Fed, including a stepped-up expansion of its balance sheet” and extension of the maturities of government debt bought for its asset-purchase fund, he wrote.
Kuroda, who advocated an inflation target more than a decade before the BOJ set its 2% objective last month, has been cited as the leading contender to succeed Shirakawa by economists at banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse Group AG.
Shirakawa this month said he will leave almost three weeks before his term is up, on March 19, to align his departure with that of his two deputies.
With Abe making the end of deflation a key to his campaign ahead of a December election that swept his Liberal Democratic Party back to office, the yen has weakened and stocks have climbed since mid-November in anticipation of greater monetary stimulus.
The yen has declined about 14% in the past three months against the dollar, to 93.38 late yesterday in Asia. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average has jumped about 26% over the same period.
“Basically this is natural adjustment from an excessively high or extremely high rate of exchange toward a more sustainable level,” Kuroda, who was in charge of currency policy at the Finance Ministry from 1999 to 2003, said yesterday. He declined to specify a fair value for the yen.
Japan has been criticized for driving down the yen by officials from South Korea to Russia in the run-up to a meeting of finance chiefs from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow this week. Abe administration officials have said that they are focused on ending deflation, rather than seeking a specific level for the yen.
Kuroda indicated that expectations for Abe’s policies had affected the exchange rate. “So-called Abenomics -- monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and growth strategy -- may have influenced exchange rate movements.”
Japan’s economy has suffered under a decade and a half of deflation, which has pushed up the real burden of debt and caused companies and households to put off spending, Kuroda said.
Even as it unveiled its 2% target last month, the central bank’s own forecasts showed consumer prices won’t rise that much in the coming two years.
Consumer prices excluding fresh food fell 0.2% in December. The price gauge hasn’t advanced 2% for any year since 1997, when a national sales tax was increased. In December 2002, Kuroda said, as vice finance minister, that the BOJ should aim to push up prices by 3% in three years. He said yesterday that 2% is an “appropriate” target.
“A clear inflation target is absolutely necessary, and a commitment by the Bank of Japan to eradicate deflation, 15 year-long deflation, through whatever measures available,” said Kuroda, who took the helm of the ADB in 2005.
Japan’s gross domestic product grew in the final three months of 2012 for the first time since March last year, according to the median estimate of 32 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The GDP report is due on Feb. 14.
Kuroda also said that the yen’s depreciation doesn’t come too late to help his nation’s economy, which has seen manufacturers including Sharp Corp. and Sony Corp. hurt by a surging currency in recent years.
Toyota Motor Corp. has risen more than 50% in the past three months, with the automaker last week boosting its profit forecast for the year ending in March to a five-year high.
The jump in equities raises the risk of disappointment as Abe prepares to unveil his choice of central bank chief. The government should announce its nominations for the new BOJ leadership team by the end of February, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party said last month.
Kuroda is “the leading candidate” to head the central bank, Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief Japan economist at Credit Suisse Group AG in Tokyo and a former Bank of Japan official said this month, joining JPMorgan’s chief Japan economist Masaaki Kanno in the call.
Koichi Hamada, a retired Yale University economics professor who is advising Abe on monetary policy, said in December that Kuroda was a potential candidate, along with Kikuo Iwata, an economics professor at Gakushuin University, Kazumasa Iwata, president of the Japan Center for Economic Research and Heizo Takenaka, a former economic policy minister. Toshiro Muto, a former deputy BOJ governor, is also perceived in the running.
Abe’s nominee must be confirmed in Parliament. While the LDP has a majority in the lower house, it will need support from opposition lawmakers in the upper body. | <urn:uuid:9e1ac426-b43b-4c5a-be96-009d41673bd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.futuresmag.com/2013/02/11/japan-able-to-sustain-growth-unseen-since-90s-in-k?t=educationtcommodities | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97002 | 1,505 | 1.59375 | 2 |
NSA: Judges Who Pay Taxes Review Cases Involving America
Judicial Watch claims a tenuous, permitted link between the court, a third party, and a party to a dispute. When a party to a suit makes contributions to a judge, it is the responsibility of the judge is to recuse themselves. The situation with Judge Diggs is inapposite: She was on the board of a firm which donated funds to the ACLU, not the ACLU itself. This is permitted under the Judicial Cannons.
The Judicial Cannons encourage a judge's civic participation, and do not prevent a judge from participating with a civic organizatio firm that simply donates funds to a third party. The Cannons only prohibit Judges from being officers of a firm that regularly appears before the Court.
Not to be lost in the smokescreen, the NSA used intermediaries to hide illegal activity of the NSA, AT&T, and Verizon. Judicial Watch should be commended in demonstrating they uniformly monitor the full judicial spectrum. Should we be so lucky that the RNC might apply the same scrutiny to their President.
Question: Is it a violation of the Judicial Cannons for a sitting judge to have paid funds to a donor to party of a dispute? No.
If the answer is yes, then (absurdly) judges ruling on cases involving the US government may not lawfully pay taxes.
Judges Who Are Taxpayers Cannot Rule on Cases Involving US Government?
The rules of disqualification and precedents are clear: Judge Diggs has not engaged in any activity which would warrant her disqualification in the ACLU litigation against NSA. For example, as applied the judicial cannons do not prohibit judges from making contributions. Consider Oklahoma:
"Thus, referees, who are considered judges for purposes of compliance with the Code of Judicial Conduct, are permitted to make donations to political parties"RefThe Judicial Cannons only prohibit a Judge from being on the board of a party to a dispute.
Judge Diggs, by being a member of an organization which only donates funds to the ACLU, cannot be construed to be a board member of the ACLU; nor has she violated any Judicial Cannon. There is no basis to raise the issue of disqualification. DoJ and the Government well know the link is tenuous and entirely consistent with the Judicial Cannons.
The RNC Position Is Flawed
Putting aside the fact that Judge Diggs has not engaged in any conduct which would require her disqualification, let's take the RNC view of the situation, and show that even if there claims were true, there is no basis to disqualify her.
Moreover, once we take the RNC-approach to the issues of disqualification, you'll see a much larger problem for the White House. By engaging in judicial-like behavior in re NSA reviews, the President has substantially violated the Judicial Cannons, subjecting him to disqualification as an independent judge. The President may have illegally appointed himself a judge, but in doing so he has violated not simply the Constitution, but the specific standards of conduct he says all judges should meet.
The President fails to meet the standards of conduct outlined in the Judicial Cannons which Judge Diggs meets.
All possible RNC issues related to Judge Diggs are frivolous:
A full reading of the Judicial Cannons Shows There is No Basis For Disqualification
Don't take my word for it: Feel free to read the Judicial Cannons and judge for yourself.
A. Review the facts about Judge Digg's involvement with the donor;
B. Look at the Judicial cannons as they relate to third parties;
C. Explore whether you can find anything that violates the Judicial cannons.
Ref Page 9 indicates funding is permitted, so long as it does not exceed certain thresholds. Again, this does not apply as the funds were provided to the donor, not to the party of the dispute, the ACLU.
Ref The appearance of impropriety has to be something that is a legitimate appearance, not a tenuous connection or minimal connection as is the case here, and otherwise no basis for disqualification.
Ref Judges who are aware of insidious conduct of the US government, are they responsible for resigning from government service? DoJ Staffers know about the illegal NSA activity, but refuse to resign. The same standard does not have any bearing on the situation with Judge Diggs where she was a donor to a firm that contributed to the ACLU, but was not an officer of the ACLU itself.
Ref: Any claim that Judge Diggs' involvement was improper are absurd. Judges are encouraged to participate in extra-judicial activities, especially when that activity supports legal activity and otherwise supports the advancement of legal understanding in the community.
Ref: The requirement is that the Judge be free from influence; but the opposite is not true: Judges are permitted to influence public policy through lawful advocacy, so long as that political activity is not linked with the Judge or a promise to do or not do something.
No Basis for Disqualification
Judicial Watch should be commended for reviewing the matter. However, there is no problem. The real ethical problem would be the other way: Whether the ACLU had paid funds to the Judge. This didn't happen.
The RNC and DoJ burden is to show: The opinion was or was not influenced by the action of either party. As it stands, it appears the opinion was based on the evidence and arguments, and the tenuous connection Judge Diggs and the ACLU cannot credibly be a credible basis to disqualify the judge.
To argue that judges may not contribute to any cause would mean that judges who rule on cases involving the United States should be disbarred/sanctioned/admonished because the judge, a taxpayer, has an existing relationship with the US Government. That someone has a pre-conceived notion of what is right or wrong does not prohibit that person from so stating or engaging in conduct consistent with those values, especially when they are matters of the law.
Absurdity Rule: A Sign Of A Flawed Argument
Using the broad brush, any court in the Untied States, because that judge pays taxes, cannot litigate any suit involving the United States. This is absurd, and exactly what the Republican party wants: To prohibit anyone from making any decision that contradicts the President.
Taking it further, how can we trust the president to make the right decision involving America? He's provided funds to America and obviously has a conflict of interest. By inference, we would have to conclude that the President, as a taxpayer, is unable to make informed decisions about America. It may be true, but if we are to bar a single judge from doing what is otherwise permitted on the grounds of "lack of objectivity," then the President may not claim objectivity on similar issues.
The issue is whether one of the parties has influenced the Judge; not whether the Judge has or has not done something that is otherwise legal. Yet, the law does not prohibit, but requires but the Judges and the President to pay taxes. Judges pay taxes, but they are still allowed to sit on cases involving the Untied States.
The Restrictions In the Judicial Cannons Are Not An Issue In This Case
The rules merely ask the judge to consider the factors, but do not specifically instruct the judge to refrain from any civic action:
Even with respect to law-related civic and charitable organizations, a judge should consider whether the membership and purposes of the organization, or the nature of the judge’s participation in or association with the organization, would conflict with the judge’s obligation to refrain from activities that reflect adversely upon a judge’s independence, integrity, and impartiality.Ref
Rather, the rules state the opposite: That the judge may participate, so long as that participation does not violate the judicial cannons. The cannons do not define "donations" or "nominal financial contributions" as being participation. Any claim that a nominal contribution creates a significant judge-party relationship or prior agreement that would affect the Judge's impendence is without merit.
The facts before demonstrate the opposite:
A. Nobody made an improper donation to the judge;
B. The funds were not contingent upon the judge doing or not doing anything; rather the funds were from the judge without any specific expectation that the party do or not do anything; and without any specific knowledge that the case involving that party would or would not appear before that judge;
C. The Judge was engaged in lawfully permitted activity that did not warrant disqualification under the Judicial Cannons;
D. The link between the Judge and the party is too tenuous to warrant concern;
E. There is no restriction on Judge involvement in non parties, as is the case here.
There is no case to be made. The Judge has not made a contribution to an organization she should have known would likely have a pending case; that contribution was permitted; and that the judge's contribution was not a requirement for the judge to disqualify herself.
Chief Justice Roberts and Hamdan
The conduct appears problematic if you are not versed on the judicial cannons which otherwise permit the judge to make a nominal contribution to a civic organization.
If you want to make a (frivolous, FRE 11d) stink about Judge Diggs, let's hear the results of the Chief Justice Roberts investigation in re Hamdan. Strangely, Roberts' conduct hasn't gotten much attention. Why the inconsistency, RNC?
Judicial Cannons Applied to President: Substantial Violations
If you're going to claim that a judge, that transfers funds to another entity, cannot hear that case, then you must find that the President -- who has appointed himself a judge in the NSA oversight -- is similarly disqualified, and cannot impartially act when it comes to the NSA 40-45 day review.
You cannot have it both ways. Once the President, rightly or wrongly, appoints himself a judge, then the President must comply with all the judicial cannons. This President has not only violated the law, but he has substantially violated the Judicial Cannons raising far greater questions about his impartiality and competency to credibly review the NSA issues.
Unlike the instant case where the Judge provided permissible civic support, the President had a personal interest in the outcome in his review of the NSA activity: To self-define that conduct as legal. The Constitution did not grant the clerk in the White House this power. Rather, the Executive’s powers are finite, and only expressly defined.
Once a judge takes an oath to protect the Constitution, it is absurd to suggest that any conduct -- substantially consistent with that requirement -- would then be the grounds to disqualify them. The rule of necessity applies. The only people who are capable of reviewing this case are judges who are involved with the Constitution. Moreover, the ACLU cannot be shown to be only an advocate of non-government interests. Rather, they are a group that supports other government employees when they are against private, commercial interests. | <urn:uuid:c1f06dab-5200-4935-8b70-efbdc6a7e1bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://constantpated.blogspot.com/2006/08/nsa-judges-who-pay-taxes-review-cases.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966314 | 2,255 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Right now, it feels like more people want to learn to code than ever before. This may be due to the drought of talented developers and all the available jobs, or the allure of working in the startup scene. These reasons are probably relevant, but I believe the most important driving factor is a genuine eagerness to create, and learning the development process gives anyone the power to do so.
With this push for coding comes countless barriers, and tons of services can help. Codecademy, Processing, Bloc, iTunesU, Programr and P2PU are all great ways to get started, but beyond working within these tools, sometimes newcomers just need to spend time with other developers, IRL.
This is where Hacker Hours creator Aidan Feldman comes in. He decided to grow a meet up in NYC for anyone interested in learning to code, volunteering his own time to answer questions and help others get started. We spent to some talking with Feldman after attending one of his weekly gatherings to find out just how it all got started and to see what’s next…
HW: How did Hacker Hours begin?
AF: I had been meeting a surprising number of people at hackathons and meetups who were teaching themselves to code. I went through a traditional four-year (ok, five-year) computer science degree and still felt like I knew nothing, so I couldn’t imagine teaching yourself a complex topic like programming without having the support system of professors, TAs and peers around to beg for help.
I did a bit of private tutoring for coding, but having to pay an experienced programmer hourly for mentorship is a huge barrier to entry – it’s expensive, and simply doesn’t scale. In an industry with exploding demand, we need as much new talent as we can get.
It’s not that beginner coders need hand-holding – they just need help getting unstuck. The structure is somewhat inspired by Khan Academy: why not allow people to work through tutorials, books and projects on their own time, then just offer a place where they can come to ask questions as they come up?
People are always surprised that there’s no structure or agenda to the meetups — I simply make myself available for two hours every week, and bounce around and answer questions. I believe this is as effective and actually far more efficient than private instruction. Even better, if you have a bunch of beginners in the same place who happen to be working through similar issues, they can learn from one another.
HW: The meetings started off at the Jux offices. At what point did you out-grow the space and move?
AF: At the first Hacker Hours in September 2011, I sat in the Jux conference room for an hour and a half… by myself. No one came. Then right when I was about to call it quits, someone showed up. He was looking for help getting started with Rails, and within an hour we got his app up and running. He was ecstatic, and that excitement gave us both the motivation we needed.
It’s been running every week since. I think six people showed up the next time, then sixteen, then twenty-five, then thirty-five… It quickly got crowded around the six-person conference table.
Although the event is officially 6-8PM, people were showing up a half hour early, and around 9:30 I had to politely ask them to leave — everyone was just so eager to be there. At the end of March I moved it to Vineapple, a great coffee shop in Brooklyn. This gave us more elbow room and a steady stream of coffee. It allowed people to come and work as early as they wanted… and stay until the place closed.
HW: What sort of crowd do you attract?
AF: I’m not sure who I was expecting, but we have a very diverse group. There are folks with established careers in marketing or finance wanting to try something new, others with app ideas who want the power to build it themselves, others who have been programming for years and are trying a new language or framework. There tend to be a lot of Ruby/Rails, jQuery and WordPress questions, but it’s not language-specific. Below the surface, it’s usually a matter of understanding the fundamentals of programming or web development.
HW: Have other pro developers started attending the events to help out other newbies?
AF: If someone reaches out in advance with a specific question that I don’t know I can answer, I try to bribe friends who may have expertise in that area to attend. Sometimes I get lucky and other advanced programmers show up and offer to help out, which is better for everyone. The more the merrier!
It’s interesting how it’s evolved: early on, everyone was coming in with specific questions, so I’d run around like a madman trying to get to everyone. Over time there’s become more of a community, where a lot of the group just shows up to work amongst like-minded individuals and talk tech.
HW: I know you had a proud moment recently, where one of the attendees launched their first app. Could you tell us about that?
AF: There’s a regular who’s been coming to Hacker Hours for months — I think early on I helped him get Ruby installed on his laptop, so he was just starting out. He would come by every week with other questions as he worked on his first project, but I never really knew what he was building.
A couple of weeks ago he was there as normal, and waited patiently while I worked my way around the room. When I finally came over to say hi, he excitedly informed me that he finally launched his first app: a service for scheduling tutoring times between Burmese refugees and university students. He had apparently spent time in India after college in a program sponsored by the UN, but when they had to cancel the program, he figured the best way to help was to build a system for tutoring remotely.
I was blown away. It was a simple solution to a real social welfare problem, yet it still had personal significance…you really can’t ask for a better first project. The more people I meet at Hacker Hours, the more I’m astonished by all the interesting and diverse backgrounds.
HW: How have other members progressed?
AF: The refugee project was actually the second Hacker Hours newborn, and there have been other big achievements, like someone’s first contribution to open source. There are a lot of small “a-ha!” moments, where someone new to coding might spend hours at home banging their head against the wall, but someone glancing over their shoulder who’s seen the problem before can simply say, “oh, try X”.
HW: What’s next for Hacker Hours?
AF: I’d love to get a steady stream of other seasoned programmers attending. There is no shortage of people needing guidance, but I can’t always get to everyone, and others might have expertise in areas I’m not familiar with. I’d love to see them start up in other cities, as well.
HW: There are tons of free services like Codecademy that help teach anyone code. Why do you think meeting up IRL is still necessary?
AF: I see Hacker Hours as a complement to services like Codecademy, not a replacement. Online or offline courses are great to learn fundamentals, but they don’t answer questions when someone leaves the safety net of the curriculum. Stack Overflow, IRC and mailing lists are always available, but for newbies I think the difficulty is knowing the right questions to ask.
On a more practical level, it is much easier to have dialogue. I can rip out a sheet of paper and draw a diagram to answer a question, or I can talk them through pulling up their command prompt to debug. There’s no delay.
HW: Do you have any advice for anyone interested in learning to code?
AF: Have a goal. The difficulty of customizing a WordPress theme is very different from writing a web crawler, for example, so be realistic about the amount of time you’re willing to put in, and the skill level you need to be “effective” – whatever that means for you.
I also think a pet project helps — programming is hard, not to mention endless, so this will drive you to learn what you need, when you need it.
Lastly, you will spend more time on Google than you will actually writing code. No one tells you that! This holds true even when you’ve been doing it for a while: if you’re not having to do research to solve problems, then your problems aren’t challenging enough.
HW: For those looking to follow your lead, do you have any advice for starting and running a meetup like Hacker Hours?
AF: It’s very simple by design – find a space with adequate surface area, outlets and Wi-Fi, and commit to a regular time (even if it’s not weekly). This makes it easy for people to schedule around.
People are always surprised that I don’t have an agenda: everyone sits around with their laptops, and I walk over to whomever gets my attention first.
HW: How can local New Yorkers attend? Link? Schedule?
Do you have any advice to share for beginners just getting started? Let us know in the comments below! For more, check out TNW’s Design & Dev channel. | <urn:uuid:43a4f28b-03f6-4147-8684-132e5b2a73a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/05/14/hacker-hours-the-awesome-grassroots-meetup-that-teaches-new-yorkers-to-code/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973 | 2,024 | 1.648438 | 2 |
38. Joel MABRY35 was born between 1750 and 60 in Lunenburg County, Virginia. He died after 1830 at the age of 80 in Franklin County, Georgia.
No census records are available in the places Joel Mabry lived and he left no will that has been found. Known sons are Walter, Patrick, William, James Thomas, and Mark Seth. They were likely other children. No proof was offered for the daughter Elizabeth shown in the Mabry book.
Walter, Patrick, James T. & Mark appear on the tax rolls of Franklin Co GA. There is a Phillip and Thomas W. Mabry who could also be sons. Walter first appears in 1803; Patrick in 1805; Mark (Seth) in 1808; James T. in 1811. Phillip was there in 1803 and Thomas W. in 1805. Phillip & wife, Fanny, sold land 23 Oct 1809 in Franklin Co and no further record of them has been found. William was in Amite Co MS by 1811, and Ouachita Parish LA by 1820. In 1818, Thomas W. Mabry acquired land in Elbert Co where he is found in the census from 1820 through 1840; he is probably the father of a younger Thomas W. Mabry in the 1850 census of Clarke Co GA. Ephraim Mabry first appears on the tax rolls of Franklin Co in 1805 and is the youngest brother of Joel. The family of James Thomas Mabry have the tradition that he had brothers William, Walter, and Joel and that this Joel [Jr.] settled on the Choctawhatchee River near Eufuala AL but no records have been found for him.
Joel MABRY and Mary "Polly" WAFER were married in South Carolina. Mary "Polly" WAFER35, daughter of Francis WAFER and Mary MCGOFFIN, was born (date unknown).
Polly was the daughter of Francis Wafer and Mary McGoffin
Joel MABRY and Mary "Polly" WAFER had the following children:
|Elizabeth MABRY36 was born about 1779 in Fairfield County, South Carolina. She died on 18 June 1852 at the age of 73 in Franklin County, Georgia. |
Elizabeth married ca 1798, Joshua Hudson.
|Patrick MABRY37 was born about 1783 in South Carolina. |
Patrick married Margaret Baker, daughter of Beal Baker and Sarah Brown. He was in Franklin Co GA in 1812 and 1820; Hall Co in 1830 & 1840; Lumpkin Co, 1850.
1850 Census. Barrett's Dist, Lumpkin Co GA
Living in the houshold of James L. Barrett, age 47, and his wife Sarah, age 40, and their children:
Patrick Mabry, age 67.
|Mark Seth MABRY38 was born about 1791 in Georgia. |
Mark Seth married (1) Rhody Hargrove and (2) Milly Payne, Franklin Co GA. | <urn:uuid:9c0af63e-2a08-414a-a9ca-d1886a529202> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~katy/mabry/b26150.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972795 | 639 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Effective Cross-Media PublishingFor many years, catalogers and marketers that produced a printed product have gone about their business fairly unaware of the other business systems in the organization.
The creative and print production departments within these marketing organizations accomplished the task at hand, effectively and efficiently getting their company's product or service printed on paper for marketing purposes. Many of these departments have or had a production process that facilitates simple and capable print output. Well, it seems as though the game has changed.
At one time, print was the major or primary means for marketing a company's products or services. Now, it is taking a back seat, or at least a side seat, to the Internet.
Many organizations are questioning how they can offer their Internet developers equal access to the creative assets that the print production people have. This desire to publish more effectively across multiple media seems to have the most impact on the processes grandfathered in with print production.
Many organizations find their solution in the basic process of storing and controlling their own assets internally. It is not too uncommon to see many creative organizations that have their information scattered among many pre-press or print vendors. As the era of postscript and electronic stripping took the creative industry by storm, they were unprepared to handle the large volumes of information or assets generated by this digital boom. This is where the vendors came in to handle the storage and even management of these assets. However, the creative organizations now recognize that the best way to have unlimited access to these assets for the purposes of publishing to the Internet is to store assets themselves.
Storage becomes secondary to management of creative assets. Some find that they don't need to store their assets internally to have unlimited access to them. There are vendors that offer storage and management services to these creative organizations on a subscription basis. The creative organizations, or asset owners, have access to their information via a basic Internet connection 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Things like disaster recovery and off-site backup and redundancy are important, yet they are costly issues that need to be addressed when hosting your assets internally. Instead of building the infrastructure within their four walls, creative organizations can access this highly secure, highly dependable infrastructure through the Internet or through dedicated telecommunications connections.
An asset management system is the important piece in facilitating effective cross-media publishing. Also referred to as a database, the asset management system allows users to submit files and assign a set of keywords or metadata about each asset. These keywords or metadata allow others to search the database for assets that they may be looking for in other marketing projects, including the Internet and e-commerce.
The database can even act as the central authoring tool for creative organizations to perform copy-writing and editing during the initial marketing product development. There are tools that allow for text streaming out of this database and onto the layout page for print. You can establish a dynamic link between the text fields within a database to a Quark page that will be processed to printed form.
As most of the more effective e-commerce sites are database-driven, organizations have similar capabilities for streaming text from the database to the Web page as well. Take the concept of pulling text and other information out of a database and onto a print or Web page and extend that to the business system databases.
Most organizations have legacy databases that track product prices, customer profiles, inventory and merchandising. These databases can be directly tied into a creative database for dynamic updates to both print and Web pages as well. Imagine being able to track inventory on a minute-by-minute basis so that my e-customer knows immediately that a product is out of stock before ordering it?
As we see the business of the Internet and e-commerce growing at a rapid pace, it is asset management that seems to be the bridge between this new media and the printed media. The database can manage and track information that can be useful for dynamically publishing to both venues.
In many cases, it is the creative and print production departments that have to change their process to accept this fairly new and ever-changing technology. However, as this technology grows and matures, it will mean more stable and more efficient production processes for both printed and Web page development. | <urn:uuid:87bd89b9-3d39-41f7-8023-f606dc9ae7e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dmnews.com/effective-cross-media-publishing/article/66749/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958941 | 856 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Good job bringing this to light. People won't realise how huge the problem is and municipalities are woefully ill equipped to...
Agreed; mining can never be sustainable, but then how do you get the metals to make all the things you need in the course of...
Very good piece.
The controversial Nam Theun ii hydro dam project has run into trouble. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand ( egat ) has cancelled plans to purchase electricity from the dam. The cancellation has dealt a final blow to the dam's developers, who have poured us $30 million into the project so far but have failed to secure either World Bank or commercial financing.
The project is likely to cost around us $1.2 billion and without egat 's power purchase agreement, the project's developers including Electricit de France, the world's largest electrical utility and the Australian construction company, Transfield, will have to chip in further capital for the dam. The dam has been mired in environmental controversies ever since the project was initiated. If work on the dam proceeds, it would flood areas which are home to the region's threatened populations of tiger, elephant, white-winged duck and two newly-identified species, the large-antler muntjac and the Vu Quang ox besides the Makong and Thai Bo tribes. | <urn:uuid:b777a145-fc99-492c-ae42-bb88bd8b2ecf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/26954 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942721 | 269 | 1.65625 | 2 |
I've been meaning for ages to take a photo of this restored Sunlight Soap ad on the side of the Corner Store, Mt Eden and Nikau Streets, Grafton/Eden Terrace. A couple of days ago, I made my way down Mt Eden Road from the Upper Symonds Street shops, and finally ticked this off my inner "to-do" list.
The shop's been around for ages, probably turn of the twentieth century, perhaps before. This part of Mt Eden Road was, until they opened up the rest of the Western railway line to link with Newmarket in the early 20th century, the route travellers would trek up from Mt Eden Station towards Symonds Street and the waiting trams and horse buses to take them further into the city. Haven't seen a contemporary photo yet showing the original ad on the side of the shop yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was, indeed, that same Sunlight soap one, with its "£1000 Guarantee of Purity" plug.
Evening Post, 18 September 1909
My mother's mother's family came from Leeds in Yorkshire, the Killerby family of William son of Charles. William married Martha Watson sometime in the 1850s or so -- and that sparked off a family legend, involving Sunlight Soap, which lasted clear through to the early 1980s. There may still be relatives of mine, out there in the world, who still believe it, because it had been told to my grandmother Elinor, and she told all her children.
Grey River Argus, 13 August 1912
The legend was that Martha's father invented Sunlight Soap.
Poverty Bay Herald, 31 December 1920
A lot of families have legends like this. You get little kiddies sitting around the knees of grandparents, this sort of thing takes root and becomes an oral history hand-down through the generations. In my family's case, I think it happened when Grandma Elinor was a kiddy herself (born 1892), and although living in London with her father and his second wife (Grandma's mum died when she was three), she was sent to north to stay for a while with Great-great grandma Martha. Who told her something about the family on Martha's side ...
Evening Post 29 August 1922
Well, come the early 1980s, and my mother and I decided to go looking into the family background. Whatever Martha Watson had told the young Elinor, it had been so convincing to Elinor that the family name Killerby had been wiped out in her memory; Elinor thought that Watson was her mother Emilie's maiden name. Mum and I did some checking, hired researchers in England, and found out the truth.
William Killerby, born around 1829 and a cloth-drawer by occupation, married Martha Watson in 1854. She was the daughter of John Watson, a chemical manufacturer in Leeds. William eventually rose to become a wool merchant, perhaps with help from money from Martha's side -- but Martha, it seems, was vastly more proud of her own side of the family than that of her late husband.
Then, Mum and I contacted the makers of Sunlight Soap, who very kindly sent us a pamphlet explaining the history of the product, first marketed in England in 1884. Sunlight Soap, back then, was an amalgam of a number of soaps and chemical processes from all over England. Firms like Knights Castile, for example, contributed to the manufacture. Another to contribute toward the making of Sunlight -- was a firm of Yorkshire soap manufacturers and tanners named Joseph Watson & Sons in Leeds, dating from around 1820. Lever Brothers, Sunlight's makers, bought out the Leeds soap factory around 1912.
Evening Post 28 March 1925
That line of Watsons went on to be Barons from the 1920s, but there's no indication so far that Martha's father was a member of that family.
Evening Post 22 August 1940
So -- t'was merely family legend about the Sunlight Soap. But, the brand, above all others, does still mean a lot to me. Mum would swear by its wonderful ability to get at tough stains in the hand-wash, and I still use the bars today (even though, for a while, it looked like they'd go off the market, here).
Oh, and if anyone reading this finds a John Watson, chemical manufacturer in Leeds, in amongst the genealogy for the Barons Manton, do let me know ... | <urn:uuid:8feff526-156b-4dcd-8b8b-87af37cf8bef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timespanner.blogspot.com/2011/05/soapy-legends.html?showComment=1309990104060 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978771 | 937 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Published: April 1, 2010
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Thomas Nelson Community College’s Literature Circles kicks off its spring season with a discussion group meeting on Friday, April 16 on the Historic Triangle campus. Reading enthusiasts from throughout the community are invited to join TNCC students, faculty and staff at 1 p.m. in room 316 for discussions about Octavia Butler’s “Kindred” and “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch.
“Kindred” is the story of Dana Franklin, a black woman in 1976 suburban Los Angeles who is transported to an 1815 slave-holding plantation in Maryland. She has been called to save the son of the plantation master — her great-great-grandfather, Rufus Weylin, who has the ability to summon Dana to the antebellum South when he’s in trouble. She can only return to the present when her life is threatened. Over and over and at increasing risk, she is called to protect Rufus. Meanwhile in the present, Dana is married to Kevin, a gentle and progressive white man who can adjust with relative ease to 19th century life by virtue of his race and gender.
Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who was dying of pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a 400-member audience at McConomy Auditorium.
In his lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch discussed lessons he learned throughout life and gave advice on how to achieve career and personal goals. His lecture has become a phenomenon, as has his book, “The Last Lecture” based on the same principles, celebrating the dreams we all strive to make realities. Pausch died in July 2008, but his legacy continues to inspire through the novel.
The books are available on reserve in the College’s library or for purchase in the campus bookstore; supplies may be limited. TNCC Literature Circles is supported by TNCC Student Activities and the President’s Cultural Scholarships. For more information, please call the Office of Public Relations, marketing and Special Events at (757) 825-3500.
|Category: Events||Tags: book club, lit, meeting, williamsburg| | <urn:uuid:6d75a9da-a6ec-4f10-89d7-e79a8e760164> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tncc.edu/tncc-book-club-at-historic-traingle-hosts-group-discussion-april-16/ | 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 | 0.958689 | 486 | 1.523438 | 2 |
New Report Finds More than 12 Million Adults Were Victims of Identity Fraud in 2012
CHANTILLY, Va., Feb. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — A recent study conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research, has found there were 12.6 million victims of identity fraud in 2012; a one million increase over the previous year. The report also found the total amount of fraud increased to $21 billion, the largest loss suffered in the past three years, and an increase of nearly $3 billion from the 2011 study. Data from the report indicated one in four consumers who received a data breach notification became a victim of identity theft, with Social Security numbers being the most damaging piece of personal information stolen.
As a co-sponsor of this year’s study and a leading provider of consumer and corporate risk management services, Intersections Inc. (NASDAQ: INTX) remains committed to the prevention of identity fraud and encourages consumers to be vigilant when it comes to the protection of their personally identifiable information.
“There are a lot of mis-perceptions about identity fraud but with fact-based studies like this, consumers, financial institutions and service providers can be empowered to work together to help combat the threat of identity fraud,” said Steve Schwartz, President of Partner Services for Intersections Inc. “Fraudsters are becoming savvier, especially as our society becomes more reliant on instant gratification through the usage of the Internet and wireless devices. We simply cannot fight this battle alone and must continue to partner together to continuously enhance our existing capabilities and provide the tools and resources needed to help consumers protect what’s most important – their identity.”
Intersections Inc. has put together tips for consumers to help guide them in the protection of their personal information.
- Protect Your Information. Exposing common information like birthdates and addresses puts consumers at a greater risk as these elements are commonly used by financial institutions for security questions and validation of identity to access accounts. Even such seemingly harmless information could be valuable to experienced identity thieves.
- Be Social, But Be Smart. Knowing that social networks are a hotbed for identity fraud activity, consumers should take extra care when deciding who to connect with and what applications to accept. Users that approve friend requests from strangers and use GPS/location based applications are far more susceptible to fraud.
- Take Caution with Mobile Computing. The convenience of online and mobile banking is here to stay, but consumers need to take the extra step of ensuring their network connection is secure and their devices have updated security. Never access your banking information through public Wi-Fi. Instead, use your carrier’s cellular service.
- Be an Active Party in Detection. Identity fraud is more than just the victimization of credit card information. Take advantage of enrolling in a comprehensive identity protection service like IDENTITY GUARD® Platinum, which not only monitors credit reports but also scans public records and online activity for signs of fraudulent use of personal information. Consumers have the extra security they need to help keep them protected.
- Act Quickly. The sooner a victim learns of the fraud, the sooner their road to recovery can begin and the likelihood their losses will be reduced. Consumers must remain alert and act quickly in the event they notice suspicious activity, reporting it to their financial institutions and law enforcement.
For more on the report’s findings, please visit www.intersections.com.
Intersections Inc. (NASDAQ: INTX) is a leading provider of consumer and corporate identity risk management services. Intersections provides various levels of service to more than 8.2 million consumers. Those services are offered through North America’s leading financial institutions, directly to consumers under Intersections’ award-winning Identity Guard® brand (http://www.identityguard.com), and through the company’s exclusive partnership with ITAC, the Identity Theft Assistance Center. Since 1996, Intersections has protected the identities of more than 35 million consumers.
SOURCE Intersections Inc. | <urn:uuid:8bd643d8-bd7c-4d72-a773-7e1b3b009c28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112787972/new-report-finds-more-than-12-million-adults-were-victims/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931205 | 822 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Education and Workforce Development Cabinet
Kentucky’s jobless rate remains at 8.2 percent in June 2012
Editor’s Note: Preliminary June and revised May labor market information are included in this release.
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted preliminary unemployment rate in June 2012 held at 8.2 percent for the second straight month, according to the Office of Employment and Training (OET), an agency of the Kentucky Education and Workforce Development Cabinet.
The preliminary June 2012 jobless rate was 1.4 percentage points below the 9.6 percent rate recorded for the state in June 2011.
The U.S. seasonally adjusted jobless rate also remained at 8.2 percent from May 2012 to June 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Labor force statistics, including the unemployment rate, are based on estimates and are compiled to measure trends rather than actually to count people working.
In June 2012, Kentucky’s civilian labor force was 2,068,524, an increase of 2,622 individuals compared to the previous month.
“We continue to be on a growth path,” said economist Manoj Shanker of the OET. “We have added more than 4,000 jobs for two months in a row. Job growth continues to outstrip the number of people entering the job market, helping to keep down the unemployment rate.”
Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment grew slowly with the addition of 700 jobs in June 2012 from the month before, but posted a robust gain of 37,700 positions or 2.1 percent since June 2011. Nonfarm data is provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics program. According to this survey, six of Kentucky’s 11 major nonfarm North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) job sectors registered gains in employment, while four declined and one remained unchanged.
Kentucky’s professional and business services sector expanded by 1,600 positions in June 2012. This category includes establishments engaged in services that support the day-to-day activities of other organizations, including temporary employment services. Since last June, jobs in the sector have increased by 22,500 or more than 12 percent.
“The professional and business services sector has shown strong growth over the past year and is expected to continue to expand. Businesses, especially manufacturing industries, are reluctant to add new workers on their payroll until the economic recovery strengthens. As a result, they tend to farm out technical and managerial services to other companies and hire workers through temporary employment services. This allows them to gauge employees before hiring them on their own payroll,” Shanker said.
The government sector, which includes public education, public administration agencies and state-owned hospitals, grew by 900 jobs in June 2012. The sector had 2,600 fewer jobs compared to June 2011.
Kentucky’s manufacturing sector added 800 jobs in June 2012 compared to the previous month. Since June 2011, employment in manufacturing has increased by 8,900 jobs or more than 4 percent.
“Automobile sales continue to be a bright spot in the economy and have ratcheted up employment in the durable goods industries, especially machinery and motor vehicle manufacturing,” said Shanker.
The trade, transportation and utilities sector increased by 500 jobs in June 2012. This is the largest sector in Kentucky with 366,900 positions, and accounts for about 20 percent of nonfarm employment. Since June 2011, jobs in this sector have increased by 2,000.
“The recent gains have been in transportation and warehousing in response to the uptick in the economy and an increase in drop shipping to satisfy pent-up consumer demand,” said Shanker.
The financial activities sector rose by 500 jobs in June 2012. However, when compared to June a year ago businesses involved in finance, insurance, real estate and property leasing lost 700 jobs.
Employment in the other services sector, which includes repairs and maintenance, personal care services, and religious organizations, went up by 300 positions in June 2012. Since last June, the sector has added 400 jobs.
Employment in the mining and logging sector remained the same from May 2012 to June 2012. The number of jobs in this sector has dropped by 900 from June 2011.
“The shift from coal to low-cost natural gas by power plants has substantially lowered the demand for coal and dampened employment in Kentucky’s mining sector,” said Shanker.
The information sector lost 300 jobs in June 2012. This segment has added 200 positions since June 2011. The industries in this sector include traditional publishing as well as software publishing; motion pictures and broadcasting; and telecommunications.
Employment in the educational and health services sector declined by 300 jobs in June 2012. The sector has posted a gain of 4,000 jobs since June 2011.
Construction jobs fell by 1,500 in June 2012 from a month ago. Since June 2011, employment in construction has fallen by 3,200 positions or nearly 5 percent.
“The unseasonably mild winter this year has changed the normal cycle associated with construction. The typical winter pullback in jobs did not occur this year and this may have thrown off the statistical factors used in calculating employment in construction,” said Shanker.
Kentucky’s leisure and hospitality sector lost 1,800 jobs in June 2012. Since June 2011, the sector has grown by 7,100 positions or more than 4 percent. This sector includes arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation and food services.
“Accommodation and food services accounted for all of the decrease in the leisure and hospitality sector from May 2012 to June 2012,” Shanker said.
Civilian labor force statistics include nonmilitary workers and unemployed Kentuckians who are actively seeking work. They do not include unemployed Kentuckians who have not looked for employment within the past four weeks.
Kentucky’s statewide unemployment rate and employment levels are seasonally adjusted. Employment statistics undergo sharp fluctuations due to seasonal events, such as weather changes, harvests, holidays and school openings and closings. Seasonal adjustments eliminate these influences and make it easier to observe statistical trends. However, because of the small sample size, county unemployment rates are not seasonally adjusted.
Learn more about the Office of Employment and Training at www.workforce.ky.gov. | <urn:uuid:90035231-3f5b-49b9-9c67-aa713bf9237a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://migration.kentucky.gov/Newsroom/educationcabinet/June2012Kyrate.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965215 | 1,323 | 1.625 | 2 |
Computational model offers insight into mechanisms of drug-coated balloons.
Kenneth Vincent Donaghey, who worked as a plumber at MIT for more than three decades, died on April 24 after a long illness. He was 77.
Donaghey was born in Winchester and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He began working at MIT in the mid-1960s; he retired in 1996 and moved to Florida.
His son, Kenneth A. Donaghey, is a house manager for MIT's Department of Housing; another son, Tim Donaghey, worked as a carpenter in the MIT Department of Facilities for several years. The elder Donaghey was also the uncle of Larry Donaghey, the assistant director of labor relations in facilities, and of Philip Donaghey, a plumber in facilities.
Donaghey was a member of St. Timothy's Catholic Community Church in Lady Lake, Fla., and the American Legion. He enjoyed playing golf, making stained glass lamps and windows, and spending time with his children and grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth C. Donaghey, of The Villages, Fla.; six sons and a daughter; and 17 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on May 6 at 10 a.m. at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Winchester. Burial with military honors was at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Fla. | <urn:uuid:49404165-530d-43a9-a2e3-023b3051c1de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/obit-donaghey-0429.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985004 | 302 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) while very similar feature-wise, each has their own distinct advantages. Smartphones such as the iPhone have been widely successful, while the MID market has been a bit slow to take off. Elektrobit Corporation
(EB), based in Oulu, Finland aims to change that with their new MID reference design that combines the "pocketability" of smartphones with the power of PCs/netbooks since it can run desktop Linux applications. Picture an iPhone that can actually run full version
Linux applications such as Firefox, Opera, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, SSH client, and more. That's exactly what you'll get with Elektrobit's (EB) new MID reference design. EB's sleek, media-centric MID reference device takes the power of the PC and makes it pocket-able so you don't have to compromise on mobile capabilities.
I spoke with EB's Vesa Kiviranta Vice President, Mobile Internet Device Solutions, Wireless Solutions BU about their new reference design. Vesa explained that it's based on Intel's next generation Moorestown platform. The reference design includes touch-screen support with multi-touch (cool!) support. It uses the latest 3D and high resolution capacitive sensing touch screen (3.97") powered by EB Touch & Feel technology. Because the screen measures nearly 4 inches (3.97"), it fits into the MID category, while smartphones have screens smaller than 3.9 inches and netbooks have screens larger than 5 inches.The reference design relies on a Linux-based OS with EB's MID UI & Application framework based on QT. It also features EB Navigation Suite with integrated GPS.
It supports two cameras (front & back of phone) so not only can you snap photos, it can also easily support videoconferencing/videochat. I asked EB about support for Skype video chat
and they told me it will indeed be supported in their MID design. In fact, they tested it using the Linux Skype application in their labs. As far as I know, this marks the first time
a pocketable mobile phone can perform Skype videoconferencing! Cool stuff!
I know many iPhone fans were very disappointed the new iPhone 3GS didn't add a front-facing camera
(myself included), which would allow for videochat capabilities. Of course, the current Skype for iPhone client doesn't support video, but my sources tell me it's in the works. It will be very hard to have a videoconference if you have to turn the iPhone around so the camera is facing you, but not the iPhone screen. Basically, they'll be able to see you, but you won't be able to see them - unless you spin the iPhone back around.
Wireless support in the MID design includes just about every wireless spec you can imagine, with support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Mobile WiMAX or HSPA wireless broadband connectivity. It also features the latest 3D and haptics touch-screen technologies for sensation-based feedback and control at the user interaction-level. It has powerful entertainment/multimedia features including high-definition quality video playback and out-of-the-box multimedia connectivity via HDMI, even with dual screen output. It also has powerful communication capabilities for voice, text (e.g. SMS, IM, e-mails), video, and social networking forums. EB offers value-add software, including navigation software, EB Street Director, a customizable white label solution that offers speech-enabled, turn-by-turn-navigation experience. It also supports Micro USB and a μSD memory card.
According to EB the reference device will offer EB's customers, including wireless and PC original device and equipment manufacturers, wireless operators, among others, the ability to introduce a customized MID product to market faster and with lower development costs. According to EB, "With core competencies in hardware and software design, EB has created a complete MID reference device that can be tailored to a customers' brand and target market requirements. By licensing EB's sophisticated MID reference device technology coupled with device customization services, customers gain the framework to quickly and cost-effectively bring to market innovative MID solutions that aim to increase market competitiveness and revenue-potential."
The EB MID features an optimized user interface (UI) built on Linux-based Moblin software platform. Up until this point, the MID UI technology had only been used in laptops; however EB has creatively engineered the technology enabling this advanced UI to be integrated into such small device, for the first time.
The reference design will be sold to wireless carriers and equipment manufacturers who will be able to customize it before selling it to customers. Vesa informed me that these devices will be available sometime in 2010. With such powerful Linux application support, small form factor (pocketable), and multi-touch touch-screen support, could this MID reference design help competitors knock the Apple iPhone off its throne as the most powerful and popular mobile phone? Only time will tell. | <urn:uuid:cd3b50ad-3e02-433c-9c59-a0875a4a6e5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/mobile-phones/elektrobit-mid-reference-design-aims-to-put-linux-desktop-apps-smartphone-in-your-pocket.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941484 | 1,032 | 1.664063 | 2 |
SANTIAGO, Cuba (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI spent the night in a brand-new home built just for him near the sanctuary of Cuba's Virgin of Charity icon, where he will kneel in quiet prayer early Tuesday before heading to the capital for political meetings.
The pope's brief homage to the diminutive statue that many consider the symbolic mother of all Cubans -- Catholics and non-Catholics alike -- will take place in the morning in the small mining town of El Cobre.
Benedict planned to fly to Havana later to meet with President Raul Castro and possibly Fidel Castro, though that had not been confirmed. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is in Havana undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, did not ask for an audience but would be welcome to attend Mass in the capital's Revolution Square on Wednesday, a Vatican spokesman said.
Under a light rain late Monday, Benedict emphasized family and faith during a Mass celebrated before Raul Castro and tens of thousands of people including Cuban-Americans on a pilgrimage to the communist-run island.
"I appeal to you to reinvigorate your faith ... that you may strive to build a renewed and open society, a better society, one more worthy of humanity," he said in a country where Roman Catholics now account for 10 percent of the population.
Aides held a white umbrella over the pontiff as worshippers approached to take communion, and Castro climbed the stairs to congratulate the pope when the Mass ended.
The 84-year-old pontiff's voice sounded tired and he seemed exhausted by the end of the day after a vigorous four days of travel. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, acknowledged Benedict's fatigue but said his health was fine.
Just before the ceremony began, a man tried to enter an area reserved for foreign journalists shouting anti-government slogans such as "Down with the Revolution! Down with the dictatorship!" He was led away by security agents. It was not clear who he was or what happened to him. The government did not comment.
Benedict's trip to Cuba comes 14 years after Pope John Paul II's historic tour, when the Polish pontiff who helped bring down communism in his homeland admonished Fidel Castro to free prisoners of conscience, end abortion and let the Roman Catholic Church take its place in society.
The current pope arrived in the afternoon in Santiago to an airport reception that included a military band, an honor guard, a gaggle of robed clergy, Raul Castro and Cabinet ministers.
Benedict gently pressed the longtime communist leaders to push through the reforms desired by their people, while also criticizing the excesses of capitalism. His words were subtle and appeared to take into account the liberalizing reforms that Raul Castro has enacted since taking over from his older brother in 2006 and the greater role the Catholic Church has played in Cuban affairs, most recently in negotiating the release of dozens of political prisoners.
The pontiff, who before starting his trip in Mexico said Marxism "no longer responds to reality," said he hoped his visit would inspire and encourage Cubans on the island and beyond.
"I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be," he said. "Those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need."
Castro told Benedict his country is committed to freedom of faith and has good relations with religious institutions. He also criticized the 50-year U.S. economic embargo and defended the socialist ideal of providing for those less fortunate.
"We have confronted scarcity but have never failed in our duty to share with those who have less," Castro said, adding that Cuba remains determined to chart its own path and resist efforts by "the most forceful power that history has ever known" -- a reference to the United States -- to thwart the island's socialist model.
Benedict then traveled by popemobile into Santiago, Cuba's second city, barely waving through the glass to onlookers who lined the streets and waved flags.
"I thought this was amazing. This was such a labor of love and faith," said Rita Freixas, a Miami Beach resident who hadn't visited Cuba since her family left when she was 1 year old. She traveled back to the island with her sons and a friend as part of a delegation organized by the Archdiocese of Miami. "I am so happy to be back here. I am so happy to have come."
Tuesday was scheduled to be a day relatively light on public appearances by Benedict.
Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski planned to celebrate a Mass in the afternoon in the Havana cathedral in the picturesque historic colonial quarter.
Late Monday, Benedict bedded down in a humble but air-conditioned house constructed in recent weeks with $86,000 in church funds, made of reinforced concrete designed to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake.
It was just 200 yards (meters) from the El Cobre sanctuary, where he planned a private, spiritual moment Tuesday morning paying homage to the statue of the Virgin of Charity. Its 400th anniversary was cited as a main reason why Benedict chose to visit Cuba this year.
Just over a foot (35 centimeters) tall, the wooden statue is one of the most powerful Catholic icons in the world, and an object of pride and reverence for hundreds of thousands in Cuba. It was taken to Monday's Mass on the top of a truck to the joy of the faithful present.
"She is a beauty, the most extraordinary thing," Mercy Serra said as the statue made its way through the crowd. "She is the mother of all Cubans."
Associated Press writer Peter Orsi reported this story from Havana and Andrea Rodriguez reported in Santiago. AP writers Nicole Winfield and Laura Wides-Munoz in Santiago contributed to this report.
Follow AP reporters covering the pope: www.twitter.com/(hashtag)!/AP/pope-visit | <urn:uuid:83197278-1444-44f9-92b1-46bf8588d740> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state-journal.com/ap%20international/2012/03/27/benedict-to-honor-icon-meet-castro-in-cuba | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97112 | 1,233 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Do you see the hawk on the rock?
These photos were taken at Fort Hill yesterday and I thought it would be fun to show how easy it is to miss something as big as a hawk….the bird fits into the stone wall profile pretty well.
Here is a picture from a different angle using my zoom….
And here it is again, in silhouette.
This is the same young red tail but this time it is perched on the cedar. People walk right by big birds in trees all the time….
The hawk flew off shortly after this photo was taken and landed in the field nearby where once again, it was well enough camouflaged that quite a few people walked right on by without seeing it….
The moral of this story is….check out those tree tops and scan the landscape for odd shapes!
When I was a child one of the birds that totally captured my imagination was a meadowlark. I had seen one sitting on a post singing when I was quite young and from then on I was hooked. I looked for them in every field I saw. Actually, I still do.
With the demise of farmlands and meadows the meadowlark is not as easy to find as it once was but there are still places on the Cape where you can find them regularly and easily. One of the best spots every winter and spring is Fort Hill in Eastham and while waiting to meet a friend today I spotted one fly into the field near the upper parking lot.
It was soon joined by others and then there were 10 in all. The top picture was actually the last one I took as the birds spooked and took to a tree. In the middle picture you can see the trademark yellow breast with a black v bib on the bird on the right. Check out the bird in the center to see the tell tale white patches on either side of the tail–sometimes that is the first indicator you will see…..
Here are a few more pictures–the quality isn’t great–they were pretty far away–but you can still see the yellow tint on the breast of the one in the middle. If you would like to know more about these lovely birds please check them out here.
If you have had a chance to get out today you know what an awesome day it has been.
There are a lot of great nature programs on the Cape all winter long. Many of them are free or very affordable. I know I’ll miss something so if you know of a program I should add, please feel free to contact me.
If you want to know where to find and see owls and otters, following Ian Ives, sanctuary director for the mid and upper Cape Audubon sanctuaries, is always fun and informative. He is leading a program at Ashumet this Friday and you can get more information here.
The National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay will be hosting a family program, “For the Love of Turtles” on this coming Saturday. They will also have activities during school vacation week. Scroll down through the website to see the calendar here.
The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History has free family programs for members (minimal cost for non members) at 1 p.m. all through school vacation next week as well. For more info, click here.
And of course there is Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and there are always fun programs going on there as well.
If you are in the Sandwich area, don’t forget the Thornton Burgess Society and the Green Briar Nature Center. They are also running special programs for school vacation as well as adult programs. Check their website for specific information here.
When I was a kid we actually had more purple finches than house finches on the Cape or at least where I was on the mid-Cape. These days the house finches are far more plentiful and have adapted well to suburban life. Like the house sparrow and the starling, the house finch is a transplant, not a native. Unlike the former two birds house finches are generally well liked by back yard bird feeders, most likely due to their lively song and generally pleasant dispositions and personalities.
House finches tend to travel and feed in groups. This male was seen with a flock of about a dozen other house finches in the bushes around the Coast Guard Beach parking lot. You can find lots more information about house finches and also see the similarities between them and other finches by clicking here.
Did you know you can tell the temperature by looking at the way the rhododendron leaves are curled? Rhododendrons are evergreens but that doesn’t mean they love the cold weather. They can tolerate it but have learned to adjust by curling their leaves. The tighter the curl, the colder the temperature. These leaves are telling you it is under 20 F. Brrrrrrr… You can get lots more information here.
If you would like to know more about my process, please join me at my new blog as well. I no longer have my old Mary Richmond Design blog. This will fill some of what that did but will also be more specific in terms of art, writing, rambling and so on…
Please come on over to Of drawing and birds, dogs and words….
The view from Coast Guard Beach this week….
Walking the dogs with a friend at First Encounter (and yes, we did bring our little bags and clean up what was necessary
The rock walls at Fort Hill are always evocative, especially in winter…
Thanks for your patience, if in fact you still check in. It was a long summer and a longer fall as I dealt with various health and personal issues. But I am back!
I’ve had a lot of time to think over what I want to do with this blog, the website, etc. and for now I am going to change it up a bit and add some of my musings and sketches as well as photos and reports of what is going on out there in nature on Cape Cod.
If you have been following this in a classroom you should still find the content appropriate.
Cape Cod Art and Nature is not a business or a non-profit. I had thoughts about making it both or one or the other but for now it is just a name I am writing and drawing and teaching under. I hope you come back soon and enjoy the postings. | <urn:uuid:5190e850-2941-4b29-a0ca-1bc299873143> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capecodartandnature.com/2011/02/ | 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 | 0.978294 | 1,327 | 1.601563 | 2 |
This major new anthology collects new work by important artists which explore the context of African-American drama in 21st century America. The plays included are:
In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks
An examination of a homeless black women and her children based on The Scarlet Letter.
Civil Sex by Brian Freeman
A look at the intersections of civil rights on the life of activist Bayard Rustin.
The Dark Kalamazoo by Oni Faidi Lampley
A tale of isolation and rediscovery as a young black co-ed comes of age during a journey to Africa.
Jitney by August Wilson
The lives of Jitney cab drivers at a 1977 Pittsburgh cab station.
Insurrection: Holding History by Robert O'Hara
The lives of a young gay college student and his 189-year-old great-great-grandfather are transported back to the time of the Nat Turner slave rebellion.
Crumbs from the Table of Joy by Lynn Nottage
An interracial romance threatens to divide a black family set during the Harlem Renaissance.
A Preface to the Alien Garden by Robert Alexander
A study of the gangsta life style in present day Kansas City.
A Rhyme Deferred by Kamilah Forbes and Hop Hop Theatre Junction
An Afro-centric update of the Cain and Abel story.
Slanguage by Stephen Sapp and Universes
Rhyme, roots, rhythm and storytelling to a hip hop beat.
Harry Elam, Jr. is the Director of Graduate Studies for Drama at Stanford University. He has directed numerous plays, including works of August Wilson, who is the subject of his forthcoming book.
Robert Alexander is the author of I Ain't Yo' Uncle, Servant of the People and The Last Orbit of Billy Mars. Mr. Alexander is currently in residence at D.C.'s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. | <urn:uuid:2cbe6981-ae52-4280-98b7-c6047620ca3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanpoems.com/store/node-1000-1559362057-The_Fire_This_Time_African_American_Plays_for_the_21st_Century.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945347 | 392 | 1.53125 | 2 |
In this article we would like to pay attention to the so called bluetooth signal blockers and the way they function. But before doing this, we would also like to say a few words about that technology itself and how it has been developing and advancing during the last decade. At the beginning it was presented as a great innovation and it really was. The reason for this was because it was the first and only way thanks to which you could transfer data, music, videos or any other information that you want.
We live in a world full of modern wireless technologies. We are thickly surrounded by radio waves of different frequencies, which carry information from one gadget to another, from man to man. Modern gadgets make our life easier and more convenient, but they bring some hidden “prizes” with them.
They can violate our privacy, they can really annoy us and can put our life and health in danger. I’m talking about the influence of radio waves on our health and the most devastating weapon of the terrorists – the IED’s. (more…)
David Petraeus, the Head of the CIA, can’t wait to utilize all your household gadgets to have an absolute surveillance of you day and night. TV, air conditioning system, vehicle navigation systems and even light switches… All systems of your smart house will be used for this purpose because they are developing rapidly and soon will become an outstanding keystone for the most efficient surveillance system CIA Head could ever think of. (more…)
DARPA intends to utilize those biologic implants on fighters in years to come but now this plan is on the phase of verifying on beasts. For you to easily comprehend the entire situation, those aren’t implants like big arm or leg artificial limbs. Those are small sensors implanted in the body, produced to track the overall health condition of the patient day and night. Originally they were produced as an effort to perfect the fighters’ wellbeing and simplify their diet monitoring, therefore making the efficiency of their training better. But in the shadowy future things can be different. (more…)
The RF Design composed the microchip named u-blox which may be installed in multiple kinds of contemporary trackers. With that microchip built-in into whichever tracker it will become extremely dangerous gadget because it’s not simple to avoid its effect with ordinary measures. By ordinary measures I signify GPS jamming devices which are quite efficient against ordinary GPS tracking gadgets but not against that one. Let me justify why. (more…)
Not long ago the CES 2012 event was held. There lots of people were capable of seeing multiple technological gimmicks, and every particular one of them is worth to be mentioned. But describing all of them in this post would take too much time and volume here therefore I will not do that bearing in mind that you probably were at this CES 2012 event. Yet one gadget is worth to refer to in any way. (more…) | <urn:uuid:e374737d-e188-4888-8b51-1015ce5a6e88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cellphonejammer.org/category/jammers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96656 | 597 | 1.703125 | 2 |
- Posted August 7, 2012 by
This iReport is part of an assignment:
- The Philippines held Automated Midterm Elections this Year 2013 -- Part 2
- The Philippines held Automated Midterm Elections this Year 2013 -- Part 1
- This Year's Automated Midterm Elections in the Philippines
- My Message To All The Girls And Women Who Are Aspiring And Striving To Get Education Right Now
- Education Would Give A Girl Or A Woman The Opportunity To Have A Stable Career And An Assurance Of Economic Well-Being In The Near Future
Heavy Rains Battered Metro Manila and Laguna from Yesterday Until Noon Today
Central Luzon, Southern Luzon and Metro Manila were all battered by heavy rains since yesterday afternoon- at around 5 pm. The rains become heavier in the evening and continued until noon today. The rains have weakened a little bit this morning in Metro Manila, Laguna, and the rest of Southern Luzon. It was Monday, August 6, 2012, yesterday and many road-repairs were suspended in Metro Manila due to the heavy rains. Though no fully-developed storm has been spotted by the weather bureau here, its “rainfall data” recorded 222.6 mm of rainfall in the last 15 hours at Science Garden, Quezon City. PAGASA is the national weather bureau here in the Philippines and its acronym means Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration. It has warned residents in low-lying areas all over Luzon to immediately evacuate to “temporary refuge centers.” The warning was made last night. Government agencies came well-prepared this time around and went to rescue people living in low-lying areas as fast as they can since last night. Classes in all levels in Metro Manila and most of Central and Southern Luzon have been suspended today, August 7, due to the heavy rains. Work in government offices all over Metro Manila and many parts of Luzon had also been suspended. Many private offices in the said areas were closed due to the floods there. Evacuation centers were set up all over Luzon and Metro Manila.
The first 5 pictures in this iReport were taken from various parts of Manila. The last 5 pictures were taken from my parents’ residence in San Pedro, Laguna- a town just beside Metro Manila. The 2nd and 3rd photos in this report were shot by my friend and fellow-human-rights advocate-- Maria Fenia Duterte. All the rest of the pictures, except those shot by Maria, were photographed by me. The photos taken from Metro Manila were shot during the early morning. The pictures taken from Laguna were shot just this noon. The weather bureau here said that the heavy rains were due to the southeast monsoon winds. The weather bureau predicted that the rains will continue until tomorrow evening, Wednesday, though the downpours this noon have somehow already weakened. Today is August 7, 2012. Many residents from Metro Manila are praying that the sun should come out tomorrow since the whole of Luzon has been experiencing ferocious rains for more than one week now. I hope such prayer will come true! | <urn:uuid:ed46153e-ac4f-4e1a-ae19-a8c9d0505032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-825720 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974211 | 639 | 1.710938 | 2 |
This came about from a man named Leland Val Vandewal, through Bob Proctor, well the seed of it. When people are asked to think of their car, they see their car in their mind (well, most do Josh). Their home, they see it. When people are asked to see their MIND, maybe their brain comes up, or something else. But that isnt their mind. The Mind is movement, and the body is a manifestation of that movement (sounds like internal arts to me, though it took me 10 years of study to get it!).
Leland created a picture of the Mind. he called it the Stick man. It is in 3 parts. The top is a large circle with a line across the equator. The top he called Conscious mind, the bottom is Subconscious mind. He added a small circle beneath, attached by a small line, this is the BODY. So very quickly, the conscious mind creates an image, that is impressed on the subconscious mind and manifest in the body (fear is an excellent QUICK acting manifestation of this).
The article came about because i was wondering HOW we get to internal. There are so many people claiming to do internal martial arts, but show ZERO principles as to what makes an art internal (i know you and i have differing ideas on this). So i looked at why.
The very first thing we are told by a good teacher is to watch. Most of us, in our excitement attempt to figure out what is going on, and with our untrained eyes, we miss TONS. We also are moving our bodies around, so we never let the image just sink in.
See, the subconscious mind, once an image is impressed on it, works regardless. Until that happens, the movement stays with the conscious mind and we have to think about it.
The idea is that, watching your teacher do the movements, and just letting him do it without ANY mental interference on your part (meaning, you are not analyzing it), allows, what I believe to be the seed for later growth.
Bruce Frantzis wrote about standing in qigong for entire taiji classes for a full year watching form. He says he learned so much. I asked Erle (as he was alive when i did this), and he told me that he sees the teacher that taught him the form when he did it. That image should be your standard. It is what your subconscious relies on when you BE taiji.
What if your teacher doesnt have internal ability? Find one who does! Seriously. How can you learn ANYTHING from someone who has no clue themselves? From someone who understands, simply being there is more than enough to learn IF YOU ARE READY, and that is a big part of it. You may, like so many have, watch Erle do his advanced forms, then they copy that, but they never get it right. I dont mean to pick on anyone, but this guy has this out there, for people to see, so here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=750HsY1j8Jc&feature=plcp
I have had a conversation or 2 with him, and despite being in the UK, in the hub of the WTBA, he has either learned from someone who learned from a DVD or he himself has (without credit to Erle, which is interesting in and of itself). His form is full of errors because he is copying the advanced form, but has not corrected the basics. His subconscious mind is attempting to manifest something that he has no foundation for.
In the WTBA, we have been discussing this sort of phenomena lately, as it is rampant through the organization (everyone wants to be better than they are!) so no one is immune. Even that clip I have up is incorrect as i was doing what this gent is doing. I have since went back to basics to correct things.
When I do my form, I see Erle doing it at a basic level. It may or may not manifest as that image, depending on the qi flow, what i ate, etc, but that is the driving force behind it. It in NO WAY diminishes the amount of training you have to do. What it does do is help get the right stuff inside, so when you start to get to the internal part of training, that jelly comes out.
How would someone apply it? Simply, whenever you are learning something new, just watch it the first time or 2. Dont think "oh he's doing that, ok" or "that is from".. just watch it (if it is something you WANT to learn). It may even be helpful to run through the images in your mind (repetition is one of the ways you impress the subconscious mind). Then go about learning the material. If you are in person, you can get lots of input. If you are watching a DVD, watch the entire DVD this way FIRST. Then go back and start to work on it (i wrote an article about learning from DVD on a friends webpage taijirenegade).
Mate, it is just my way of looking at things. How do we get to the internal? We first need to get something inside! The easiest is the image of the thing (and the subconscious manifests pictures).
I have no idea about autism. I know that the mind works in pictures, but some people, the pictures arent clear (dont think of a pink elephant). Words are pictures. Even music is attached to images (if you really pay attention to what is going on). I have heard of people with no sight who see from their nose or taste buds (the mind creates the pictures). In fact, it can be argued that EVERYTHING you see is really only an image in your mind that you created (yes, it gets deep).
I am one of those "different" martial artists. I wanted so much, 30 years ago, to be a zen student! To be eastern! But i never really enjoyed that stuff. I found western ideas (or interpretations of ideas) and studied them for a period of time. Then, all of a sudden, I found i didnt have mind and taiji/bagua. I had taiji (Erle said repeatedly, Taiji is the mother). Now, it is all just one thing. People have 50 forms! I have more forms now with Erle's stuff than i did previously, but it is only ONE. How did I get there? The only way I can explain it is that it started with this simple idea.
hope that helps Josh. I havent read that article in a LONG time (i wrote it 5 months before that mag came out), so this may help clarify (or confuse) as it is how i feel today. | <urn:uuid:4077ef50-c201-49d0-9dcb-d7c0d356a0e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ymaa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7473&p=29260 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97964 | 1,412 | 1.65625 | 2 |
|Receiving the grapes|
|Grape sorting and handling|
|Grape processing - crushing|
|with an open tank|
|with a closed tank|
|with a closed tank and inert atmosphere|
|with a closed tank and lens-shaped membranes|
|Fermenting - effervescing|
Della Toffola offers a range of presses with open tanks with innovative features.
These presses are fitted with a tubular membrane made of non-toxic material, attached to a winged supporting element; this membrane and the supporting element are then mounted on the axle of the stainless steel perforated drum.
One of the most particular features of these presses concerns the holes punched in the drum through which the strained must emerges.
In traditional presses, these holes cover only 50% of the drum's surface at most, whereas in the models made by DELLA TOFFOLA they occupy the entire surface, effectively doubling the must straining area.
When it comes to the pressing action, the membrane does not expand on either side of the drum (as is usually the case), it presses evenly against the entire inside wall of the drum.
The exceptional advantages offered by this solution are immediately apparent in terms of must ouput and economy of operation by comparison with conventional machines:
the total pressing time is drastically reduced, to half the usual time;
the crushed grapes are exhausted at a lower working pressure, using fewer pressing and crumbling cycles, and consequently with a minimal handling;
inside the press, the product is distributed in an even, thinner layer and the must is strained over the entire surface of the drum.
All the advantages:
Thanks to these features, the quality of the must improves considerably. In fact, the crushed grapes are exhausted under a lower working pressure, with fewer pressing and crumbling cycles, giving rise to a clear, top-quality must with low levels of polyphenols (waste substances that make the must cloudy).
The mass of grapes to crush in the drum undergoes no lengthy manhandling and its own weight already prompts the straining of a considerable amount of fluid through the perforated surface of the drum.
The maximum crushing pressure (which never exceeds 1.5 bar) is only needed for a few short cycles at the end of the program.
The models up to PE 100 incorprate a device for inflating/deflating the membrane, while the larger models are used with a separate unit.
Thanks to the extremely flexible and user-friendly programming system, there are no limits to the type of grape that can be pressed. In fact, the control panel is complete with a programmable computer (PLC) for the automatic completion of all the processing stages.
Underneath the press there is a tank for collecting and transferring the must coming from the drum.
At the end of the working cycle, the press can quickly unload the grape marc and the cleaning of the press is made simple by the absence of any internal manifolds, which often become clogged and make the cleaning procedure far more troublesome.
The washing procedure is also facilitated by a specific oversized hatch that makes it easier to access the inside of the drum.
In addition to the already excellent return in terms of product quality and quantity, and the halving of the processing times, Della Toffola's presses also ensure a whole set of other advantages for a cost-effective operation, i.e.
All the presses are tested in accordance with directive 97/23/CE | <urn:uuid:6299fe71-51f2-4a00-9442-406c840529f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dellatoffola.us/enology/with-an-open-tank_2_0_330_ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933921 | 726 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Five Surviving Exotic Animals To Be Given To Ohio Man's Widow
Ohio officials have decided they will hand over five animals to the widow of a man who last October paralyzed a community by releasing 56 lions, tigers, bears and other exotic animals from his farm.
According to the Zanesville Times Recorder, "the Ohio Department of Agriculture has decided to lift the quarantine on the five animals belonging to Marian Thompson. ... [The] grizzly bear, two leopards and two monkeys ... have been housed under quarantine at the Columbus Zoo."
It isn't yet known when the animals will be handed over or where Marian Thompson will take them, the newspaper adds.
Last Oct. 18, as we reported at the time, Marian Thompson's husband Terry released the animals and then shot himself. Sheriff's deputies were forced to hunt the dangerous creatures. Only six survived. They were captured and taken to the Columbus Zoo and Acquarium. The Associated Press says that one of them, a leopard, was later euthanized.
The AP adds that "Marian Thompson's attorney, Robert McClelland, said his client has adequate cages for the surviving animals, according to a letter obtained last week by The Associated Press through a public records request." | <urn:uuid:aa8883c6-9d6f-426a-b83b-72debeacdba5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wesm913.org/post/five-surviving-exotic-animals-be-given-ohio-mans-widow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970677 | 255 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Some of the hundreds of US troops still in Baghdad have been training and supporting Maliki's abusive elite security forces
The US is keeping hundreds of American troops and security personnel in Iraq, despite a recently-passed resolution from Congress that failed to reauthorize funding for the US military to train and support Iraqi security forces.
Most Americans have been led to believe that all US forces besides those guarding the massive American Embassy in Iraq have been withdrawn since the end of last year. But small units of up to 300 troops have remained in Baghdad to train Iraqi security forces and provide aid and support, allegedly for counter-terrorism operations.
In reality, US troops have been providing this support to elite Iraqi forces that report directly to the increasingly authoritarian Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They have essentially been used as a secret police force for Maliki to attack, detain, and torture his political opponents and crack down harshly on public dissent.
There were attempts in the Washington pipe-line to negotiate with Iraq an agreement in which even more US troops would be sent back. But last month, Congress passed a resolution that did not reauthorize funding for these small units. “The authority for U.S. forces to train and assist the Iraqi security forces expired Sunday [Sept. 30],” reports The Cable‘s Josh Rogin.
Still, the Pentagon is scrambling to try and keep the forces there.
“No personnel will return immediately to the United States on Oct. 1, 2012 while DoD is reviewing the effect of not being authorized under the Continuing Resolution to continue the training of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) following expiration of the Iraqi Security Forces Fund (ISFF) authority on Sept. 30, 2012,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Wesley Miller told The Cable. “The Department of Defense is reviewing the availability of other authorities that may authorize OSC-I to conduct training activities in Iraq.”
Despite claims by the Obama administration about “ending the Iraq war” and bringing our troops home, the US is still very much involved in Iraq, in training the abusive security forces, in propping up the corrupt and dictatorial Maliki government, and in trying to slowly slip more US forces into the country.
Last 5 posts by John Glaser
- CIA to Continue Waging Drone War in Pakistan - May 21st, 2013
- Rand Paul: My Fellow Senators Voted to Arm Al-Qaeda - May 21st, 2013
- Kerry Warns Assad: More Help to Rebels If You Do Not Negotiate - May 14th, 2013
- Senators Discuss Revising 2001 AUMF - May 7th, 2013
- US Accuses Chinese Military of Cyber-Attacks - May 7th, 2013 | <urn:uuid:1e1431b1-6a74-4f6b-b9db-660954f161f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.antiwar.com/2012/10/01/us-may-keep-units-american-troops-in-iraq-despite-lack-of-authority/ | 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 | 0.955786 | 564 | 1.539063 | 2 |
By Samuel Novacich, Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Throughout Rio, the implantation of UPPs in favelas have had predictable affects on bordering middle- and upper-class communities. As reported earlier, Santa Teresa is in the midst of a property boom, as real estate prices soar with the recent inauguration of UPPs in the favela communities of Prazeres and Escondidinho.
Many are anticipating what will happen when the favelas that still don’t have UPPs are “pacified”, and the effects on the surrounding real estate.
In the upper-class neighborhood of Alto Leblon, residents may look to Rocinha and the smaller bordering favela of Chácara do Céu with disdain.
Both territories are without UPP, and like most favelas throughout the city, their populations are on the rise. For decades, Rocinha has expanded, its territory first pressing up against São Conrado, and now edging its way into Alto Leblon.
Alto Leblon, normally ranking among the highest in the city with respect to property value and “rentability,” has experienced recent slumps in real estate values. Many are quick to blame the encroaching Rocinha favela as a main culprit, and with some justification.
Alto Leblon residents have long been concerned with drug trafficking violence in Rocinha, specifically citing the use of their neighborhood by drug traffickers as a potential escape route during gun battles. Over the years, attempts have been made to contain expansion of the favela.
Walls have been constructed to physically restrict Rocinha’s growth into the neighboring Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest), with one such project debated heavily in 2009 and strongly opposed by favela residents. However, Rocinha’s growth is not the only, or even the most important factor in Alto Leblon’s real estate woes.
Research by the Sindicato da Habitacão Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro’s Housing Syndicate, Secovi) highlights real estate availability and booms throughout the rest of the city as explanation of sluggish growth in normally strong neighborhoods.
This brings us back to the UPPs. The increase in property values and desirability in Santa Teresa was not an isolated experience. Real estate values have increased throughout the city, the result of both UPP installations and the impending Olympic Games and World Cup.
The inauguration of the city’s first UPP in Santa Marta resulted in higher property values in Botafogo (residential apartments now sell for an average R$6,475 per m2 according to Secovi), just as the UPP in Cidade de Deus drove up prices in Jacarépagua (R$1,925 per m2), and UPPs in the communities of Borel, Andarai, Formiga, Salueiro, and Turano led to an explosion in desire for real estate in Tijuca (R$3,761 per m2) and Vila Isabel (R$ 2,765 per m2).
Simply put, middle and upper-class Cariocas now have more options, and as a result, demand for real estate in Alto Leblon is not as high as it once was. Potential investors and renters can now choose from a greater array of neighborhoods, each with its own advantages.
Rocinha’s expansion certainly has an effect on real estate values in Alto Leblon, but so too does property fluctuation throughout Rio de Janeiro as a whole. Ultimately in the long term, residents of Alto Leblon can breathe easily, as they too stand to reap the indirect benefits of a UPP in Rocinha, although there seems to be no set date for that to happen. | <urn:uuid:b230e648-d48c-4b87-94d7-b36c6350573e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-real-estate/alto-leblon-awaits-rocinha-upp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938105 | 816 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Recently, we studied an aspect of the World Wide Web that did not receive a lot of attention yet - the online adult industry
. Compared to traditional media, the Internet provides fast, easy, and anonymous access to the desired content. That, in turn, results in a huge number of users accessing pornographic content. To improve the understanding of this part of the Web, we performed a study of the online adult industry. As a result, we provide a detailed overview of the individual actors and roles within the online adult industry, which enables us to better understand the mechanisms with which visitors are redirected between the individual parties and how money flows between them. Furthermore, we examined the security aspects of more than 250,000 adult pages and studied, among other aspects, the prevalence of drive-by download attacks. In addition, we analyzed domain-specific security threats such as disguised traffic redirection techniques, and surveyed the hosting infrastructure of adult sites.
Lastly, we operated two adult web sites on our own. By becoming adult web site operators ourselves, we gained additional insights on unique security aspects in this domain. This enabled us to obtain a deeper understanding of the related abuse potential. We participated in adult traffic trading, and provide a detailed discussion of this unique aspect of adult web sites, including insights into the economical implications, and possible attack vectors that a malicious site operator could leverage. For example, we discovered that a malicious operator could infect more than 20,000 with a minimal investment of about $160. Furthermore, we experimentally show that a malicious site operator could benefit from domain-specific business practices that facilitate click-fraud and mass exploitation. We conclude that many participants of this industry have business models that are based on very questionable practices that could very well be abused for malicious activities and conducting cyber-crime. In fact, we found evidence that this kind of abuse is already happening in the wild.
All details of our study are available in the paper
. The paper will be presented at the Ninth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS 2010
). WEIS will take place on June 7/8 at Harvard University.
The online adult industry is among the most profitable business branches on the Internet, and its web sites attract large amounts of visitors and traffic. Nevertheless, no study has yet characterized the industry’s economical and security-related structure. As cyber-criminals are motivated by financial incentives, a deeper understanding and identification of the economic actors and interdependencies in the online adult business is important for analyzing security-related aspects of this industry.
In this paper, we provide a survey of the different economic roles that adult web sites assume, and highlight their economic and technical features. We provide insights into security flaws and potential points of interest for cyber-criminals. We achieve this by applying a combination of automatic and manual analysis techniques to investigate the economic structure of the online adult industry and its business cases. Furthermore, we also performed several experiments to gain a better understanding of the flow of visitors to these sites and the related cash flow, and report on the lessons learned while operating adult web sites on our own.
This paper was joint work with Gilbert Wondracek, Christian Platzer, Engin Kirda, and Christopher Kruegel, all members of the International Secure Systems Lab
. You can get the paper at http://honeyblog.org/junkyard/paper/adultSites-weis2010.pdf | <urn:uuid:ecfe6f2b-1ffd-45a9-a184-df41b5a4d9a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.honeyblog.org/categories/6-research | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934646 | 696 | 1.539063 | 2 |
People looking to rebuild their lives after Superstorm Sandy destroyed and damaged their homes may now have another struggle on their hands: Navigating the often-frustrating claims process with their insurance companies.
This time around, people won’t be paying exorbitant hurricane deductibles for Sandy — which technically hit land as a tropical storm.
Even though there is a lag between when an insured files a claim and a payment is made, insurers are required by law to pay in a timely way or face hefty fines.
Residents also should be aware that homeowners insurance does not cover flooding, and that those who don’t have flood insurance can forget about collecting for flood damage on your homeowner’s policy.
And people also can expect their premiums to go up.
Jan Morris, whose Hillside Avenue home in Milford is across the street from a row of houses that are no longer habitable, said she felt lucky to survive the storm with only roof damage. The front half of her roof will have to be replaced, but unlike when Irene hit, she isn’t facing the hurricane deductible.
“I did have a claim for windows in Irene,” Morris said. But her deductible was $7,000, so she paid for that out of pocket. “They will be covering the roof this year. Go figure.”
Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy recently warned insurers not to charge hurricane deductibles, which often are a percentage of the home’s total value and can be quite high.
Now people will be paying only their standard home or flood insurance deductibles for repairs.
“The state moved very swiftly to alert the industry that this storm — although devastating to so many — did not meet the criteria for a hurricane deductible under state law. Homeowners will not have to pay high-cost hurricane deductibles for damage resulting from this storm,” Malloy said.
Donna Tommelleo, an Insurance Department spokeswoman, said insurers face fines if they don’t pay claims quickly and that people should contact the department’s consumer advocate if they have problems collecting.
But Tommelleo said the insurance industry in Connecticut has a good record for paying out claims.
“For Irene, we got 250 complaints,” she said, noting not all were substantiated. “But when you put that in perspective, the industry had 60,000 claims from Irene and paid out almost $240 million.”
Ron Kalb, an agent with Siegel Insurance Agency in Danbury, said smaller repairs usually are paid out more quickly. The home or business owner often is told to survey the damage, take photos and then hire a contractor to do the work with the bill to be submitted later.
But a total rebuild does take longer, not only as the insurer must document the costs but because the design and construction process also takes more time.
People also should read their policies carefully so they understand what is covered and what isn’t.
Standard homeowner’s insurance does not cover flooding, Kalb said.
“If people don’t have flood insurance, they’re going to be out of luck,” Kalb said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program is the country’s largest provider of flood insurance, which is not offered by many commercial carriers.
But people without insurance are not totally without help. Federal aid is available to individuals and business owners affected by the storm.
There are disaster loans up to $200,000 available to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate through the U.S. Small Business Administration. Homeowners and renters are eligible up to $40,000 to repair or replace personal property.
Businesses and private nonprofit organizations of any size may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace disaster damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory, and other business assets. The SBA may increase a loan up to 20 percent of the total amount of disaster damage to real estate and/or leasehold improvements, as verified by SBA, to make improvements that lessen the risk of property damage by future disasters of the same kind.
Diego Alvarado, a FEMA spokesman, said people should call and register with the agency to get the process going.
As with insurance, it takes time before funds are paid out, he said.
Jennifer Wislocki, a spokeswoman for Travelers in Connecticut, said her company already is receiving claims and has about 5,000 people staffing phones or meeting in person with customers. It has set up five mobile claim offices in affected areas. Other insurers reported taking similar steps.
She said; “We are committed to reaching impacted customers, as soon as it is safe to do so, to help them being the recovery process as quickly as possible.” | <urn:uuid:c9338819-4e12-4e90-b63e-557dab60cea0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2012/11/12/270218.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965654 | 1,012 | 1.601563 | 2 |
"Taro is a purple root vegetable, like a sweet potato, that is used in Asian recipes. Taro, tapioca and rock sugar can be found in most Chinese grocery stores. This recipe comes from the mom of one of my best friends, and I've loved it for years. It's a traditional Asian dessert, and like most, it is like a sweet soup. It can be served hot or cold. I have it hot the first night and refrigerate the rest for seconds the next day! When served cold, it will seem a little thicker.
" — meeshiepoo
Watch video tips and tricks
small, white tapioca pearls
raw taro root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 (13.5 ounce) can
rock sugar candy
I'm from Hong Kong, this is what we call tong shui(sweet water). This is a good recipe to follow. I used to do it all by taste, a lot more work. I used sweet potato instead of taro(it's interchangeable, but sweet potato has some natural sweetness). My advice is cook the tapioca by itself as the recipe says, you don't want the starchy water. In a different pot cook the taro and sugar. Add sugar till it suits your taste(it's not suppose to be too sweet) then add the tapioca and coconut milk.
It was average tasting. It wasn't what I was looking for. I had to strain the tapioca with running warm water to get rid of the starchy sticky gel. Then I added the milk/sugar mixture. Also, I boiled the taro seperately and added that at the end. My daughter liked it with whipped cream stirred in.
This is a very popular recipe in southeast asia. You can also use sweet rice in place of the tapioca pearls. I serve this to my six month old baby and she loveees it so much. Coconut milk is high in saturated fat which is very good for you as oppose to the poly saturated fat. So don't be afraid of this recipe because of the coco milk. I also sub. rock sugar for palm sugar.
I like this easy and tasty recipe. The first time I made it, we didn't eat it until 3 hours later, the tapioca soaked up the liquid, the dessert became very thick mixture. I adjust the procedure the second time I made it: I boiled the taro for 15 mins, then added uncook tapioca in the same pot to cook for another 7 mins, then added coconut milk cook until boil, last step I added brown raw sugar for another 2 mins or so until sugar dissolve. I serve it 1 hour later, this time tapiocas didn't have that much time to soak up all the liquid and the flavor is still there without all that simmering.
This is one of my favorite desserts and it came out wonderful! I added more sugar than was on the receipe but other than that, it came out great. Thanks!
This is so good. I used a little less sugar, and it tastes perfect.
Wow, did not care for this! It's too liquidy and the potato didn't work well with the other textures. Never again.
It wasn't sweet enough for me and too much liquid. It's not that I don't like Asian desserts, because I LOVE red beans, mung beans, etc. in coconut milk for desert. I'm guessing it's the taro that doesn't work for me.
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Taro Coconut Tapioca Dessert
Serving Size: 1/12 of a recipe
Servings Per Recipe: 12
Amount Per Serving
Calories from Fat: 62
Watch Chef John put a few tasty twists on classic rice pudding.
See how to put a tropical twist on traditional flan.
See how to make corned beef, Thai-style, with coconut milk and curry paste. | <urn:uuid:d3de3093-3673-4aed-ab27-d580f258d8dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allrecipes.com/recipe/taro-coconut-tapioca-dessert/Detail.aspx?prop31=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957515 | 838 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Helping hands helping one another with our family history & genealogy research.
I am looking for information regarding Emma Amelia Schultz, I have very little information to start a search.
What I have is, a 1910 and 1920 US census for the state of Washington, that gives her name as both Amelia and Emma, a birth place as Canada, her birth year about 1884. Her father's birth place as Germany and mother's as France. Her second husband's name as Curtis Stillwagon.
Her immigration year as 1897 (but difficult to read)
1920 census says the Curry children's father (children by 1st husband) was born in England
My father's memory that his grandmother may have been Emma Schultz.
A child's birth record that gives her maiden name as Schultz (this child was Leslie Stillwagon from her second marriage) Giving her name as Amelia
Entries in the marriage records in 1909 for Victoria BC of her marriage to the second husband (Stillwagon), but also gives her surname as Schultz as well as Currie, I believe Currie/Curry to be her first husband's surname. Also her parent's names of William and Minnie.
An entry in the 1920 census giving her children ( by her first marriage) the surname Curry.
My father's middle name of Curry.
My grandmother's birthdate as 14 Feb 1906, name was Bertha Irene Curry/Currie and her brother was, Hirshal Curry/Currie, born about 2 years later in Sequim Washington, both birth records burned in a fire there. Bertha Irene's birth date was on the death index so could be off but only the month and day, the year is correct with all we knew to be true of her.
Two marriage record for daughter, Bertha Irene, one to her first husband, Bertram Saunders in 1920 in King Co Wa, where Emma was a witness, and Bertha Irene's second marriage record to Albert Kotzerke in 1934 where Emma was also a witness along with her third husband, William Newman. The second marriage took place in Okanogan Wa, close to the Canada boarder. Bertha Irene was listed as living in Alaska so Emma may have been the one to be living in Okanogan. There was some talk that Emma and Irene (as Bertha was known by) were married on the same date in the 1934 marriage but I have never been able to prove that.
I have researched a few of the Emma Amelia Schultz's in Canada and so far none have met her criteria
I have used Ancestry, Family seasrch (all three versions), Heritage quest, google, the vital index for BC, the Census site for Canada.
There is so much i want to know but for now, what I would like to know is the given name of her first husband Mr CURRIE/CURRY (My g- Grandfather) when and where they were married and hopefully some information or leads about him.
Leads to the ancestry of my Emma Amelia Schultz, where in Canada she was born etc.
I have traced the Emma Amelia with the parents of Rudolf and Pauline, (in Ontario) this is _not_ her family, This family is the one that every one seems to reccommend to me. I did extensive research on this family so if any one knows someone who wants my information about them I would be happy to share all of it.
So you see, I have basically _nothing_ concrete (primary sources) to go on just a lot of little things. I tried to present all of the relevent information in the briefest way I could, I would love to find siblings of Emma's if there were any. she is such a mysterious woman.
Voter's list 1894 with many of the family names on it http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccaribo/1894votersWL.html
a death for a Clifford Lyons...William's Lake http://search.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca
Thank you again, I am trying to digest this information and put it in order to begin trying to see if I can document a connection between this Amy and our Emma to see if they are indeed one in the same. Family lore says Minnie died giving birth to a son, when Emma was about 3 years old, and Emma went to live with William's brother's wife. Another lore was that William was murdered in Alaska for gold he was carrying.
Something interesting was that on some of the census' you sent list the race as "R" and there are rumblings among the family of indian blood some where along the line (Emma's line), I think in those days they didn't speak of it, but I think there was something to it.
Also adding the marriage of Maud Mary so the wee one was a sister.
Remember to write all these name down carefully along with husband's names. The witnessing of a sister or someone from this group may be the only proof you'll ever have as there are very few births that were registered in B.C. and without the Currie wedding info this may be all you'll ever get, unless B.C. families have some more information.
She married John Lyne in whose parents home she was boarded out so that ties her in. https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JDDH-C6L
Oh, say, son was Clifford Lyne, and wasn't Ida caring for him in 1911? He's enumerated twice!
The last entry on the 1881 census is interesting, Charles Buschie, the surname is similar to what Emma's daughter had written as Minnie's maiden name. it was hard to read because it had been written over and corrected but looked like Bushie or Rushie or Fushie. I remember because she commented on it being french sounding.
Well I am glad you found a shred of evidence, too bad you hadn't mentioned it or looked closer at the 1881 sooner. Need that marriage info to see who witnessed it.
You mentioned "rumblings" of an aboriginal background ... I can't see how that would matter in any way, except the odd family likely has some pretty fantastic colouring.
It also means you will never find that ancestor as women were though little enough to be of note back then as it was, let alone one of colour.
There is a William Buschie with a large family in the same region as Moffit/Moffat... they say born B.C. and are catholic so there may be some parish records for that part of the family. Because of the remote area, it may be hard to find even those...although there may have been the odd mission records kept...
Ohhh, found this!!! http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccaribo/churches.html
William seemed to miss the voter's list 1875...http://www.archive.org/stream/listofpersonsent1875vict#page/10/mode...
i wasn't having luck looking for the Bouschie name, but as with the phonetics od any language, it is likely butchered into many forms, some listed here:
Jean-Baptiste Boucher, a Métis interpreter and guide who arrived in what was known as New Caledonia in 1806. Known as Waccan, perhaps a derivative of “watchman,” he had a reputation as a fair policeman and a fierce trader. He died of measles in 1849 and was buried in an unmarked grave. His name, including such spellings as Bouche, Bouchie and Buschie, can be found gracing place names through the Quesnel area. As well, hundreds of his descendants still live in the Cariboo.
Great that I saw that association as found this site...and there is a family tree, Charles but not sister Mary...if it turns out she was Boucher. It sounds as though the tree was made up from descendant's contributions...there already are a huge amount of children. Where was the name Buschie? If you have a high quality scan I would love to try and make the image more clear for you...
http://www.quesnelmuseum.ca/RiverofMemory/FrasersExpedition/Waccan/... Click on the tree to peruse...
It was in a piece written by Emma's daughter, Beverly (my g aunt), she had written what she "knew" growing up, a little about her life and what she was told about Emma's life. she wrote it for my cousin Peggy. She said back then you didn't ask any questions. I have it on a pdf file, I could email to you but not a scan. It was a typo that she tried to correct so the first letter is the one I have a problem with. I tried to print it out but it won't print so I keep it on my computer.
I am overwhelmed and thankful for the influx of information and have printed out everything so I can realy study everything carefully.
Since that first post, I have had contact with the grand children of two of Emma's other children, The stories range from those memories of a 6 year old little daughter of Emma's, who was put in an orphanage then sent off to PA to live with the sister of Emma's second husband (in abt 1920)... more stories of Emma's later life in Rural Washington, she lived to be 97 years old and I never knew her... memories from one of Emma's daughters of life with Emma and and the name Minnie Louise Buschie (Fuschie 0r ruschie) as Emma's mother's possible maiden name. A birth place of Red deer Alberta as a birth place for Emma, as well as BC as a birth place for Emma. a story of how Emma's mother died when Emma was 3 years old and Emma sent to live with an Aunt. Another story of how Emma's father (William Schultz) was murdered in Alaska for his gold... Many stories about my own grandmother, Irene Currie (curry), Emma's oldest child (as far as i know) and how she mothered the younger girls. emma was married about 7 times, the later children did not know of her marriage to Currie (curry), they just assumed that Irene and brother Herschel were children of her second husband, Curtis Stillwagon.
So much information to sort out and hopefully make some sense from. thank you again to everyone who sent things to me, especially Jeany who has done some tireless reasearch on this, and may have found a key to my ancestors' past.
Nice to hear it was appreciated.
Notes on Thomas Moffit and how local aboriginals helped by feeding starving gold miners.... he was involved in the Gold rush, and perhaps William Schultz was as well. This one says he had an aboriginal country wife, (no marriage) but she would have been metis/partial if she was part of the Boucher/Buschie family... http://shrinkalink.com/51369
This one also says first nations http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~yvonne/moffitt/ps04/ps04_05...
I know nothing is substantial evidence but you'll need to dig more yourself to find more than clues...I live in the Prairies...
There was a John Schultz in Chilcotin 1887 but I don't see him in any surrounding census dates to try and see if he's related http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccaribo/williams1887.html
Ok the peice written was not on a pdf file like i thought, they are pages labled "windows live photo gallery" so i guess each page is like an individual photo. My cousin had sent them to me, no wonder I couldn't copy and paste the words. | <urn:uuid:3fb5e153-a49c-4638-8005-b02701635988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.looking4kin.com/forum/topics/emma-amelia-schultz?groupUrl=canadiangenealogy&groupId=4527236%3AGroup%3A914&id=4527236%3ATopic%3A19280&page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982982 | 2,506 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Role of Ummah imperative for right to self-determination for Kashmiris: Turabi
Makkah, Aug 2: Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) AJK Abdul Rashid Turabi has urged Ummah to continue their support to the Kashmiri people who were struggling for right to self-determination and freedom.
Turabi expressed these views while addressing to an international conference arranged by Rabta Alam Islami here Sunday.
“India was trying to trample the courage of Kashmiri people and unleashed the worst kind of state terrorism in the region,” he said.
He said that a big number of innocent Kashmiris were being killed through the black laws Pota and Disturbed Areas Act.
“Quaid Hurriyat Syed Ali Shah Gilani among other leaders was imprisoned, “he added.
He said Kashmiris were stopped from offering Friday prayers at Jamia Masjid.
“The only purpose of the Kashmiris struggle was that they are demanding their right of self determination,” he added.
He urged the world leaders of Ummah and other organizations such as Rabta Alam-e-Islami to pressure India to stop state terrorism in the Kashmir and to give due rights to Kashmiris.
He thanked Rabta Alam-e-Islami and Saudi government for solving the problems of Ummah and specially for continuously supporting the Kashmir cause and also expected that Khadim Al Hurmain Sharifain Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz would continue his historical role.
He also appealed the participants and delegations of the conference to support the Kashmiri people in their countries so that India should be pressurized diplomatically and politically to stop the genocide of innocent Kashmiris.
Lastupdate on : Mon, 2 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 2 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 3 Aug 2010 00:00:00 IST
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PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi, Aug 2: The unrest in Kashmir today found its echo in the Lok Sabha with members expressing concern, prompting the government to acknowledge that the situation had taken a "serious turn More
LALIT K JHA
Washington, Aug 2: Pakistan now appears to have overtaken India in the number of atomic war heads, with China having about three times the number of nukes than New Delhi. Pakistan has 70-90 strategic More | <urn:uuid:295ef747-6b54-4bb8-bd53-9fb20d708155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Aug/3/role-of-ummah-imperative-for-right-to-self-determination-for-kashmiris-turabi-19.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942428 | 581 | 1.664063 | 2 |
SADOW: Lame-Duck Grandstanding On The Orleans Parish School Board
One jilted politician went out with a flourish, reminding those who wish to rebuild Louisiana’s elementary and secondary education that the disease that has kept it back can be difficult to eradicate, and its effects may linger.
The rump Orleans Parish School Board, unlike all other districts in the state that have their elections in off-presidential election years, have its conducted during presidential election years. One casualty was outgoing president Thomas Robichaux, in a landslide. It had partly to do with race, since the district he had won in the post-Hurricane Katrina aftermath political chaos was majority black and he is white who faced black opponents, but was exacerbated by the board’s decision earlier this year to raise taxes, which was opposed largely by black residents.
So, Robichaux decided to manufacture an issue out of nothing as a parting gift. No stranger to giving the citizenry a Bronx salute, on the issue of ethics, he gave it another when he spearheaded a move to for the half-dozen schools the district still controls to prohibit the teaching of “creationism” or “intelligent design” in science classes or to allow teachers to use textbooks that in the Board’s opinion did that.
Except, of course, state law already prohibits that. The Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows for use of material and supplementary textbooks in classes to promote critical thinking, also states that in science curricula the law “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.” Yet despite this extraordinarily clear rendering, believe it or not Robichaux actually considers the law “misnamed” and claims it does the exact opposite of what its text obviously indicates.
He’s not the only simpleton out there. A number of Louisiana politicians have criticized the law on the same basis, joined by other special interests as well. All of which indicates people are willing to suspend their critical thinking abilities in order to promote a political agenda through meaningless grandstanding.
And points us exactly to why Louisiana education has lagged the country and the developed world. When political correctness trumps genuine education, you get much of the population – and number of elected officials – who can’t think for themselves, much less logically so and utilizing facts. While this measure may be useless and have no impact at all, that it even was presented as an issue needing addressing speaks very poorly to the reasoning skills and/or desire to put proselytizing ahead of educating of those involved.
Robichaux is gone, along with other OPSB incumbents, hopefully replaced by more sophisticated thinkers. But when you have such dunderheads making education policy, it’s no wonder reforms to improve the critical thinking abilities of children through school performance, teacher abilities, and school board alterations such as term limits are so virulently resisted. Reformers continue to win policy and legal battles, but this attitude shows it’s going to be a long time and long road ahead for improvement that will require stamina by those who care about children. | <urn:uuid:aa12832a-403b-430a-9ee7-39e16977cef8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thehayride.com/2012/12/sadow-lame-duck-grandstanding-on-the-orleans-parish-school-board/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972174 | 665 | 1.664063 | 2 |
That loss of refining capacity has hurt drivers at the pump, and it has worried Delta executives who need to keep the jet fuel flowing.
However, even if Delta makes money from the refinery, airfares are unlikely to drop as a direct result. Route-by-route competition is the main factor in setting airfares.
Delta Air Lines Inc., which is based in Atlanta, said it expects the deal to close by the end of June, with jet fuel production beginning during the third quarter. Changes to expand jet fuel production should be done by the end of the third quarter. Delta said it expects the refinery to pay for itself by the end of the first year of operation.
The state of Pennsylvania is kicking in an expected $30 million in job-creation assistance. The money represents an "opportunity" grant contingent on Monroe Energy investing at least $350 million at the site, including the cost to buy it, and maintaining at least 402 full-time workers there for at least five years, according to Steve Kratz, a spokesman for the state's Department of Community and Economic Development.
Feb. 26--Delta Air Lines is taking the North Dakota oil boom seriously. The Atlanta-based carrier announced Monday that it is adding twice-daily nonstop flights between the Twin Cities and... | <urn:uuid:e6f912e9-b5b7-4651-b038-2681fc781b35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aviationpros.com/news/10707916/delta-air-lines-pays-150-million-for-oil-refinery?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962451 | 265 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Previously, I wrote about different questions that you should ask yourself for selecting the niche or topic for a new blog or website. I wanted to share some thoughts on how focused you will make your niche once you select a general topic or general niche.
What defines a website niche?
There are others who think that a niche is super tight like Android cell phones for American women. I just wonder how many USEFUL and interesting articles or posts could be written about that. Also focusing on a very specific technology means that in a few years your site will be irrelevant to the general public. Only those who haven't moved on to the next big thing would be visiting a site about that. I could imagine that topic as being a great post or article, but as a niche for an entire site or blog, I'm confused. That just seems very short term.
Advantages of a general niche (disadvantages of a focused niche)
A general niche like programming means that you can change and adapt over time to the new technologies as they arrive. Perhaps 10 years ago people were looking for Basic and C programming, but now they are looking for PHP, Ruby, programming for Facebook, and programming for cell phones. It is difficult to guess what will be popular in 5 or 10 years. If you want to start a website or blog that will be used as an asset and perhaps as leverage for other sites and services, a more general niche might be the best for you.
Interests change over time including yours. Perhaps you are all about Reggaeton music now, but next month you'll be listing to Pop and the following to Banda. Locking yourself into a tight niche means that you'll either get bored writing and updating content on your site when your tastes change, you'll be writing off-topic, or your drop or abandon that site for another one. A more general niche will cover your range of tastes and interests in a topic. It will be more timeless and you'll be less likely to repeat yourself from one article to the next.
Advantages of a focused or tight niche (disadvantages of a general niche)
A tight niche for your new blog or website means that you will get more targeted search engine results since your keyword list will be smaller and your articles or posts will be very related. A website about your favorite Chinese food recipes will have similar keywords, but a tight niche about cooking sweet and sour dishes will be very focused. It should be very likely to get on the first page in search engine results for the main keyword(s) of a tightly focused niche.
If there are advertisers or products that match your focused niche, you should also get a higher conversion rate and hopefully make more money. It should also be easier to attract direct advertisers.
A focused niche should get traffic much faster than a general site. The more focused your niche site is, the less competition you should have for your keyword phrase.
Make a choice
You will find people who will swear that you need to have a very focused niche site and others that will swear that you should have a more general niche. I only suggest that you weigh each option carefully after checking out the competition and then stay on topic. People who come to your site about imitation fur coats will be turned off to find articles about your favorite musician. If you can't relate the ideas then it is best to start another site.
I do find it fascinating how many people who advocate tight niche websites often have rather general niche sites not focused sites. It seems that you should do what they say not what they do even if most of their success came from that very website or blog!
How do you feel about niche topics? Are your websites and blogs on focused niches or general topics? Which get the most traffic or earn the most money? | <urn:uuid:67ecc119-9f9c-4708-b068-004785216728> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.crucialbusiness.com/2011/03/selecting-niche-for-your-blog-or.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968603 | 776 | 1.695313 | 2 |
THE Supreme Court today upheld President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s power to declare a state of emergency but ruled that acts committed by government authorities under Proclamation 1017 were illegal.
Voting 11-3, the Court said that while PP 1017 was constitutional, insofar as it constituted a call by Arroyo for the armed forces to prevent or suppress lawless violence, the warrantless arrests and search of the Daily Tribune office were in violation of the law.
On February 24, Arroyo placed the country under a state of national emergency, claiming that there was a leftist-rightist plot to topple her administration. A week after, the president lifted PP 1017, declaring that the alleged “conspiracy” has been successfully dealt with and that peace and order has been restored.
Following the issuance of PP 1017, University of the Philippines professor and Inquirer columnist Randy David, Akbayan national president Ronald Llamas, and members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno were arrested without warrant while they were holding street protests in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Edsa 1.
A day after, police raided the office of the Daily Tribune, after a warning from the Palace that the media should refrain from publishing rumors and baseless information. Malacañang likewise hinted of a possible takeover of public utilities including media organizations.
The Court said that the warrantless arrests of David and Llamas and the dispersal and warrantless arrests of KMU and NAFLU-KMU members were illegal “ in the absence of proof that (they) were committing acts constituting lawless violence, invasion or rebellion and violating BP 880 (or the Public Assembly Act).”
The “warrantless search of the Tribune offices and whimsical seizure of its articles for publication and other materials (is) declared unconstitutional,” the Court added.
The 78-page ruling was penned by Justice Angelina Sandoval Gutierrez.
Those who concurred were Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban and Associate Justices Leonardo A. Quisumbing, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, Antonio T. Carpio, Ma. Alicia Austria-Martinez, Conchita Carpio Morales, Romeo J. Callejo Sr., Adolfo S. Azcuna, Minita V. Chico-Nazario, and Cancio C. Garcia. Panganiban and Justice Ynares-Santiago both wrote separate concurring opinions.
Justice Dante O. Tinga issued a dissenting opinion, concurred in by Justices Renato C. Corona and Presbitero Jr. Velasco Jr. Senior Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno, meanwhile, was on leave.
“PP 1017’s extraneous provisions giving the President express or implied power to direct the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to enforce obedience to all laws even those not related to lawless violence and to impose standards on media or any form of prior restraint on the press, are ultra vires and unconstitutional,” it said.
The Court also held that under Section 17, Article XII of the Constitution, “the President, in the absence of a legislation, cannot take over privately-owned public utility and private business affected with public interest.”
In her concurring opinion, Justice Ynares-Santiago added that as per the powers vested in the president by Article VII, “Arroyo cannot arrogate unto herself the power to take over or direct the operation of any privately owned public utility or business affected with public interest without congressional authorization.”
The Supreme Court further declared General Order No. 5, which implemented PP 1017, as partly valid.
“G.O. No. 5 is constitutional since it provides a standard by which the AFP and the PNP (Philippine National Police) should implement PP 1017, i.e. whatever is ‘necessary and appropriate actions and measures to suppress and prevent acts of lawless violence,”’ the ruling said, “(c)onsidering that ‘acts of terrorism’ have not yet been defined and made punishable by the legislature, such portion of G.O. No. 5 is declared unconstitutional.”
The Court dismissed the claims of the petitioners that PP 1017 was “actually a declaration of Martial Law.” Arroyo, it said, merely invoked her “calling-out power.” But the Court warned that Arroyo must be careful in the exercise of such powers.
Under the calling-out power, the president may order the armed forces to suppress lawless violence, invasion and rebellion; this also involves “ordinary police action,” the ruling stated.
“Every act that goes beyond the President’s calling-out power is considered illegal,” the Court stressed.
The Court said that while Arroyo’s declaration of a “state of rebellion” during the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny “was merely an act declaring a status or condition of public moment or interest” (Section 4, Chapter 2, Book II of the Revised Administrative Code of 1987), PP 1017 “was more than that.”
“In declaring a state of national emergency, President Arroyo did not only rely on Section 18, Article VII of the Constitution, a provision calling on the AFP to prevent or suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion. She also relied on a provision on the State’s extraordinary power to take over privately-owned public utility and business affected with public interest. Indeed, PP 1017 calls for the exercise of an awesome power. Obviously, such Proclamation cannot be deemed harmless,” it said.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Tinga said while PP 1017 and General Order No. 5 “warrant circumspect scrutiny from those interested and tasked with preserving our civil liberties…the plain fact remains that these issuances are valid on their face, and should result in no constitutional or statutory breaches if applied according to their letter.”
To which Panganiban, in his concurring opinion, said: “Let us face it. Even Justice Tinga concedes that under PP 1017, the police — “to some minds” — “may have flirted with power.”
“Some of those who drafted PP 1017 may be testing the outer limits of presidential prerogatives and the perseverance of this Court in safeguarding the people’s constitutionally enshrined liberty. They are playing with fire, and unless prudently restrained, they may one day wittingly or unwittingly burn down the country. History will never forget, much less forgive, this Court if it allows such misadventure and refuses to strike down abuse at its inception. Worse, our people will surely condemn the misuse of legal hocus pocus to justify this trifling with constitutional sanctities,” Panganiban said.
House Minority Floor Leader Francis Escudero welcomed the ruling, saying that the Court, at the very least, recognized the administration’s abuse of its exercise of power under PP 1017.
The Alternative Law Groups also hailed the decision of the Court. “It is a clear indictment of the repressive acts of the Arroyo administration,” ALG spokesperson Marlon Manuel said.
Tribune editor in chief Ninez Cacho-Olivares said she will file administrative and criminal charges against Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, Justice secretary Raul Gonzales, and PNP chief Arturo Lomibao for ordering the raid on their premises.
The Palace, meanwhile, was satisfied with the Court’s decision. Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said they were glad that the Court upheld the government’s right to “protect itself when under attack.”
Read the Supreme Court’s decision on Proclamation 1017 here. | <urn:uuid:3b668d41-c09e-489e-978e-3b97d723b171> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pcij.org/blog/?p=893?p=893 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941989 | 1,659 | 1.5 | 2 |
You don’t have to leave your love of the fine arts behind when you come to Brescia because we offer course work in studio art, graphic design, art education, music and theatre, as well as performance opportunities ranging from working in city theater productions to performing in the Brescia University Choir and Handbell Choir. Learn more about Fine Arts.
The study of humanities lies at the heart of a Brescia University education. In the Humanities Division, students explore literature, language, history, philosophy, and theology. From Cervantes and Molière to Napoleon; from Brigid of Kildare to Immanuel Kant; from Beowulf to Jane Austen and John Updike, the Humanities Division promotes enlightenment through literature, writing, the reading of classic and contemporary texts, the study of history, and the study of other languages and cultures. Learn more about Humanities.
Programs offered in the Brescia Division of Mathematics and Natural Science prepare students for a wide variety of careers. The goal of the Division is to provide students with a strong knowledge base in their majors, as well as many opportunities to develop problem-solving, technological, communication, and leadership skills. Learn more about Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
From its founding, Brescia has been noted for the quality of its School of Education. Brescia challenges teacher education students to become ethical professionals committed to advocacy for their students and committed to instilling in their students a dedication to service for others and a thirst for knowledge. Learn more about School of Education.
Brescia recognizes that each student needs a solid educational grounding within the University’s liberal arts tradition. Every major provides a well-structured and in-depth approach to the student’s primary area of interest, building from the basics to specific, career-related studies. Learn more about Social and Behavioral Sciences.
The School of Business designed their academic programs to prepare students for imaginative and responsible citizenship and leadership roles in business and society. Performance expectations are high for both students in the programs and for graduates in their careers. Learn more about School of Business. | <urn:uuid:f2984230-5c3d-4c1e-8b3b-196dc4dfd3fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brescia.edu/divisions-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954175 | 437 | 1.617188 | 2 |
“Mailer, after all, was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph. He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his.”
David L. Ulin, LA Times Staff Writer
The trouble with reading books by Norman Mailer is there is too much of Norman in them. Such a dominating character in American literary art, to read him is to sense he is trying to dominate the reader as well. To “dazzle and infuriate” as David Ulin says above. His foray into the mysterious nature and ways of Lee Oswald in his Oswald’s Tale is a prime example of that. There are some new tidbits scattered about and his foray into Russia seeking new information regarding Oswald’s time there which is informative, but Mailer is sticking to the script. The Lone Gunman is staying alone. Much of the book features Warren Commission interview transcripts and abundant sections of written work by other authors (largely, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, interviewer of Oswald in Moscow in 1959 and Marina Oswald’s biographer and also, a known CIA dabbler which is never admitted to in this book.) Occasionally, Mailer throws in tasty little morsels of his own to consider.
Mailer back in the day, was a conspiracy believer and then at some point decided the evidence did not merit that view and joined up with the Lone Nut purists where he stayed during his final days. That influence can seen throughout the book. Mailer takes a conventional view of the life of Lee Oswald, though he seems fascinated with forays into his personal habits, idiosyncrasies and sex life. Ironic that Mailer explores Oswald’s sexual habits in detail while ignoring more celebrated topics, such as, was he an intelligence agent as his mother claimed? There are so many controversies here that Mailer never addresses as if he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the thing.
How Mailer Deals With Controversy
Mailer resorts to the same parsing of selective evidence as Posner, Bugliosi, and a host of other Warren Report defenders do. That of course, comes as no surprise.
A case in point his how his handles Oswald’s street scuffle with DRE member Carlos Bringuier while handling out pamphlets for the pro-Castro FPCC which has Oswald arrested, provides him local media time and establishes his persona as a communist in the public’s eye.
But along the way something odd happens that lets us know there is more here than meets the eye. Because Oswald mails a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York vaguely describing the altercation. The trouble is, it was postmarked before the scuffle took place. This one little thing casts doubt on this street tussle being a spontaneous affair and implies it was a preplanned event. In CIA parlance, Oswald was being built a Legend. A common procedure of spy-craft.
And how does our great American literary figure handle this? Mailer recruits cabalist traditions and Classical Hebrew, with notions of calling things into being so as to create one’s future. In Mailer’s words, “To say, therefore, that you have done something that you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future.”
Sure, sure. Mailer resorts to metaphysics while missing the obvious–that Oswald mailed the letter too early for what was apparently a contrived event. Earlier, Oswald had approached the DRE to offer his Marine experience to Carlos Bringuier to train them. He offered them a donation as well and was rebuffed on both counts. It should be pointed out here, that the all Cuban DRE was being trained and financed by the CIA. A fact that Mailer never points out to his readers. Evidently, Oswald was on a fishing expedition, doing the labor of a “dangle” for somebody or some agency.
Frankly, I am perplexed as to why he would resort to this. It’s Mailer the novelist speaking here, not Mailer the seeker of the truth. I find it hard to believe that he even has confidence in these words. It is an odd way to brush off the controversy and it just doesn’t work on many levels. For a man so brilliant to revert to this weirdness is absurd but Mailer does so with no shame at all.
I guess when the mind is made up that there can’t be a conspiracy; that Lee Oswald is only lurching from one delusion and flight of fancy to the next, with no greater cause in effect.
While investigation Lee Oswald’s Russian period, Mailer gets access to KGB transcripts taken from bugs that were placed in Oswald and Marina’s apartment. Ample sections of these are reproduced in the book. Basically, I found them not to add much light on Oswald’s character and it all amounts to a lot of bickering between a newly married couple. It’s essentially boring.
However, one item stands out, and it’s another thing Mailer omits–and that is what language are they speaking in? While it is known that Oswald was an excellent Russian speaker, it is also known that during his time in Russia he didn’t show off that skill that much. He apparently did upon meeting Marina, who thought at first he was a local as he spoke with a Baltic accent. But when socializing with the Ziger family, they report he never spoke Russian in front of them, only in English to their father who understood English. Fearing being arrested for being spy, which he most likely was, Oswald never wanted this skill to be known to those who were listening in on him. It would denote a swift arrest for espionage.
Conversely, his wife Marina was apparently a very good English speaker but spoke little of it when she emigrated over to the United States. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states that he saw Marina’s handwritten notebooks in the National Archives and they were all in English. Lee wrote Marina letters in English to her while living in Russia and those are in evidence. Even mother Marguerite reveals in her Commission testimony detailed conversations she had with her daughter in law–conversations in English, without anyone to render in Russian. Yet Marina needs a translator to give her sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. What is going on here? Evidently, she was under similar pressures in America as Lee was in Russia. Which of course, would fashion her an operative as well. At any rate, both were in a Cold War contest to not reveal too much of who they are and what they know to the Big Players.
And all of this interesting stuff Mailer ignores to create his vision of Lee Oswald as Walter Mitty, with his visions of greatness, constantly encountering dead ends, seeing his destiny smothered before his eyes. The other Oswald, the one that was a shadow warrior for the Home Team, which would explain a lot of his mysterious undertakings, has no place in the narrative, Mailer’s narrative.
The Pay Off
So when the smoke clears we’ve got our lone gunman solely responsible for the act and it’s time to move along. It’s all a sad dream anyway. As I was reading this work, I kept getting the feeling that Mailer would rather have jotted this all down as a novel. After all, he considered the novel to be the apex of literary art, and art he had a gift for. He at times uses the same devices one does in fiction writing and those devices seem out of place, like when invents the metaphysical reason for Oswald’s forecast of a scuffle in a letter before the event happens to work his way out of that mess. This is what a fiction writer does–gives his character some luck out of nowhere to extract himself from a crisis. When Mailer doesn’t wish to deal with something troublesome, he ignores it. At times he seems set on exposing a deep truth and then veers off of it as it if the whole scene got too hot. Towards the end he refers to Lee Oswald as a ghost; the First Ghost he says. As if there are not hundreds of other ghosts haunting the American historical landscape. Once again, a metaphor better suited in fiction.
Oswald’s Tale takes off like it’s going to be an interesting, groundbreaking book, but that never happens as it fades into the same old thing for those of us familiar with the Oswald story. There are lots of fields left fallow, as Mailer never wants to deal with any of the major controversies in the case. After all, that might muddy up the nice, clean story being presented. Even at this late stage in JFK assassination research, by hundreds of researchers, Mailer still thinks the men selected to be a part of the commission were honorable and above reproach. You can still think that so long as your ignore their histories as Mailer does. Like many of his ilk, the Warren Report stands as the final authority on what happened and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the last official government investigation conducted in the late 1970s, which concluded in its report there was a probable conspiracy, is given no consideration at all.
Oswald’s Tale is really the same account of Lee Oswald’s life the Warren Report told us, just with better prose. | <urn:uuid:f76d7c64-4708-4a36-99f5-9417775148e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-review-oswalds-tale-american.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981404 | 2,003 | 1.5 | 2 |
Local Spotlight: Bee Wilde Honey
Kenny Reed started his corporate life as a FedEx courier. He earned a respectable living at a respectable company that most any guy would be thrilled to work for. And he liked it. But one year during the holiday rush Kenny packed his truck like Tetris and he delivered his lot at mach speed. He was proud of his gold-medal performance -- but instead of earning praise, he was called out by his manager for working too fast. This was not the life he wanted to live.
So he quit and followed a burgeoning passion by going to work for the commercial beekeeper in nearby Navasota. There he grew his own colony of bees and learned the basics of commercial beekeeping. But since his 150 hives were not really enough to earn a living, Kenny returned to work as a part-time courier. As his hives grew, so did his interest, until one day his mentor invited him to take bees to North Dakota, where they went to make honey each year at the end of the summer. So Kenny scheduled a vacation from work and began to make preparations. If it worked out, the 400 colonies would make enough honey to pay for his expenses, plus a little extra to grow his new business... And if it didn't work, he'd still have his job to fall back on. He was ready, the bees were ready, the transport truck was ready... and then Kenny's boss canceled his vacation. Too many couriers were already out, he said.
Kenny wrote his final resignation note that night and left for North Dakota. He spent nine glorious weeks learning from a beekeeper that runs a gargantuan 20,000 colonies of honey bees -- tending to the hives, learning the plants and pollens, and collecting honey. Every minute was golden. And that is how Kenny Reed turned his hobby and passion into a business.
Today, Kenny manages about 1,400 colonies of bees. He searches high and low for the specific wild blossoms that produce a super-tasting combination of native nectars. The Reeds use them to make two varieties of honey: a delicious local honey and a Huajilla/Guajillo, which is milder, slightly smoky, and much lighter in color. For those of you looking to cut back a bit on sugar, honey is a natural sweetener, full of healthy enzymes and plant pollens. Use it on your oatmeal or cereal in the morning, or add it to meats and veggies for a lightly sweet glow. The Reeds even tout their honey for allergy relief: Unfiltered, raw honey produced within a 100-mile radius still contains trace amount of plant pollen, so eating a tablespoon or so every day, they say, can relieve the symptoms of plant- and pollen-related allergies.
Kenny, a busy bee himself, mans the hives daily, while his wife Wendy handles the bottling and delivery. Wendy's also in charge of transforming the beeswax into candles, lip balm, lotion bars, and furniture polish, so that almost nothing goes to waste. It is a pleasure to support these two people who are as sweet as the honey they sell, and as hardworking as those gently buzzing bees.
Where: You can find Bee Wilde honey and honeycomb at the Urban Harvest Farmers' Market on Eastside every Saturday. Want to sample it first? You'll also find Bee Wilde used at Catalan, Haven, Benjy's and Ruggles. Even cooler, the new Rohan Meadery is using Bee Wilde honey in their batches of mead. So drink up -- it's for your health. | <urn:uuid:965b2c29-da5f-4a14-8f01-e1803a7c035c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2010/09/local_spotlight_bee_wilde_hone.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982116 | 747 | 1.59375 | 2 |
CNN Wants 'Fix' from the 'Broken Government' for Hungry Children
CNN apparently missed the irony of using a segment called “Broken Government” to demand that the government address child hunger.
“Talk about mad as hell,” CNN’s Kyra Phillips said, introducing the Feb. 25 segment. “Every day a child goes hungry, a food pantry struggles, a parent loses a job. Today: Broken Government and hunger in
After mentioning examples of children in
Both guests attacked the tragedy of child hunger from the left and made no mention of private charity to solve the problem. Williamson criticized government “corruption” stemming from the “overinfluence” of money.
She complained about the rich getting richer saying, “we have accelerated the flow of wealth in this country upwards to such an extent over the last 40 or 50 years, so many of our political policies favor those who already have.” But Williamson didn’t explain how that has anything to do with the problem of children going hungry.
Phillips asked Dodson what she’s trying to do to fix “what we’re seeing every day, which is our children, our families suffering.”
Dodson responded by promoting the top liberal priority of health care reform, without clearly connecting it to child hunger.
“The top one of course is health reform, the bills that are pending right now will invest in expanding coverage and access for low income people. But we also have Congress turning its attention to the child nutrition programs.”
Phillips didn’t include anyone to discuss personal or corporate charity or private solutions to child hunger. | <urn:uuid:84339513-6525-4424-8379-c5698b703a9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrc.org/articles/cnn-wants-fix-broken-government-hungry-children | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933372 | 351 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A unique opportunity to learn all those elite running drills that top quality athletes keep to themselves. The 400m run is quite an awful distance which features frequently in Crossfit workouts. A knowledge of sprint mechanics is invaluable.
The session lasts one and half hours. It begins with a quick warm up and a 400m run. We will then learn “the drills”. The session concludes with , hopefully, an improved 400m ( or to put it another way… another 400m sprint) This session is open to all: but, by implication, you need to be fit enough to give a 400m run ago. No one will judge you if you are “Bad”, and we will offer a 200m sub if needed.
While its not compulsory, please bring a video camera/i-phone so we can record how you run 400m and make improvement suggestions.
This will appear in the normal class schedule, so you can attend this “masterclass” for what it normally costs for your class
look under saturday 13 April 2013
This session will be led by Grace Brown.
Grace has a strong background within sport, 14 years playing Table Tennis Nationally and Internationally competing all over Europe and England. For the last 10 years she switched from Table Tennis to 800m track running and still competes at county level. | <urn:uuid:de1c4108-c844-4b70-80e7-820d5b9090b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crossfitlondonuk.com/blog/2013/02/20/the-400m-class/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937436 | 277 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Later in the afternoon she confessed to a fear of balloons since childhood. But she didn't know why. As a child, she had been ambivalent about birthday parties. Isn't your father a policeman? I asked. He was a cop, no less, with a dark sense of humor. (This blog’s legal team has instructed me to go no further than to note that Dad had once tried to freak out Mom by planting CSI-type evidence in the freezer.) Then it occurred to me: my friend’s fear might have stemmed from her dread over balloons popping, a sound not unlike that of some low-caliber handguns. That, she responded, made some sense. But she just wasn’t sure about the cause and origins of her fear, which is clinically known as globophobia.
Fears for the Rest of Us. Praise the gods of randomness! you might be thinking, for having spared you, your family, and your friends from balloon terrors and other surprising phobias (see Wikipedia's phobia roster). But don't sigh so fast! Many of us have imbibed phobic cocktails collectively. A generation ago bolshaphobia (fear of communists) and nucleomituphobia (fear of nuclear weapons) were all the rage. When I visited my dentist a month after 9/11, he noted that business was booming—his patients were grinding and breaking teeth, fillings, and crowns faster than he could say, Please rinse. And now as we move on with our lives, the specter of accelerating global warming must certainly be taking its collective psychic toll and stoking the therapist’s time-honored mantra--I’m sorry, but we have to stop.
Rx for the Author of Wig & Pen. Since little is normal about this blog, you won’t be surprised to learn that its proprietor is in the vanguard among those with an aspiring collective phobia. It involves the Kessler Syndrome, which entails the scary geometric progression of space junk. Here’s how it works. Most artificial satellites travel just outside the earth’s atmosphere in low-Earth orbits. That allows them to communicate effectively with the earth’s surface and to do exciting things like snooping on military and business facilities. When one of these satellites breaks up, either due to collisions or to deliberate destruction (in 2007 the Chinese blew up their Fengyun-1C spacecraft while testing an antisatellite weapon), it exudes thousands of pieces, each which can take out other satellites. Thus, space junk begets more space junk, which begets much more space junk. Stopping the proliferation involves forcing the junk into the earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up. Proposals include deflecting the junk with lasers or through collisions with special satellites made from super-strong light-weight materials.
Such science high-jinx gives little solace to Wig & Pen’s afflicted blogster, but as a name, the Kessler Syndrome has a ring worth suffering for. Had George Costanza or Alvy Singer [Woody Allen's role in Annie Hall ] the chance, they might have embraced it with angst. Shouldn’t the name of both the phobia and the junk-generating phenomenon be one and the same? And shouldn’t the author of Wig & Pen be the first to earn the diagnosis?
|The Kessler Syndrome| | <urn:uuid:a79c4b2c-2b86-43af-aadc-4ac19ab4c462> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wigpen.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944348 | 712 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The Community of Disc Golfers and About All Things Disc Golf
I was just wondering what people think the keys to throwing the disc with the nose down are?
I often see the pros throw the disc 40 feet in the air and the disc is still flying level and doesn't stall out. How do they do this?
They are throwing a stable to slightly overstable disc with enough power to get it to "S".
First, find a spot between you and your target 50' in front of you. Place an empty beverage can there (Preferably 16 or 24 oz).
Next grip the disc firmly with your thumb directly above your index finger squeezing the disc between the two FIRMLY. Angle the disc so that you can't see your thumbnail anymore.
Now envision the disc tearing the can in half by flying through it. Do your absolute best to tear that can in half and your disc will fly flat, four feet off the ground.
Nice xian421. My self, I use visualization. I visualize how I want the disc to move and think about how my body would feel while it's moving to create the same flight. There are about a thousand reasons to want your disc to be nose up or nose down. Here are some of the most obvious ones: When throwing a disc high that you don't want to "fluff", when throwing over anything, when throwing in a tail wind, when throwing in a head wind, when PUTTING over or under anything, in intense side winds, when throwing and anhyzer that you want to turn extra right/down, when throwing a hyzerbomb, when throwing rollers, when you want your disc to flip earlier, when you don't want your disc to skip/carry farther than your target, when throwing stuff thats really stable, when putting towards a down hill, when putting down hill...
Flat , Flat , Flat ........................Some do not know how to throw Nose Down after 10 years of playing !!!! LOL !!! | <urn:uuid:b9b90e14-a8bc-4030-aae7-a9bebf5e8239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://discgolfer.ning.com/forum/topics/throwing-the-disc-nose-down?commentId=1809917%3AComment%3A2547395 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949507 | 409 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The coming of the Golden Age
The coming of the Golden Age
"During the passage of time, the consciousness of men traversed a very long period of obscurity. This phase which the Hindus call "Kali Yuga", is on the verge of ending. We find ourselves today at the frontier between two epochs: that of Kali Yuga and that of the New Era that we are entering.
A gradual improvement is already occurring in the thoughts, feelings and acts of human beings, but everybody will soon be subjugated to divine Fire, that will purify and prepare them in regards to the New Era. Thus man will raise himself to a superior degree of consciousness, indispensable to his entrance to the New Life. That is what one understands by "Ascension".
Some decades will pass before the coming of this Fire, that will transform the world by bringing into it a new moral. This immense wave comes from cosmic space and will inundate the entire earth. All those that attempt to oppose it will be carried off and transferred elsewhere – meaning that they as souls, will have to reincarnate elsewhere.
Although the inhabitants of this planet do not all find themselves at the same degree of evolution, the new wave will be felt by each one of us. And this transformation will not only touch the Earth, but the entire Cosmos.
The best and only thing that a man can do now is to turn towards God and improve himself consciously, to elevate his vibratory level, so as to find himself in harmony with the powerful wave that will soon submerge him.
The Fire of which I speak, that accompanies the new conditions offered to our planet, will rejuvenate, purify, reconstruct everything: matter will be refined, your hearts will be liberated from anguish, troubles, incertitudes, and they will become luminous; everything will be improved, elevated; negative thoughts, feelings and acts will be consumed and destroyed.
Your present life is slavery, a heavy prison. Understand your situation and liberate yourself from it. I tell you this: get out of your prison! It is really sorry to see so much misleading, so much suffering, so much incapacity to understand where one's true happiness lies.
Everything that is around you will soon collapse and disappear. Nothing will be left of this civilization nor of its perversity; the entire earth will be shaken and no trace will be left of this erroneous culture that maintains men under the yoke of ignorance. Earthquakes are not only mechanical phenomens, their goal is also to awaken the intellect and the heart of humans, so that they liberate themselves from their errors and their follies and that they understand that they are not the centers of the universe.
Our solar system is now traversing a region of the Cosmos where a constellation that was destroyed left its mark, its dust. This crossing of a contaminated space is a source of poisoning, not only for the inhabitants of the earth, but for all the inhabitants of the other planets of our galaxy. Only the suns are not affected by the influence of this hostile environment. This region is called "the thirteenth zone"; one also calls it "the zone of contradictions". Our planet was enclosed in this region for thousands of years, but finally we are approaching the exit of this space of darkness and we are on the point of attaining a more spiritual region, where more evolved beings live.
The earth is now following an ascending movement and everyone should learn to harmonize themselves with the currents of this ascension. Those who refuse to accept this orientation, will lose the advantages of the good conditions that will be offered in the future to elevate themselves. They will remain behind in evolution and will have to wait tens of millions of years for the coming of a new ascending wave.
The earth, the solar system, the universe, all are being put in a new direction under the impulsion of Love. Most of you still consider Love as a derisory force, but in reality, it is the greatest of all forces! Money and power continue to be venerated as if the course of our livers depended upon it. In the future, all will behave according to cosmic Love and serve it. But it is through suffering and difficulties that the consciousness of man will be awakened.
The terrible predictions of the prophet Daniel written in the bible relates to the epoch that is opening. There will be floods, hurricanes, gigantic fires and earthquakes that will sweep away everything. Blood will flow in abundance. There will be revolutions; terrible explosions will resound in numerous regions of the earth. There where there is earth, water will come, and there where there is water, earth will come. God is Love; yet what we are dealing with here is a chastisement, a reply by Nature against the crimes perpetrated by humanity since ancient times, against their Mother; the Earth.
After these sufferings, those that will have been saved because of their past merits, will know the Golden Age, harmony and unlimited beauty. Thus, keep your peace and your faith when the time comes for suffering and terror, because it is written that not a hair will fall from the head of the just. Don't be discouraged, simply follow your work of inner betterment.
You have no idea of the grandiose future that awaits you. A New Earth will soon see day. In a few decades, physical work will be less tiring, and every one will have the time to consecrate themselves to spiritual, intellectual and artistic activities. The question of exchanges between men and women will finally be solved in harmony; each one having the possibility of following their own aspirations. The relations of couples will be founded on common respect and esteem. Humans will voyage spiritually through different planes and breakthrough intergalactic space. They will study their functioning and will rapidly be able to know the Divine World, to link themselves with the Head of the Universe.
The New Era is that of the sixth race. Your predestination is to prepare yourself for it, to welcome it and to live it. The sixth race will build itself around the idea of Fraternity. There will be no more conflicts of personal interests; the single aspiration of every individual will be to live accordingly to the Law of Love. The sixth race will be that of Love. A new continent will be formed for it. It will emerge from the Pacific, so that the Highest can finally establish His place on this planet.
The founders of this new civilization, I call them "Brothers of Humanity" or also "Children of Love", will be unshakeable in virtue and will represent a new type of men. Humanity will form a family, just like a large body, and every person will represent an organ in this body. In the new race, Love will manifest in such a perfect manner, that today's humanity can only have a very vague idea of it.
The earth will remain for some time, a favourable place for struggles, but the forces of darkness will retreat and the earth will be liberated from them. Human beings, in seeing that there is no other path, will engage themselves on the path of the New Life, that of salvation. In their senseless pride, some will try to continue to lead on earth a life that the Divine Order condemns, but everyone will finally understand that the direction of the world doesn't belong to them.
A new culture will see the light of day, it will rest on three principal foundations: the elevation of woman, the elevation of the meek and humble, and the protection of the rights of man.
Light, good and justice will triumph; it is just a question of time. The religions should be purified. Each contains a particle of the Teachings of the Masters of Light, but obscured by the incessant supply of human deviation. All the believers will have to unite and put themselves in agreement with one principal, that of placing Love as the basis of all beliefs, whatever they may be. Love and Fraternity: those will be our common bases!
The earth will soon be swept by extraordinary rapid waves of Cosmic Electricity. A few decades from now, beings that are bad and have lead others astray, will not be able to support their intensity. They will thus be absorbed by the Cosmic Fire that will consume the bad that they possess. Then they will repent because it is written that "every flesh shall glorify God".
Our mother, the earth, will get rid of men that do not accept the New Life. She will reject them like damaged fruits. They will soon not be able to reincarnate on this planet; criminals included. Only those that possess Love in them will remain.
There is not a single place on earth that has not been dirtied with human or animal blood; it must therefore submit to a purification. And it is for this reason that certain continents will be immersed underwater, while others will surface.
Men do not suspect the dangers that they are confronted with. They continue to pursue futile objectives and seek pleasure. On the contrary, those of the sixth race will be conscious of the dignity of their roles in nature and respectful of the liberty of every living creature. They will nourish themselves exclusively from products of the vegetal realms. Their ideas will have the power to circulate freely as the air and light of our days. The words "If you are not born again." apply to the sixth race. Read Chapter 60 of Isaiah, it relates to the coming of the sixth race: the Race of Love.
After the Tribulations, men will cease to sin and will walk on the path of virtue again. The climate of our planet will be moderate everywhere and brutal variations will no longer exist. The air will once again become pure, and the same will be true of water. All parasites will disappear. Men will remember their previous incarnations, and they will feel the pleasure of noticing that they are finally liberated from their previous condition.
Just as we get rid of the parasites and dead leafes that cover a vine, so do the evolved Beings act, in order to prepare men to serve the God of Love. They give them good conditions to grow and to develop themselves, and to those that want to listen to them, they say: "Do not be afraid! Still a little more time and everything will be all right; you are on the good path. May he that wants to enter in the New Culture study, and consciously work and prepare himself."
Thanks to the idea of Fraternity, the earth will become a blessed place, and this will not have to wait. But before, great sufferings will be sent to awaken the consciousness. Sins accumulated for thousands of years must be redeemed. The ardent wave emanating from On High will contribute in liquidating the karma of peoples.
The liberation can no longer be postponed. Humanity must prepare itself for the great and unescapable trials that are coming to bring an end to egoism.
Under the earth, something extraordinary is preparing itself. A revolution that is so grandiose and completely inconceivable will manifest itself soon in nature. God has decided to redress the earth, and He will do it!
It is the end of an epoch; a new way of living will substitute the old, and Love will reign on earth."
Peter Deunov - Propos sur l’Avenir - 1944Adaptation : Olivier de Rouvroy - September 2003 | <urn:uuid:9f474b83-338f-4e31-9e97-b56cc86b02a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/showthread.php?p=79932&mode=linear | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95605 | 2,319 | 1.507813 | 2 |
China Beyond – Change & ContinuityBy Kunal Sinha
With 200 million households belonging to the consuming classes, China’s second to fourth tier cities are arguably the most important consumer segment in the whole world. But they are tight-fisted. In 2011, advertising spend in Tier 2-3 markets was 4.37 times that in the Tier 1 markets, while the consuming class population is 7 times greater.
For the third time in the last seven years Ogilvy & Mather China’s consumer insights and trends team Discovery revisited these lower tier markets. Between August 2011 and March 2012 the team, in cooperation with TNS China, conducted field research in 3 provincial capitals (Chengdu, Changsha and Shenyang), 3 prefecture level cities and 3 county towns in Sichuan, Hunan and Liaoning provinces, covering a diverse expanse of geographic, cultural and economic regions. The study was conducted through home interviews with 48 families, 60 retailers, and 15 internet cafe owners, combined with observations in shopping malls and public parks. 80% of the respondent families were native to their city, 20% were migrants. The quantitative study, amongst 2200 middle class families, surveyed their beliefs and attitudes towards family, life, risk, novelty, ambition and fashion. The study also aimed to map out their shopping, media and entertainment habits and identify influences on purchase decisions.
What did we discover?
There were some constants, and there is a lot of change that has occurred here. While the traditional values in the form of family ties remain intact, there is the emergence of a new breed of youth who do not necessarily want to abide by the expectations of their family. Spurred by job creation in the hinterland, the availability of good quality housing and education, and a relaxed pace of life, the first wave of reverse migration is in swing: particularly amongst those who went to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou a decade ago only to find that after years of hard work, they can neither afford to buy homes or cars, nor pay for their child’s education. Such is the interest in new brands that shoppers are embracing e-commerce with enthusiasm, snapping up deals on goods that are not available in their local shops. The residents are hungry for new experiences, and local business people who are able to offer them in the new shopping malls can keep them occupied for hours – because these people have the time.
Notably, we found that:
- Food safety, environmental pollution and the rising cost of property and healthcare are the top concerns. These fears are based on the residents’ own experiences, amplified by the rapid sharing of experiences through the internet. Some local brands are tapping into this anxiety by marketing their products as ‘ecologically safe’ or natural – even as the consumer remains skeptical about these claims.
- There is a rise in compassion, a belief in community values that is leading to community action. Many young people, particularly the post 90s generation that was once labeled as being selfish and ungrateful, are coming forward in order to make a difference. This is an expressive generation, their response to events and news is usually very emotional, and their solutions to problems often creative.
- Lower tier residents appreciate their more natural and relaxed environment. In comparison to 2nd tier cities, many of which are currently in the midst of a construction boom, those living in tier 3 and 4 believe that their towns are not polluted, offer a more relaxed lifestyle, have lower living costs, good public transportation and good public security. Interestingly, a majority of 4th tier residents want to be entrepreneurs, whereas those in the 2nd and 3rd tier would prefer stable government or SOE (state-owned enterprise) jobs.
- There is seasonality in purchase that goes beyond Chinese New Year. This is most marked when teenage children leave home to go to university, or – importantly for the lower tier – join the army. Parents buy their children new mobile phones, laptop computers, sports wear and casual clothes, all deemed necessary for their challenging years ahead. China has also come up with its own version of the Thanksgiving shopping orgy: Singles Day on November 11, when online retailers racked up huge sales mainly from tier 2-4 shoppers, many of whom lapped up discounts on winterwear just at the onset of the season.
- The affinity with open spaces continues to be strong. As reported in the previous studies, in lower tier cities, many engagements and interactions happen in public. There are however, many more opportunities and spaces for people to hang out and spend time with their families and friends. New public parks have emerged, as have ‘scenic pots’ near the cities. The new shopping malls have large interaction and entertainment zones where brands are encouraging visitors to sing, dance, roller-blade, fly kites, and paint on graffiti walls.
- Counterfeit brands have taken their game upmarket. Three years ago, we found lots of fake FMCG and consumer durable brands. This time around – perhaps because of crackdowns on harmful products by the local authorities, they were not as visible. Instead, we found copycat luxury hotels : Hiyatt (fake Hyatt) and Marvelot (fake Marriott), fake fashion brands like Jack Walk (fake Jack Jones, right next door) and S-Squared (fake D-Squared). As the first wave of luxury shoppers takes root in the lower tier, this will be a learning experience for them.
- The mobile internet has taken over, and online shopping needs local connectors. Youth and itinerant entrepreneurs alike are using QQ rather than sending text messages, they are comparing prices before deciding where to buy, and listening to music over a digital device is the most preferred leisure activity across the city tiers. As a brand, Apple enjoys universal recognition, but few people own it, saying that other brands were ‘good enough for their needs’. Much as they appreciate the choice, deals and convenience of online shopping, many are unsure about the quality of goods and seek guidance from experienced, trusted sources within their wider social circle.
In many ways, China, though still vast, has become a considerably smaller country in the three years since we last took a deep-dive look at its inner provinces Its lower tier environs are no longer a world away. Not least among the drivers of this change is the expansion of the internet, and other digital innovations, which have meant that Chinese consumers are much more aware of the world outside their town or city than they once were, even if they have not migrated themselves. Not only do lower-tier consumers know more about the way their country is run, informed by a diversity of information sources beyond the reach of State monitoring, they are also are able to participate in movements beyond their immediate environment, to comment on and contribute to debates on issues until recently beyond their reach, and to satisfy their desire for the high-tier income, lifestyle and shopping opportunities, whilst also remaining close to their families in their lower tier.
Five years ago, we found that people in China’s small towns were fiercely protective and proud of their traditional crafts and culture. Now they remain proud, but want to embrace modernity in not only what they wear, but also in the way they’re doing up their homes, in their consumption of entertainment, and even what they’re eating. The local versions of Starbucks are doing roaring business.
China’s home owners may have until very recently not been much inclined to invest hard-earned money in refurbishment and interior decoration, now a surprising number of consumers are living in relatively new homes and choosing to customize their homes; not primarily, as was once the case, to display economic wealth and prestige to others, as one did with a gold necklace or leather jacket in the early days of reform, but for themselves, in pursuit of comfort, or aesthetics, as exercises of self-actualization – in order to fashion for themselves their own worlds.
The macro-economic and infrastructural change has been accompanied by immense social change. It is something of a myth to say that the “Open Door” reforms suddenly changed China from an egalitarian Communist society into a hedonistic, self-centered society. Yet that is the way that a broad swathe of China’s populace talks about the reforms, recognizing that the promise of material comforts and emancipation implicit in the new consumerist culture has been so obviously inequitably distributed – accessible only to those who can pay for it.
But social and economic inequality hasn’t stopped people from investing in the “Chinese Dream”, however: of opening a store and becoming your own boss. This espoused dream recurs with remarkable consistency across the three provinces and the various city-tiers we studied. With similar, relevant consistency, we have found that shows that the ladder for social advancement is just that: a narrow set of progressive steps towards some collectively-imagined future: study like a slave to graduate from high school, get into university if you can, graduate, find a job by fair means or foul, find a spouse, marry and reproduce almost immediately. Our study shows how young people struggle to carve out futures alternative to this model despite immense pressure from the collective cultural imagination.
The book is now available to purchase. Please contact the author at email@example.com for details.
You may also like: | <urn:uuid:859f890a-78ad-4eaa-96a8-e94545200ebe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ogilvydo.com/china-beyond-change-continuity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968989 | 1,934 | 1.75 | 2 |
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If you want a well-rounded background in communication that is applicable to a wide variety of career fields, then this major is for you. Communication studies focuses on the three pillars of communication:
The major is valuable for you if you're planning to go on to graduate school, or if you're interested in politics, pre-law, speech writing, sales, media criticism and other communication careers that emphasize the personal over the technological.
Students involved with communication studies often join the forensics team where they practice and compete in the art of public speaking. Last year SUNY Plattsburgh's division III Forensic team returned from the annual NY State Forensic Championship Tournament with 11 state finalists in six of the competition events. The team's performance placed third behind NYU and Suffolk College (both division II schools) and ahead of Cornell University (last year's national champions for division III). SUNY Plattsburgh's Forensic team consists of a mix of American as well as international students.
The "big gun" for the Plattsburgh team was, once again, Matthew Iscoe (the team's only New Yorker). Matt took 1st in After-dinner Speaking, 3rd in Program Oral Interpretation, 4th in Informative Speaking and 5th in Poetry Interpretation. Matt's efforts also won him 5th place in the coveted pentathalon competition, making him the fifth best overall speaker in the state.
Albania's Alba Struga took 2nd place in both Informative Speaking and Rhetorical Criticism. Katie Line, from Vermont, placed sixth in both Dramatic Interpretation and Informative Speaking. Bulgarian, Donika Dimovska finished 3rd in Rhetorical Criticism. Sei Eguchi, from Japan, took 2nd place in After-Dinner Speaking and Dominica's Marvelle Roberts was 6th in Poetry Interpretation. With the Forensic team doing so well, there's always room for more students to carry the torch in this prestigious field.
For more information about communication studies programs at SUNY Plattsburgh, or to arrange a campus visit, please contact
Shakuntala Rao, Chairperson
Office: Yokum Hall 202D
Phone: (518) 564-4291 | <urn:uuid:a597ff0b-0158-40c1-99b3-039a00ced29c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jessa.karki@plattsburgh.edu/academics/communication/commajor.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950225 | 478 | 1.5 | 2 |
NGO Review – WINGS
Sex en la Ciudad
Sex. Sex, sex, sex. To say it’s fun is an understatement. Really, if it wasn’t, would you still be sitting on that bench in Parque Central, watching those new hot chicks in town? If sex sucked (in a bad way) would you be spending a Tuesday morning sunrise holding onto your wooden plank of a barstool, nursing that last shot of mezcal that the hottie from Lord knows where bought you before she disappeared to prepare for her Spanish lesson?
But when the afterglow fades, Antigua’s expats, visitors and language students have all the resources we need to minimize most of the unpleasant consequences of our mammalian drives.
For many Guatemalans, though, the consequences of a night of lovin’ can be much more serious. Nearly 40% of Guatemalans live on less than $2 per day. That’s barely enough to buy your date a Gallo. STI screening, contraceptives, and prenatal care are out of reach for most. Throughout Guatemala, illiteracy is high and access to health care is startlingly low. Only 38% of Guatemalan women use any form of birth control. As a result, the average Guatemalan woman has 4 to 5 children.
For many Guatemalan women sex can be deadly. Cervical cancer, which is frequently caused by HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in women of reproductive age. Furthermore, the maternal mortality rate in Guatemala is the highest in Central America. One woman in every 74 is at risk of dying during childbirth or shortly thereafter, mostly due to malnutrition, abortion complications, and a lack of reproductive health services.
It’s not that Guatemalan women don’t want to have control over their reproductive health – almost a third report an unmet desire for family planning services. However, educational, financial, and geopolitical obstacles keep those needs from being met. Fortunately, WINGS, a local NGO, is dedicated to giving Guatemalans the opportunity to make informed choices about their reproductive health, and so improve their quality of life.
Since gaining 501c(3) status in 2000, WINGS has been working primarily in the departments of Esquintla, Sacatepequez, Sololá and Chimaltenango (though it has a presence throughout the country) to make sex safer for Guatemalans. WINGS’ staff, a blend of Guatemalan, North American, and European women and men, runs three primary programs. WINGS’ Family Planning Initiative helps Guatemalan women claim their basic human right to decide how many children to have, when to have them, and with whom. The program provides family planning education and helps to defray the cost of long and short-term birth control. The Youth Program teaches Guatemalan teenagers about sexual health and responsibility, and trains them to educate their friends and families. And WINGS’ Cervical Cancer Program provides low-cost or free cervical cancer screening and treatment for thousands of Guatemalan women every year.
WINGS has recently introduced several new projects, including a microcredit project that enables trained healthcare promoters to provide family planning necessities to their communities while creating small businesses to lift themselves out of poverty. In addition, WINGS is introducing WINGS for MEN, which aims to teach Guatemalan men about sexual health and responsible fatherhood. And, WINGS is launching Guatemalan’s first sexual and reproductive health site for teenagers!
Anyone who’s passed a Wednesday night listening to Tom and Willie play “The Antigua Shuffle” knows how to get involved in Guatemalan sex. But if you want to get involved in Guatemalan sexual health, start by checking out WINGS’ website at www.wingsguate.org, where you can read more about the organization’s background and current projects. A few Q’s go a long way, too: Q100 pays for 1 woman to be screened for cervical cancer, and Q500 buys all the training materials for 10 men in the new WINGS for MEN program (donations are accepted online, or at the office at 7a Avenida Sur, #3a, just north of Rainbow Café and across the street). Or treat yourself to sinfully delicious WINGS chocolate from Chocotenango. Proceeds from the sales support the project.
Please find out more about Wings by visiting their website at www.wingsguate.org
Read more stories from NGO | <urn:uuid:215523bb-5d8a-499f-8819-36a0a157130a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lacuadraonline.com/reviews/ngo-review/ngo-review-wings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939977 | 945 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Why use Joomla CMS?
Joomla is a content management system that allows you to create, edit, and publish content online. Basically Joomla is an easy to use tool designed to help you make and modify Web, intranet, and extranet sites.
This PHP-based application is an open source program meaning that it is entirely free. Joomla was made and is continually being improved by a community of programmers. This program is perfect for people who don’t have much of a background in site computing and programming. It is also suited for groups or individuals who are working on a budget but at the same time would like to make sites quickly and easily.
You can use Joomla to create both personal and commercial sites. You can design blogs, company websites, online shopping marts, Web newspapers, etc. with this free application. It is a truly versatile tool to use. Joomla has a huge following and there are numerous established names who are active users. Examples of marquee companies that used or still use Joomla to build Websites are Harvard University, Citibank, MTV, Porsche, and Linux.
Joomla was founded in 2005 and is based in the UK. It is continually being developed and has already launched a number of different versions on to the market. It is also Web-based. With this in mind, you can actually develop a site using Joomla from whatever location you are in as long you have access to the Internet.
What you will notice with Joomla CMS is that it is very intuitive. Commands and tabs make use of straightforward language and can be easily recognized and understood. Even someone with zero IT background can quickly learn to master it. If you need more detailed help, you can visit Joomla’s forum page and search for the information that you need. You can even post queries in their community section and you will be sure to receive a response from the program’s thousands of loyal users.
Professional looking websites which before would have required hundreds if not thousands of man-hours to complete can now be made almost effortlessly with Joomla. This is because this program is code-free unlike before where you would have to use a number of programming languages in order to set up a website. Sites made with Joomla are made up of a frontend and a backend. The frontend basically is what the public can see and access on your site. The backend on the other hand is for administrators and authorized users only. In creating, changing, developing your frontend you need to utilize the backend of your site.
Page layouts can be made using thousands of designs available on the program’s site. Most are free though you can choose more elaborate ones for a fee. Free layouts can be altered to conform to your taste and preferences. Designing Web pages can be done in minutes since all you need to do is just select and click from a list of choices found on the site.
Layout templates found in Joomla will normally have the appearance of a typical Web site (possessing a series of menus and options), which can significantly cut the time that you need to make a site. You also have the option to add, remove or transfer functionalities in a site template.
Another thing that you can do with Joomla is add plug-ins or components to your site instantly. This feature is especially useful if you are running a commercial website. You may choose to include for example payment and shopping options for your customers or clients. You can even add language features on your site for visitors from other countries.
Joomla has made website design easy and convenient. Now, non-technical persons can undertake content management work that before could have only been accomplished by highly knowledgeable and experienced programmers. | <urn:uuid:bf18c57b-dfcd-49e0-a193-3a8403e0a59b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.joomlatag.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=9:joomla-cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956539 | 779 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Did you know that the term "speaking circuit" originated in 1800s, when it was literally a single circuit around the country and speakers like Mark Twain travelled along it on horses? Today the speaker circuit is a figure of speech (pun intended) as there are so many different way to spread information, and it would be silly to put all the speakers on the same route.
My personal speaking circuit started at San Francisco last night, when I spoke at Ignite Where. I was invited last Wednesday, and needed to come up with a topic quickly, so I went meta and talked about talking!
Ignite has a very rigid format: 5 minutes with 20 auto-advancing slides, 15 seconds each. To prepare for the talk, I made slides out of little pieces of paper and timed myself with a wrist watch.
It was hard to get the timing right. Sometimes I would go under, sometimes I would go over. The worst was when I went under and marched ahead into the next slide, and misremembered the sequence. I practiced maybe 6 or 7 times, and concluded that I would not transition to the next slide until the auto advancing happened. That way I know for sure what is on the next slide!
Ignite was at 7pm last night. There were 12 speakers, and we talked back to back. I was really, really nervous. Normally I am fine rambling on for 20 or more minutes, but the auto-advancing slides made me feel out of control.
I was second to go on stage, and the talk actually went pretty well!
A few people approached me today, telling me that they loved my talk. Not bad for my public speaking debut! Tomorrow I'm flying to Chicago to speak at WindyCityGo, and next week I will be in Philadelphia for Philly ETE. Both of them are tech talks, so they won't be as entertaining. But I hope people will love them just the same! | <urn:uuid:fa181791-4691-4da0-a41b-fe4d186c9bb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.sqisland.com/2012/04/going-on-speaking-circuit.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985267 | 399 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Key Green Jobs Supporter Appointed U.S. Secretary of Labor
The ‘green’ business sector and the environment just had a huge win! U.S. President-elect Obama recently announced Hilda Solis as the newly appointed Secretary of the Labor Department.
The current California congresswoman is a member of the House environment and commerce committee as well as the House select committee on energy independence and global warming. One of Solis’s biggest achievements has been the Green Jobs Act of 2007.
As we have mentioned before, The Green Jobs Act was approved in 2007, however it has yet to be funded. An economic stimulus and recovery package is still being proposed in the U.S. Congress and if Green Jobs Act is funded, thousands of good green jobs could be created in the New Year. Hilda Solis bring us one step closer towards this achievement.
In the video below from earlier this year, Rep. Solis speaks about her commitment to solving global warming through a clean energy economy for all: | <urn:uuid:29c20e3d-eb0c-4b65-b3d8-be363496a304> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liveearth.org/sv/liveearthblog/key-green-jobs-supporter-appointed-us-secretary-of-labor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969698 | 209 | 1.546875 | 2 |
July 8 2011
More Debt vs. Allowing a Default: There is Another Option
Obama is famous for presenting us with false choices: corporate jet owners or children; trillions of dollars in debt or economic apocalypse. The Chicken-Littles in the Obama administration are claiming that economy will come crashing down unless Congress authorizes a debt-ceiling increase before the March 31 May 16 July 22 August 2 doomsday.
In the event that the debt ceiling is reached before Congress authorizes additional borrowing, there are many steps that can be taken to avoid a flat-out default. First of all, the US Treasury receives about $172 billion in revenues each month. Our debt service payments due in August will equal around $29 billion. That leaves around $143 billion dollars that can be spent on remaining government outlays.
We would still have a shortfall of about $135 billion in August that we would need to make up in order to continue current federal operations. The actual choices will face would be whether: to immediately cut our spending to levels that match revenue; to find a way to raise the additional billions in revenue necessary to continue spending until the end of the fiscal year (September 30); or some combination of the two. It would not be simple or easy, but it would be better than actually defaulting on our debts.
Revenue increases are an option, but contrary to what Democrats believe, we don't have to increase taxes to raise more funds. Congress could authorize the sale of federal properties and increase fees for services. Veronique de Rugy, Senior Research Fellow at Mercatus, makes the point that if necessary in the immediate term, the Treasury could liquidate some of its assets, including those assets acquired under TARP. Even though the sales price of assets would likely be discounted, it would still raise money to allow the government to avoid a catastrophe.
The GAO believes that the Treasury secretary has the authority to choose the debts that are paid first. The Federal Reserve and intergovernmental agencies hold a combined 42% of Treasury debt, and payments to these agencies could be delayed in favor of payments to private investors.
I would hope that the Obama administration would refrain from stopping monthly payments to Social Security recipients (about $49 billion) and military service members. Congress could prevent such tactics with legislation to direct Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner to prioritize these payments.
I share Charlotte's concern that the GOP will simply acquiesce to Obama's demands to increase the debt ceiling increase without requiring any real spending reforms. I think it is important to stress that the dire consequences are not imminent, and therefore, Republicans should stand firm on their principles because it will make us better off in the long run. Cato Institute's Jagadeesh Gokhale thinks that "[a] temporarily frozen debt limit could instead signal U.S. lawmakers' resolve to get our fiscal house in order. It may even reassure investors about long-term U.S. economic prospects." | <urn:uuid:cb6b9ff9-2d53-4a8b-9863-12987338ac21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iwf.org/blog/2431783/More-Debt-vs.-Allowing-a-Default:-There-is-Another-Option | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953753 | 600 | 1.71875 | 2 |
WATNEY CUP 1970 to 1973
The Watney Cup was one of the first sponsored competitions in England. It took place for four seasons
from 1970 to 1973 and was played before the regular League season started.
Two teams from each of the four Football League Divisions participated and qualification was based on the highest number of goals scored during the previous League season, providing that the teams weren't involved in European Football or promoted.
A novel feature was that there were no replays - extra time was played and then a penalty shoot-out, if needed.
The Final was a one-leg game, played at the home venue of one of the Finalists.
The Watney Cup was the first football competition to be screened live on television. | <urn:uuid:3466e5ca-d1d6-486d-926a-0bbe83ec2794> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Watney_Cup.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991897 | 153 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I’m stuck at home at the moment with a horrible cold (yuk) and a cat with a burst abscess (double yuk).
In between blowing my nose and mopping up bits of goo emanating from poor kittykat’s wound, I’ve been reading a book I bought last week very cheaply from our university bookshop. It’s having a monster sale – which I’m told has nothing to do with the fact that it’s in administration and everything to do with it relocating soon to our new very flash library building.
‘Assessment for Learning’ by Paul Black and others describes a study done in UK secondary schools on Maths and Science teaching in which teachers were encouraged to use formative assessment tools as part of their teaching. Although a secondary-school study, I’m sure a lot of it will carry over to university level. I’m not halfway through it yet, but I’m already fascinated by results (Butler, 1988) that suggest that ‘marking’ a student’s work that through giving them comments and a summative mark (e.g. 7/10) is no better than giving them just the mark, or even no response at all, whereas not giving them a mark at all but just the comments leads to more learning. They talk a bit about experiences where teachers thought that this was just not possible in the mark-based regime they worked in, but tried it anyway and found the howls of protest they expected from students, parents, colleagues and headteachers didn’t materialize. Worth a shot in one of my papers, I’m thinking.
Another major point concerns students being able to respond to feedback. If you provide them with an assessment of where they are and where you want them to be, that is good, but there needs to be some mechanism available by which they can close that gap. That might involve giving students opportunities to resubmit work or having a comprehensive discussion on an assessment within class. Peer learning can be really strong.
The authors summarize the steps of formative assessment as:
1. Data on the actual level of some measureable attribute
2. Data on the desirable level of that attribute
3. A mechanism for comparing the two levels and assessing the gap between them
4. A mechanism by which the information can be used to alter the gap.
My hunch is that not too many of us are very good on that last point. Certainly I’m not. Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book – well worth the bargain basement price paid for it.
Black, P., Harrison, C., Lee, C., Marshall, B. & Wiliam, D. (2003) Assessment for Learning. Maidenhead, U.K.: Open University Press.
Butler, R. (1988) Enhancing and undermining intrinsic motivation: the effects of task-involving and ego-involving evaluation on interest and performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58:1-14. | <urn:uuid:453c0828-034e-4d55-b8b2-6ee3beda6a76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sciblogs.co.nz/physics-stop/2011/04/18/formative-assessment/ | 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 | 0.95604 | 644 | 1.8125 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — Dissident raisin farmers from California’s San Joaquin Valley and their ideological allies will get a shot at attacking a federal farm program, under a case that the U.S. Supreme Court accepted Tuesday.
Bucking the odds, Fresno-area farmers Marvin and Laura Horne succeeded in convincing the high court to hear their challenge to federal handling of the raisin industry. Though the legal questions are complicated, the real-world stakes add up.
“This is a classic David and Goliath confrontation, where the government comes after these small orchardists and farmers,” attorney Michael W. McConnell, who’s representing the Hornes, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “The fact that the court is taking this case is really indicative that they care about the little guy.”
Gary Schulz, the president of the Fresno-based Raisin Administrative Committee, declined to comment Tuesday, citing the ongoing litigation.
A Stanford Law School professor and former federal appellate judge, McConnell has joined with Clovis, Calif., lawyer Brian Leighton as a longtime skeptic of marketing orders and research and promotion programs. The programs differ, but they often compel private action in several ways. Promotion programs can force individual growers to pay fees for common advertising, while marketing orders can limit individual production and set quality standards.
In prior cases involving the likes of beef and San Joaquin Valley tree fruit, dissidents fell short of convincing the Supreme Court to strike down mandatory promotion fees as a violation of the First Amendment. Similar fights have continued in various state courts.
The case that was granted a hearing Tuesday is a little different, though McConnell said, “It’s kind of like a free speech case.”
The court will hear the case sometime next year.
The raisin marketing order requires “handlers” who process and pack raisins to place part of their product in reserve, with the industry-run Raisin Administrative Committee deciding how much they’re to be paid for this set-aside tonnage. Raisin handlers set aside 47 percent of their crop during the 2002-03 season and 30 percent for 2003-04, but they were paid for only part of what they surrendered.
The set-aside raisins may be sold for purposes such as the federal school-lunch program.
The Hornes, who’ve been producing raisins in Fresno and Madera counties since 1969, grew disillusioned with the regulatory program. They helped organize some 60 growers into the Raisin Valley Farms Marketing Association, which took care of the packing. By identifying themselves as producers rather than as handlers, the group’s members reasoned, they were exempt from the set-aside requirement imposed on handlers.
The Obama administration, however, termed this a “scheme” designed to avoid legal requirements, and the Agriculture Department subsequently ordered the Hornes and their coalition to pay more than $650,000 in fees and penalties.
Rejecting the farmers’ claims last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Hornes’ argument “is based on an erroneous belief that they have a property right to market their raisins free of regulatory control.”
The dissident growers, in turn, call the fees and penalties for failing to meet the set-aside requirement a “taking” of property. Under the Fifth Amendment, takings require just compensation by the government. Ultimately a court will have to decide whether the takings rules apply to the marketing order set-asides for crops, such as raisins, that come into the government’s hands.
The Supreme Court won’t decide this question; at least, not yet. Rather, the court essentially will decide when and where the takings claims can be raised. The dissident farmers want the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the takings claim, while the government wants the farmers to file a separate lawsuit through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Email: email@example.com; Twitter: @MichaelDoyle10 | <urn:uuid:b0cbeaf0-03f8-419d-9952-1d172b09fdbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2012/11/20/2284477/supreme-court-will-hear-raisin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951912 | 861 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Restricted Funds—Accounting and Auditing Problems
by FRANCIS W. ASCHER Principal, New York Office
Presented before The New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants, New York City — November 1962
THE TERM restricted funds, as applicable to non-profit organizations, comprises all funds not available for current general operating purposes of the institution. It is my intention not to attempt a discussion
of all such funds, which could include endowment funds, plant funds, agency funds, to mention but a few. Instead, I shall discuss current restricted funds, that is, operating funds restricted by an outside agency or person as to use. This class of fund frequently
is created by gift, grant, or bequest. In addition, income from restricted endowments and income from current restricted funds' investments also gives rise to such funds.
Because restrictions have been placed on the use of these funds, careful consideration must be given to the accounting records necessary
to assure the use of the funds for the intended purposes. As contrasted with the receipt of unrestricted funds, which constitute income when received, the receipt of current restricted funds does not become income to the institution until such time as the funds are expended. Receipt of current restricted funds has no effect on net income, since income can be recognized only to the extent of expenses. When an institution accepts current restricted funds it must acknowledge its accountability through the creation of a separate liability or fund account for each such fund. It is desirable to include in the names of the individual accounts some description of the nature of the restricted purpose. Correspondence of the donors, copies of grants, etc., which give the particulars of the restrictions, should be maintained and kept current in the accounting department.
METHODS OF RECORDING CHARGES
Institutions generally have followed two methods of recording charges to current restricted funds. Under one method, transfers are made from the current restricted fund to a general fund income account.
The amount transferred would be equal to amounts charged to operating expenses that could have been charged to the fund. Under this method, the responsibility of establishing the extent to which a | <urn:uuid:6489dc07-4902-449e-813c-6375c324dc84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/deloitte/id/30072/rec/3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948138 | 433 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I first encountered the work of Alison Bechdel through her comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, which ran weekly in the fondly remembered Coming Up! (which later became, and still remains, the more prosaically titled San Francisco Bay Times). I found that the dramas and dilemmas of a group of lesbian friends interconnected by past, present and future romantic relationships quickly became can't-miss reading. On those rare occasions when DTWOF was inexplicably missing from the paper I went through a mild form of withdrawal. I felt a special empathy for the often hapless Mo, the most political of the group, who seemed like the character that Bechdel most closely modelled on herself.
A selection of most of the DTWOF strips has been collected between hard covers as The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), which follows Mo, Lois, Sydney, Ginger, Clarice, Sparrow, Jezanna and all the rest as they grow and change over the years. Bechdel herself has described DTWOF as "half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel." Perhaps not endless, unfortunately; DTWOF has been on hiatus since The Essential... was published.
But even the many pleasures of DTWOF—the range of characters, the clever writing, the allusions (sly or direct) to the political and cultural issues of the day—didn't prepare me for the power of Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Alison grew up with a closeted gay father who was domineering and emotionally volatile, and the book brilliantly and insightfully depicts the effects of his barely concealed secret life on the rest of the family. Bechdel portrays her father with sympathy, but also anger; identification, but also wounded incomprehension: he died under ambiguous circumstances which point to suicide.
Bruce Bechdel was a high school English teacher in a small town in central Pennsylvania, and had also taken over his family's business, a funeral home (the ironically-named Fun Home of the title). While his violent outbursts and inability to express affection created a gulf between father and daughter, as Alison grew older that gulf was partly bridged by a shared love of literature. Fun Home is filled with quotations from and allusions to Camus, Proust, Fitzgerald, James, Wilde, Joyce, Adrienne Rich, Catcher in the Rye and Wind in the Willows; literature is one way that both Alison and her father understand and come to terms with their experience.
In Fun Home Bechdel's father emerges as self-involved and occasionally self-dramatizing. As does her mother, a New York-trained actress who wound up performing in community theater productions of The Heiress and The Importance of Being Earnest. Bechdel has now published another graphic memoir, and as the title (borrowed from P. D. Eastman's classic children's book) Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama (Houghton Mifflin, 2012) suggests, her relationship with her mother is also emotionally fraught.
Many of the strengths of Fun Home—emotional honesty, thoughtfulness, and an clear-eyed portrayal of everyone involved—are also present in Are You My Mother?. But the later book has some weaknesses as well. In place of the rich literary allusions that suffuse the first memoir, the second primarily invokes the work of psychologists Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child) and D. W. Winnicott (although Virginia Woolf and Dr. Seuss are also referenced). Not only is the psychologists' prose more jargon-laden than that of the previous volume's literary writers, it seems to inhibit Bechdel somewhat—it begins to feel as though Miller and Winnicott are speaking for her. By the end of Are You My Mother? I wanted to hear fewer of Miller's and Winnicott's insights, and more of Bechdel's.
But I don't want to sound too critical. Are You My Mother? is very rewarding, and will undoubtedly be on my list of favorite books from 2012. To say that it doesn't quite reach the standard set by Fun Home is like complaining that Dubliners isn't A Portrait of the Artist.
By the way, I bought my copy at the Seminary Coop Bookstore in Chicago, probably the best store for new books in the United States. Yes, I paid list price, which thanks to Bechdel and her publisher is only $22 (and had I been a Seminary Coop member, I would have gotten a discount). If you choose to buy Are You My Mother?, which I strongly recommend, please support local independent booksellers. | <urn:uuid:b29e7583-5ffa-4881-ad7c-553990fa5ee0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://exoticandirrational.blogspot.com/2012/07/alison-bechdel-dtwof-fun-home-and-are.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976973 | 993 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The official report from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is that on Feb. 2nd groundhog Phil did see his shadow, and thus there are supposedly 6 more weeks of winter to endure. Here’s a rather cute photo of Phil, for those of you (including me) who have never seen a real groundhog:
I have lived in the colder climes more than once (Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; and Charlottesville, Virginia) so I know what that means– 6 more weeks of snow, ice, and cold.
Thanks to all of you who read my blog yesterday, precisely timed for 6 a.m. (as in the movie when February 2nd begins over and over). The best part of that 1993 “Groundhog Day” movie was that egotistical weatherman Phil (coincidentally the same name as the groundhog) has to learn to become a better man, by repeating and repeating the lessons he must learn till he gets it right.
Take heart readers, and enjoy the hope of Springtime coming. I well remember waiting with anticipation for the first signs of spring: the crocuses peeping out of the snow-covered ground, the forsythia budding, the tiny light-green leaves appearing on the bare branches of the trees.
And if you want to see the Official Website of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, click here. That site has more than you will ever need to know about groundhogs.
Happy Groundhog Day again! | <urn:uuid:3973e39c-cc32-4db0-971d-cc75bb4299c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tucsoncitizen.com/community/tag/weatherman-phil/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957058 | 314 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Trade warning to Philippines
Updated: 2012-05-14 07:45
By Li Jiabao (China Daily)
Passengers checking in at Cebu Air Inc counters in Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 in Manila, capital of the Philippines. China National Tourism Administration advised its nationals not to visit the island country on Thursday over safety concerns. China is the fourth largest market for tourists going to the Philippines. Edwin Tuyay / Bloomberg
Fruit imports and tourism already being affected by island dispute
If tensions are not eased over Huangyan Island, trade prospects between China and the Philippines will be affected and economic sanctions might be applied, experts said.
"For the moment the dispute will not have a great effect on bilateral trade because government decisions have a delayed impact on trade performance," Zhao Jianglin, an economic expert at the China Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, told China Daily on Friday.
"But if the tensions continue to develop with no relief, the bilateral trade relationship as well as tourism and investments will have a negative effect and China may consider economic sanctions against the Philippines," she said.
China maintains it has sovereignty over the island and was angered by the harassment by the Philippines' navy of Chinese fishermen in the vicinity.
The Chinese ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Tong Xiaolong, said on Tuesday that "if the Huangyan Island situation keeps developing, bilateral ties, including the trade relationship, will surely be affected".
China is the third largest trade partner of the Philippines and the Philippines is China's sixth largest trade partner among ASEAN members. Bilateral trade grew fast over the past decade and reached $30 billion in 2011, according to the Chinese embassy in the Philippines. During President Benigno Aquino III's visit to China last year, both governments agreed to expand trade to $60 billion by 2016 and make China the biggest export market for the Philippines.
Wang Zaibang, vice-president of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the impact on trade has begun to show after China's tourism authorities urged people not to visit and quality watchdogs imposed stricter inspections on fruit from the Philippines.
"In addition to the great effect on Philippines' tourism, the country's exports to China will be severely affected if the situation is not resolved. The bilateral trade, a small share of China's foreign trade, is closely related to the Philippines' economic growth," he said.
China's quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, recently issued a notice of stricter inspections for harmful organisms in fruit from the Philippines after bacteria and insects were found in bananas and pineapples and other fruit from last year. Local authorities are told to send samples containing living species to a laboratory for further testing. The fruit will be returned or destroyed if harmful organisms are found. Half of the Philippines' bananas are exported to China.
"The notice is a warning to the Philippines. The move of enhancing fruit quality inspections, which is convenient and easy to operate, intends to test the reaction of the Philippines before economic sanctions are introduced. Lengthy inspections or customs declarations will result in the fruit rotting and cause losses for exporters," Zhao said.
China National Tourism Administration advised Chinese nationals not to visit the island country on Thursday over safety concerns. China is the fourth largest market for tourists to the Philippines, with 243,137 Chinese tourists visiting last year, accounting for 6.21 percent of the Philippines' 3.9 million tourists in 2011, according to the Department of Tourism of the Philippines.
The tense situation also put Chinese investments and construction projects in the Philippines under risk because "the excited masses could cause great trouble to Chinese investors and workers", said Wang of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
China's non-financial direct investment in the Philippines amounted to $251 million by the end of June 2011 and the value of contracted projects was $7.9 billion by the same period.
Wang added that if the situation cannot be successfully resolved China will resort to sanctions including limiting imports from the Philippines and reducing Chinese investment in the country.
"China is expanding domestic consumption and economic sanctions against the Philippines will deprive the country of the huge market in China and a good chance for the country to maintain high-speed economic growth," Wang said.
Zhao added that economic sanctions, once introduced by China, would have a very adverse effect on the Philippines' economy because of the country's high labor costs and high incidence of poverty - as much as 55 percent of the population.
But she played down the possibility of economic sanctions after the Philippines resumed diplomatic dialogue with China on Wednesday.
"China is indeed willing to develop good trade relationships with the Philippines and both parties can cooperate on developing the natural resources in the South China Sea. The huge energy demands of fast economic growth can partly explain the country's risky move in the South China Sea," Zhao said.
Wang said that the successful resolution of the dispute will lift the bilateral trade relationship to a higher level and set a good example for solving other disputes in the South China Sea.
"The Philippines has embarked on fast economic development and China can be a good opportunity for the country in providing foreign investment. In the long run, both countries need to enhance trade because a confrontation benefits no one," Zhao said.
(China Daily 05/14/2012 page14) | <urn:uuid:2d257ed3-84c7-4ace-8bf3-a8f581a24ee4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/14/content_15280671.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943349 | 1,097 | 1.734375 | 2 |
A business case is not the same as wisdom. Certainly, Jaguar needed an entry-luxury model to compete against the BMW 3-series and Mercedes-Benz C-class. Yes, the company, owned by Ford, had access to a very successful world car platform, the Mondeo, which Americans knew as the Ford Contour. There was money to be saved. But in its attempt to turn the front-drive compact car into an "all-wheel drive" sports sedan, Jaguar ran smack into the limits of platform engineering. The result was the English version of the Cadillac Cimarron, a tarted-up insult to a once-proud marque and a financial disaster for the company. It hardly matters that the X-Type was not that bad a car. Young affluent buyers had the feeling they were somehow being grifted. They were.
Next 2001 Pontiac Aztek | <urn:uuid:960897d4-fd47-41ed-90ab-cf286a7c200c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658544_1658539,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976755 | 182 | 1.59375 | 2 |
William Cowper, Letter to John Newton (Jan. 13, 1785):
I too have taken leave of the old year, and parted with it just when you did, but with very different sentiments and feelings upon the occasion. I looked back upon all the passages and occurrences of it, as a traveller looks back upon a wilderness through which he has passed with weariness, and sorrow of heart, reaping no other fruit, of his labour, than the poor consolation that, dreary as the desert was, he has left it all behind him. The traveller would find even this comfort considerably lessened, if, as soon as he had passed one wilderness, another of equal length, and equally desolate, should expect him. In this particular, his experience and mine would exactly tally. I should rejoice, indeed, that the old year is over and gone, if I had not every reason to prophesy a new one similar to it.
The new year is already old in my account. I am not, indeed, sufficiently second-sighted to be able to boast by anticipation an acquaintance with the events of it yet unborn, but rest convinced that, be they what they may, not one of them comes a messenger of good to me. If even death itself should be of the number, he is no friend of mine. It is an alleviation of the woes even of an unenlightened man, that he can wish for death, and indulge a hope, at least, that in death he shall find deliverance. But, loaded as my life is with despair, I have no such comfort as would result from a supposed probability of better things to come, were it once ended. For, more unhappy than the traveller with whom I set out, pass through what difficulties I may, through whatever dangers and afflictions, I am not a whit nearer the home, unless a dungeon may be called so.
This is no very agreeable theme; but in so great a dearth of subjects to write upon, and especially impressed as I am at this moment with a sense of my own condition, I could choose no other. The weather is an exact emblem of my mind in its present state. A thick fog envelopes everything, and at the same time it freezes intensely. You will tell me that this cold gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavour to encourage me to hope for a spiritual change resembling it; -- but it will be lost labour. Nature revives again; but a soul once slain lives no more. | <urn:uuid:9af17eb7-fa7b-4413-833c-db72a1b66bb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2006/07/depression.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974926 | 514 | 1.75 | 2 |
The most recent reports from our team on the ground confirm the desperate need for water among survivors of the earthquake. While many of the major thoroughfares in the capital city of Port-au-Prince are passable, movement within the city is still slow-going and relief organizations are working together to ensure that water, food and medical services are delivered to victims as quickly as possible.
Most of the nearly 100 PSI/Haiti staff members who were in the country when the earthquake struck have been accounted for.
PSI will continue to update with information as it becomes available.
For our partners distributing PUR, please see our PUR resources.
For all media inquiries, please contact Anna Dirksen at +1 202-469-6673.
Related content by category
Country: Haiti, Latin America & Caribbean
Health Areas: Child Survival, Diarrheal Disease | <urn:uuid:024b45b3-657d-4d46-a5bf-78ecc2ecc5f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psi.org/latest-reports-haiti-confirm-urgent-need-water | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942988 | 180 | 1.5625 | 2 |
15 June, 2010
The Murderer Wore Serifs
Typeface designers live with the permanent possibility of encountering their work at unexpected moments. Your old college now uses a font that you designed; in a movie, whose story takes place before you were born, your typefaces are used for prop newspapers and storefronts; the intimidating signs that scold you in public places now address you in your own handwriting. These odd social dislocations have lately been compounded by an additional weirdness, the phenomenon of the literate non-specialist. There are now celebrities and politicians who know fonts by name, so off-duty type designers run an increasing risk of hearing their typefaces mentioned by talk-show hosts or newscasters — to say nothing of seatmates on long airline flights, or anyone desperate for conversation at a family funeral.
None of these strangenesses prepared me for learning this morning that in The Scarpetta Factor, a crime novel by Patricia Cornwell, there is a plot point that revolves around our Gotham typeface. The font first makes an appearance on page 400, when it’s name-checked by an FBI document specialist during the delivery of an expert opinion, but it returns on page 415 for a two-page discussion about the typography of a suspicious package. “Gotham is popular,” says the computer-whiz niece of our sleuth, Dr. Kay Scarpetta. “It’s supposed to suggest all the right things if you want to influence someone into taking you or your product or a political candidate or maybe some type of research seriously.” Our clients have always known as much; we can only assume that one of them is the murderer. —JH
26 March, 2008
H&FJ Crime-Fighting Division
It was not a dark, stormy night at the H&FJ offices, and she was not a dame in a red dress who spelled trouble with a capital T. It was last Friday afternoon, and the caller was Bill Bastone, founder and editor of The Smoking Gun, with a question about forensic typography.
The story begins with last week's report by the Los Angeles Times that murdered rapper Tupac Shakur was assassinated by associates of Sean "Diddy" Combs. The Times appears to have relied heavily on a set of FBI reports — 302s, in the argot — which cannot be found in the FBI's own files. This morning, The Smoking Gun suggests that these may be the work of an accomplished document forger named James Sabatino, who conducted his hoax from within the walls of the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in Pennsylvania.
We're not experts in forensic typography or document authentication, but were able to point TSG's specialists toward one subtle typographic clue. To untrained eyes including ours, the three 302s look like genuine bureaucratic dross: form elements are typeset in a proportionally-spaced font that appears to be Times Roman, and the body of each document is filled in with a typewriter. (The occasional overstruck letter, as well as some very erratic line endings, suggest a typewriter rather than a word processor; never mind that the Bureau stopped using typewriters "about 30 years ago," according to an FBI supervisor.)
But a telltale gaffe appears at the top of one document, in which the date is rendered in the proportionally-spaced font. The "advance width" of the periods are demonstrably narrower than that of the numbers around them (typewriter periods are famously aloof from their neighbors), suggesting that at least this part of the document was prepared digitally — but only this part of the document, and only this one document from the set of three. The Smoking Gun has all three documents online: compare them here, here, and here. You owe me, Diddy. —JH | <urn:uuid:71039965-3830-40a9-aa26-54190c952a29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.typography.com/ask/index.php?kwID=97 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961017 | 799 | 1.546875 | 2 |
sketch book 2- Beth Brinkley
I revised my Project # One this weekend and it struck me as odd that I never think outside of flat dimensional ideas so I tried to stretch past that. Thus, I added mostly 3D elements to my drawing and was pleased with the outcome. I would be really interested to see how other students in this class form their ideas. Do most people think the way I originally did, in one dimensions? Are there certain categories of designers by way of how they problem solve? Can we turn on our "3D thinking cap" easily if we train our minds? Just some thoughts to throw out there. | <urn:uuid:fcdef728-8840-4bfe-ade0-ab74057b7613> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/amin0037/dha2311/2007/09/sketch_book_2_beth_brinkley.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974989 | 131 | 1.617188 | 2 |
to the State Board of Education of Texas
Steven D. Schafersman
Texas Citizens for Science
August 18, 2003
My written testimony consists of four parts:
1. A general analysis of the science textbook adoption process in Texas by the State Board of Education.
2. Answers to the written testimony of the Discovery Institute and other questions members of the SBOE asked me about evolution and the methods of science.
3. A detailed scientific review and exposé of the new "Texans for Better Science Education" advocacy website by creationist Mark Ramsey of the Greater Houston Creation Association.
4. A copy of "Icons of Evolution?" by vertebrate paleontologist Alan Gishlick of the National Center for Science Education, which is the most detailed scientific review and refutation of the pseudoscientific book Icons of Evolution by creationist Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute.
Part 1. Science Textbook Adoption in Texas
The wisest and most responsible strategy of centralized state textbook adoption is to simply adopt textbooks written by experts in their field. In the case of science textbooks, this means books written by scientists and science educators are the most reliable and acceptable. It is, of course, entirely appropriate that a state that has a centralized adoption process--and the considerable resources necessary to perform the tasks--that the textbooks be examined (1) for errors of fact by independent science experts, (2) to ensure that they meet the state science curriculum requirements (in Texas, the TEKS, Texas Essentials of Knowledge and Skills), and (3) to ensure that they contain content about scientific information, theories, and controversies when appropriate that encourages critical thinking by students. Most importantly, by law the SBOE must adopt every textbook submitted that meets these requirements (and a fourth requirement--possessing a sturdy binding--that will not be considered here).
The reason for the first task is because school textbooks, including science textbooks, are written by scientists, science educators, and often non-scientist editors who are not experts about every topic in a discipline, and the textbooks often do contain factual errors. In my 22 years of teaching college science courses and reviewing high school science textbooks, I have found dozens of errors in both high school and college science textbooks. You might think these errors would be eliminated over successive editions as textbooks are repeatedly reviewed by independent editors and rewritten by authors, but surprisingly they are not, and new errors inevitably creep in. The number of errors and the quality of the scientific content varies among publishers and authors, so this is a legitimate matter of concern to centralized adopters (indeed, it is a matter of concern to independent school districts across the country that adopt textbooks locally and individually). So I heartily endorse the process of having expert science textbook panels review the textbooks for factual errors.
The Texas Education Code, §31.023, requires that textbooks be "free from factual errors." The Texas adoption process does thankfully check for factual errors and the members of the SBOE have the proper power to reject textbooks that contain factual errors or--as is usually the case--allow the publishers to correct errors brought to their attention to permit adoption. The concern (for potential abuse of the process) here is that an alleged "factual error" actually be a true error, and not a scientific or historical fact that a SBOE member disagrees with for political, religious, or ideological reasons and wishes to term an "error." Whether a statement is a factual error or not must be ascertained by the testimony of presumed experts; in Texas, this expert testimony would include that of the Texas Education Agency science staff, the scientist and science educator members of the appointed science textbook review panels, and the scientist and science educator witnesses who testify at SBOE hearings. It is irresponsible and unwise for SBOE members to substitute their own fallible and uninformed opinions about science facts for those of recognized and trained specialists in the scientific disciplines. I urge the SBOE members not to do this.
The reason for the second task is also obvious: textbooks should cover the topics required by a state's curriculum requirements. For the purposes of this analysis, I will stipulate that the TEKS is a satisfactory state science curriculum standard. Textbooks that cover all the TEKS are put on a conforming list of acceptable books, while those that cover at least half but not all of the TEKS are put on a nonconforming list. School districts overwhelmingly adopt textbooks from the conforming list. I have been told that textbooks on the nonconforming list--that could contain 99.99% of the TEKS requirements--are almost never adopted, and being put on the nonconforming list is equivalent to receiving a "kiss of death." The concern (for potential abuse of the process) here is that the SBOE will adopt biology textbooks but put them on the nonconforming list if they fail to include the bogus "weaknesses" about evolution that the Discovery Institute and some Board members are attempting to illegitimately force into the text. Publishers that agree to censor their textbooks will be placed on the conforming list of adopted books and thus will be purchased by the state in far greater amounts.
If this description of abuse of the process actually transpires, publishers with integrity--who refuse to censor their textbooks according to the political, religious, or ideological biases of SBOE members--will find their books placed on the nonconforming list (or on the rejected list), and will feel aggrieved and have a potentially actionable cause for litigation. If their biology books actually contain no factual errors, and this can be attested to scientist witnesses, then biology textbook publishers will have financial incentive to sue the SBOE if their books are not adopted because they failed to make the conforming list. The publisher of an environmental science textbook, Jones and Bartlett, last year found themselves in this position. Their book was illegally rejected by the SBOE because the publishers refused to make an inaccurate and unscientific change of a passage which said that "too many people reproducing too quickly" could be harmful to the environment. The market for environmental science textbooks in Texas is small, with no financial incentive for Jones and Bartlett to litigate. But the biology textbook market in Texas is worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the eight year adoption cycle, so publishers of biology textbooks may feel compelled to act differently if they find themselves in the same situation as publishers of environmental science books.
The reason for the third task is to ensure that textbooks are adopted that enable students to "analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" (TEKS §112.43c(3)A). Every educator, including myself, is eager for students to master critical thinking skills, for such skills enable a student to analyze, investigate, reason, and reach reliable conclusions about important intellectual topics, for these educational abilities will be valuable for any person throughout life. Just below in this written testimony I will discuss the history and rationale of the (3)A requirement, the reason for its peculiar and rather unscientific wording, the fact that it is really unnecessary, and the problem that if it were to be rigorously enforced it would be pedagogically counterproductive.
But for now let me acknowledge and accept the TEKS §112.43c(3)A requirement, but point out that for this requirement to be met three factors are necessary: First, to be treated properly in textbooks, all "scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories" must be presented in a fashion that enables students to "analyze, review, and critique . . . their strengths and weaknesses"; it is impermissible to focus on a single explanation or theory for both pedagogical and legal reasons. Second, since many scientific explanations do not have "weaknesses," problems, controversies, and disagreements, it is impermissible to fabricate bogus "weaknesses" to force into textbooks using requirement (3)A as a justification. Third, requirement (3)A explicitly says that the ability to analyze, review, and critique the strengths and weaknesses of scientific explanations be based on "scientific evidence and information" (emphasis added); it is impermissible to use non-scientific or pseudoscientific evidence, information, and arguments for this purpose.
As with the first two tasks, the concern (for potential abuse of the process) here is that some SBOE members will use TEKS (3)A as a justification to (1) focus only on the topic of evolution as the place to insert "weaknesses," (2) hold up the occurrence of evolution--as the natural process generating ancestral-descendant relationships among taxa--as an explanation to exhibit fabricated, bogus "weaknesses" when in fact it has none (this explanation is completely accepted by all biologists), and (3) use pseudoscientific arguments and evidence from the Discovery Institute to create "weaknesses" to cast doubt on both the occurrence and theory of evolution.
The rationale for factual and error-free science textbooks and for textbooks that treat the totality of a state's science curriculum requirements is beyond dispute. However, Texas has a third requirement that is more unusual. This is TEKS §112.43(c)(3)A, which fully stated is as follows:The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information.
I promised to explain the history and rationale of the (3)A requirement, the reason for its peculiar and rather unscientific wording, the fact that it is scientifically unnecessary in any K-12 educational setting, and the problem that if it were to be rigorously enforced it would be pedagogically counterproductive. Let's turn to this now.
TEKS (3)A was added to the newly created TEKS curriculum adopted for 1998, but the phrase existed in earlier state curricula. Throughout the 1970's and early 1980's, an earlier SBOE had a textbook rule that mandated that an anti-evolution disclaimer be placed inside the front cover of every biology textbook. Two organizations, People for the American Way and the Texas Council for Science Education (my earlier organization) fought against this rule throughout 1983-1984. We succeeded in 1984 when Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox ruled that the disclaimer rule was a violation of the Constitution and must be removed. The removal of this egregious and scientifically-mendacious rule was the ultimate impetus for the new rule now known as TEKS (3)A. This rule was deliberately adopted by the SBOE to deal with the topic of evolution in biology textbooks in Texas, because unlike most states, ours has a high number of religious fundamentalists who object to teaching evolution to students and who frequently find themselves elected to the State Board of Education.
The rule was written by Board Member Will Davis, who thought it would end the continuing and acrimonious debate that occurred every time biology textbooks were adopted. I vividly remember discussing this phrase with Mr. Davis sometime in the mid to late 1980's when it was proposed for adoption: I objected to its potential adoption, saying that creationists would try to use the phrase to sneak unscientific, anti-evolution content into the books using the requirement as a spurious justification. I also used some of the arguments I repeat below. Mr. Davis replied that the requirement was adopted specifically to placate creationist critics and it was needed to move ahead with biology textbook adoption. He also replied by saying that the requirement specifically refers to "scientific evidence and information," and that if there is no such scientific evidence against evolution, then creationists would not be able to insert this material, and it would be mine and other scientists' responsibility to make sure this didn't happen.
Another important fact surrounding TEKS (3)A is that since it is illegal for a state government body to adopt any rule that focuses squarely on the topic of evolution (federal courts have ruled that this constitutes establishment of religion), so any rule must be adopted as a general application to all scientific inquiry, one that does not single out for its requirements any single theory or topic of one scientific field (such as evolution in biology). Thus, the (3)A rule is also found in the TEKS textbook requirements for high school physics, chemistry, environmental systems, integrated physics and chemistry, aquatic science, astronomy, and geology, meteorology, and oceanography, as well as biology. This is both appropriate and legal for any rule that requires specific content, but it places the additional burden on those who wish to invoke the rule in biology textbooks that they must do precisely the same for every other science textbook used in Texas. If the SBOE only invokes or enforces the rule for the topic of evolution in biology textbooks, this practice is as illegal as writing the rule only for evolution in biology textbooks. I only point out that the present SBOE is thus acting illegally (violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution) by focusing solely on evolution, and this fact will be an issue in any future litigation.
Now we are at a juncture when we must squarely face the implications of TEKS (3)A. The rule is certainly going to be used by creationists on the SBOE to justify inserting scientifically misleading and unwarranted content about evolution into biology textbooks by claiming that the rule requires that scientific "weaknesses" and well as "strengths" be covered for hypotheses and theories. And if such "weaknesses" are not included, the SBOE will place the offending books on the nonconforming list and consign them to marketing hell. For example, SBOE member Teri Leo (SBOE textbook adoption public hearing, July 9, 2003) has stated the following:There are those today that would censor out all credible science that opposes Darwinian evolution. By presenting scientific controversy realistically, students will learn how to evaluate competing interpretations in light of evidence. However, books reviewed to this day, in my opinion, do not include scientific weaknesses to the biologic theory of evolution. Hence, if no changes are made to the textbooks, the rules of this Board say they must be rejected as nonconforming until such scientific weaknesses can be incorporated into the texts.
In addition, SBOE member Don McLeroy (SBOE textbook adoption public hearing, July 9, 2003) stated the following:Unfortunately, the TEA review panel have certified the books as conforming if just some theories and hypotheses had just some strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the book. This is not the correct interpretation. TEKS 3A requires each and every hypothesis and theory. And each of those must have strengths and weaknesses covered. . . . During a discussion on whether to place a book on the nonconforming list for its failure to present weaknesses of evolution, the minutes record . . . that the State Board of Education expects strengths and weaknesses to be included in books. . . . Since the TEA did not correctly direct the review panels in their proper responsibilities, the Board should not accept the review panels' findings on the biology books. [T]his leaves the responsibility to the State Board of Education, [which] has authority to determine whether the material is sufficient to address the TEKS.
There is no question that TEKS (3)A is going to be the primary means used by creationists to try to debilitate the coverage of evolution and the origin of life in biology textbooks by attempting to insert "weaknesses" about evolution into them. This action would debilitate, dumb-down, and weaken the scientific coverage of evolution in biology textbooks, ensuring that students would receive a third-rate science education in Texas. The reasons inserting "weaknesses" would damage science education and not--as alleged by anti-evolutionist critics--improve critical thinking are complex but not mysterious. I will list them all here and then summarize them collectively and briefly:
1. "Weaknesses" is not a term that scientists usually use to describe scientific explanations, hypotheses, and theories. Rather, scientists speak of problems, controversies, disagreements, criticisms, knowledge gaps, and even mysteries. A scientist might casually characterize another scientist's explanation or hypothesis as having "weaknesses," but this would rarely be stated formally in a science book or journal.
2. The idea of "strengths and weaknesses" of "scientific hypotheses and theories" is misleading. Hypotheses are tentative explanations that must be tested; their outstanding weakness is that they have not been corroborated or confirmed. Once tested and corroborated, the explanations become reliable knowledge and are no longer hypothetical. They are incorporated into theories which themselves are extremely reliable and have few or no weaknesses (only gaps in knowledge). About the only real hypotheses that one might encounter in an introductory biology book are different hypotheses about the origin of life (there are four or five major ones and about a dozen minor ones).
3. Introductory science textbooks rarely contain hypotheses; they almost always only contain reliable knowledge in the form of what would popularly be termed facts, and this includes theories, which are as reliable and factual as anything humans know. Often these books would also discuss gaps in knowledge, unsolved scientific problems, and social controversies involving scientific information, but never "weaknesses" of hypotheses and theories. No doubt knowledge in science is theoretical, and this knowledge started out as hypotheses, but now most of scientific knowledge would be properly termed "reliable knowledge." It is this information--reliable knowledge--that fills introductory science textbooks, and while this information is subject to analysis, review, and understanding, it is not really subject to "critique" by K-12 students.
4. Scientific theories are too massive and established to expect any high school student to critique or question. The vast majority of high school students would not be able to perform such critiques in a scientific way. Scientific theories should be accepted as reliable knowledge in K-12 classes, and not made the object of questioning until they have the educational training necessary to do so, which consists of years of graduate study at universities.
5. Scientific problems, controversies, disagreements, criticisms, knowledge gaps, and mysteries certainly exist, but they exist at the frontiers of scientific research for which advanced scientific knowledge and experience are required to understand and deal with them.
6. Real scientific problems, controversies, etc., should not be included in introductory science textbooks, because they are almost always too difficult to understand and their presence would only lead to student confusion and frustration. Such confusion and frustration in science class actually prevents students from learning critical thinking, not helps them to learn it.
7. Introductory science textbooks are written to be used by introductory science students who do not have the technical and conceptual background to understand the complex issues involved. High school textbooks are intentionally simplified by design; students who become interested in science can learn about the complexities, problems, and controversies in college, and can also begin dealing with them there.
8. There are no scientifically-legitimate "weaknesses" about the occurrence of evolution by natural selection--defined as the descent of all living and fossil species of organisms from a common ancestor through time by natural selection acting upon the gene pools of species populations--evolution is as confirmed, reliable, and accepted as anything in science and can be considered to be a fact. Hypotheses about the origin of life, however, all have uncertainties and missing pieces, but I know of no textbook that only presents one solution to the origin-of-life problem.
9. There are certainly problems, controversies, difficulties, and knowledge gaps with the modern theory of evolution--the explanation of how the mechanism of the evolutionary process operates over time--but for the reasons stated above, these topics are just too complex to be dealt with in high school. They almost never are, and the textbooks need not and usually do not cover them. The same is true for all other scientific theories in all disciplines. It takes a lifetime of training and study to deal with only a few problems in one science. Trying to cover them all in all sciences at the high school level is impossible.
10. It is quite true that learning critical thinking skills--an essential educational goal--requires a student to be able to analyze, review, and critique evidence and reasoning used to support simple experimental hypotheses and other elementary knowledge claims. Such critical thinking activities are something students should definitely be doing by the time they are in high school. But the place for this in high school is in the laboratory, where students deal with simple experiments, simple observations, simple hypotheses, and simple tests. Student hypotheses are the proper place to deal with "strengths and weaknesses," and "analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations."
11. Another opportunity to learn critical thinking skills in science class is when the teacher discusses social issues concerning science with students. Many of these social issues--such as embryonic stem cells, human cloning, genetically-modified foods, environmental pollution issues, biodiversity loss, excessive human population growth, etc.--are properly covered in science classes, are controversial and have difficult solutions, and require critical thinking skills and reasoned judgment to "analyze, review, and critique."
12. It should thus be clear by now that the concept of mandatory instruction of students about "strengths and weaknesses" of "scientific hypotheses and theories" is not really good scientific language, and the reason the phrase is used is because the (3)A rule was written and adopted by non-scientists--without proper scientific input--precisely to placate an obnoxious creationist minority. A scientist would have phrased the (3)A rule as follows: "The student uses critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions. The student is expected to understand why scientific explanations are so reliable, and be able to analyze, review, and critique experimental results in the laboratory and social uses of scientific data in the classroom as to their strengths and weaknesses using reliable scientific evidence and information."
13. The inordinate concentration by creationist critics on the topics of evolution and origin of life in only biology textbooks, rather than on the many other topics in all disciplines of modern science, reveals that their true intention is to weaken all biology textbooks' accurate coverage of these topics alone, thus perverting evolution's important place in modern biological understanding. There is no legitimate reason to focus on only one scientific topic to insert "weaknesses." Such an obsession can only have an ideological or religious motivation, not one to improve science education, and if adopted as formal state rules is illegal as well, since it constitutes an establishment of religion.
14. Anti-evolutionist creationists are sincerely not attempting to remove evolution from the curriculum, force creationism or intelligent design into the curriculum, or ask for equal time for their pseudoscience to be taught with science. The reason is simple: these things are all illegal. Creationists and anti-evolutionists certainly wish they could do these things, and they have certainly attempted to do them many times in the past, but they have always failed because the courts recognized that their efforts constituted an establishment of religion. Today, rather, they attempt to discourage the teaching of evolution by making the topic controversial in textbooks and thus in the minds of teachers. Their goal today is to discourage and intimidate teachers into avoiding or shortchanging the topic of evolution in the biology classroom, so as to censor the topic of evolution from every students' scientific education, and deprive them of a modern appreciation of science and the scientific method--which is identical to critical thinking.
15. Anti-evolutionist creationists use marketing techniques, argumentative persuasion, and political lobbying and intimidation, not the methods of science to achieve their goals. They go from state to state (Kansas, Ohio, Texas) trying to push their anti-evolution ideology into state curriculum standards and textbook adoption processes. In every state, the legitimate scientists and science educators have opposed them (and ultimately winning in Kansas and Ohio). The fundamental fact is this: If creationist anti-evolutionist critics really wanted to improve science education, they would leave the science curriculum standards and science textbook content to the scientists, science educators, and science specialists who have been responsible for these in the past, and not attempt to use the political process to force scientifically illegitimate and unwarranted changes into the educational materials.
Let's summarize all these arguments briefly. It is both unwise and irresponsible for a politically elected body of officials, the State Board of Education, to insert unscientific content into science textbooks over the objections of their own science staff, their own science textbook review panels, and the scientists and science educators who testified against it. This would be a gross abuse of the regulatory process, and would be illegal and costly enough to invite litigation from textbook publishers. Such action--motivated solely by ideological, political, or religious reasons--is exactly similar in intent (but fortunately not in scale) to the substitution of the science of genetics in the Soviet Union with the incompetent Communist pseudoscience of Lysenkoism, and the substitution of scientific anthropology in Germany with the murderous Nazi pseudoscience of eugenic Aryanism. Both were mandated by the controlling political party in each country at the time, and each pseudoscience resulted in, respectively, the death by starvation of millions of humans and the death by murder of million of humans. Today in Texas, the controlling political party seems hell-bent on repeating these historical tragedies, albeit at a smaller scale. While no doubt present-day ideological believers on the Texas SBOE wish to duplicate the fervor, passion, and stubbornness of historical believers, there is no reason for them to emulate their historical dogmatism, ignorance, and bigotry, especially when the victims of the resulting abuse would be millions of school children of Texas, who really need to understand critical thinking and the modern scientific view of the world in order to be good citizens and productive workers in society.
Forcibly inserting unscientific "criticisms" and "weaknesses" of evolution into biology textbooks would not improve critical thinking, but destroy it by misleading and confusing students, intimidating teachers to avoid or weaken the subject, and teaching students a perverted view of science. As I explained above, there are few or no hypotheses in introductory biology textbooks; instead, the books are filled with reliable scientific knowledge, including scientific theories, that in general have no "weaknesses." Scientific theories can indeed be criticized, because they are incomplete, but such criticism can only be competently understood and conducted in graduate schools and research universities, not in high schools using introductory textbooks. The concept of students learning about the "strengths and weaknesses" in scientific "hypotheses and theories" in high school is unscientific and pedagogically useless.
The proper meaning of having students learn "critical thinking and scientific problem solving to make informed decisions [by being] expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations . . . as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" should not be directed at hypotheses and theories (as the (TEKS (3)A) rule unfortunately and misleadingly states), but to laboratory experiments and classroom discussion about topics involving scientific knowledge, social practices, and decisions by public officials. Modern scientific explanations, including theories, should be accepted as reliable knowledge by high school students and teachers without the obfuscation of forcing fallacious "weaknesses" into them.
Finally, as I will show below, the "weaknesses" and "criticisms" of the theory of evolution put forward by the Discovery Institute critics are in reality bogus; the "weaknesses" don't in fact exist. The DI's written testimony to prove the contrary is misguided, illogical, and lacks empirical validity. This alone should warn SBOE members and the public that something fishy is going on: an out-of-state think-tank--whose stated purpose is to change public opinion by lobbying and marketing techniques, not by traditional scientific methods--comes into Texas and finds friendly and sympathetic co-believers on the State Board of Education. The think-tank produces written testimony that claims that standard biology textbooks, successfully used for years throughout the United States, in fact fail to meet scientific standards of accuracy and critical analysis. Well, this is certainly news to hundreds of thousands of scientists and science teachers. Whom should one believe?
It is obvious that--despite the legislative reforms of 1995, and the Attorney General's 1996 opinion that the SBOE does not have the authority to adopt a rule to require specific content in textbooks beyond the statutory standards of meeting the curriculum standards, meeting the binding standards, and are free of factual errors--the potential remains for political abuse of the process of textbook selection in Texas. State Board members have the potential to act unwisely and irresponsibly in the adoption process by ignoring the TEA science education staff, science textbook review panel members, and scientist and science educator expert testimony, and then (1) claiming that a science textbook contains factual errors when it actually does not, (2) claiming that a textbook does not meet all the TEKS science curriculum requirements, including TEKS (3)A, and adopting it on the nonconforming list that condemns it to a marketing death, and (3) requiring that a publisher change (i.e. censor) its book to add bogus "weaknesses" that are not scientific or do not exist, or else reject the textbook. Not only does this potential political abuse of the adoption process exist, but the abuse has already manifested itself in 2002 during the adoption of environmental science books, and obviously every person who testified on behalf of keeping the biology textbooks free of censorship at the July 9 hearing expects it to happen again.
There are three independent ways to prevent future political abuse of the textbook adoption process in Texas:First, the majority of SBOE members could stop indulging their political, religious, and ideological prejudices in their management of textbook selection and start relying on the competence, knowledge, and integrity of science textbook authors, the TEA science education staff, and scientists and science educators who testify in public hearings and those on their own textbook review panels.
Second, the centralized, authoritarian textbook adoption process could be abandoned by either statute or litigation, and Texas could allow school districts to begin choosing their own textbooks directly from the publishers (as is the process in most of the states in this country) and paid for as part of the state funds given to all school districts on the basis of enrollment. Litigation--from aggrieved publishers or school districts--may very well be the impetus that ends the centralized, authoritarian, and thoroughly politically-pervaded Texas textbook adoption process; if so, I volunteer to be a witness for the plaintiffs.
Third, the Texas legislature could make the SBOE an appointed board again (qualified members would be appointed by the governor, as was the case for several years after the Ross Perot Committee reforms), thus eliminating the practice of stealth candidates running for the SBOE in order to promote their political, religious, and ideological views in the Texas public education system.
One of these three solutions to the problem will have to occur, or we will continue to see the perversion of public school science education in Texas, with the result that Texas students will continue to be ill-prepared to face the modern world with their censored and incompetent knowledge of science (as is revealed every year by Texas students scores on standardized national science exams). If such a shameful situation is allowed to continue, it will continue in an arena of national publicity, and a spotlight will be focused on those public officials who are responsible for its maintenance.
Part 2. Answers to Questions about Evolution
As I have emphasized before, anti-evolutionists and creationists attempt to persuade readers and listeners by using specious arguments, deliberate misrepresentation, quotes out of context, untruths and half-truths, and debating techniques to confuse and impress the victim. In general, these methods are disreputable and would never be indulged in by legitimate scientists or serious scholars. Creationist practices invariably involve pseudoscholarship in the service of pseudoscience, and polemics masquerading as analysis. One of these techniques is the argument from authority. Creationists love to claim that legitimate practicing scientists exist who support their views (creationism, intelligent design, weaknesses in the theory of evolution, etc.). For example, Dr. Francis Beckwith, Associate Director of the J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University said the following (SBOE textbook adoption public hearing, July 9, 2003):These textbooks [should] appropriately convey to students some of the critical questions raised about aspects of evolutionary theory in general and neo-Darwinism in particular. These questions have been raised by scholars who have had their works published by prestigious presses, academic journals, have aired their views among critics in the corridors of major universities and other institutions and have been recognized by leading periodicals both academic and non-academic. They are affiliated with a number of institutions, including the University of Texas, Texas A&M and Baylor.
But the truth is quite different. These "scholars" are not biologists and not even scientists; for the most part, they are individuals trained in philosophy, mathematics, engineering, and even the sciences, but who are not actually working in science. Some legitimate philosophical journals and academic presses will publish there writings, and there is nothing wrong with this. I agree that intelligent design, for example, is a legitimate philosophical topic that has a place in academic or intellectual discourse. But these topics are not studied by real scientists, nor do real science journals publish papers about these topics (except book reviews that have universally been highly critical). These "scholars" do exist in the philosophy department at the University of Texas at Austin, the engineering department of Texas A&M, and in a number of institutes and programs at Baylor University, but I can positively state that there is no scientist in the biology departments of any of these universities who would agree with the anti-evolutionist critics represented by the Discovery Institute, and none who would approve of politically inserting "weaknesses" about evolution into introductory biology textbooks without prior scientific justification by standard biological methods. Indeed, every legitimate scientist and science educator who testified on July 9 did, or who will testify on September 10 will, disagree with both the goals and tactics of the Discovery Institute representatives; all did and will object to efforts by elected SBOE members to bypass normal scientific practice and insert unwarranted items into science textbooks by regulatory fiat.
No individual representing the Discovery Institute-Center for Science & Culture is a legitimate scientist. I agree that some of the DI representatives have received scientific training, including Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson, and William Dembski; all are certainly knowledgeable about science and all have doctorates, but these individuals are not scientists because they do not behave like scientists. The reasons are simple: real, legitimate scientists accept the practice of methodological naturalism in scientific method, eschewing the supernatural in science; they perform experiments and make observations to answer question and solve problems within a common theoretical framework accepted by the scientific community; if they disagree with the common theoretical framework, they are obligated to produce genuine evidence and logical reasons that casts doubt on modern theory; they publish their scientific work in peer-reviewed science journals, saving educational, historical, cultural, and philosophical material for books; they take to heart the cogent criticisms by their colleagues and make corrections, not obstinately refuse to change a word and instead make up ad hoc arguments to save appearances; they do not indulge in pseudoscholarship: specious arguments, sophistry, illogical reasoning, hidden false premises, assumed presuppositions that have no basis in fact, deliberate misrepresentation and misunderstanding, quotes out of context, quotation mongering and credential peddling, etc.; they do not attempt to use raw political power to authoritatively accomplish educational goals that they cannot legitimately accomplish using reasoned discourse, responsible inquiry, and scientific persuasion. The Discovery Institute associates fail all of these tests, thus clearly revealing themselves to be pseudoscientists, not scientists.
No one seriously recognizes Drs. Wells, Dembski, Meyer, or Nelson as legitimate, practicing scientists; they would be charitably characterized as scholars, philosophers, polemicists, and popularizers. I would additionally characterize them as creationists and pseudoscientists, but they would no doubt object to those labels. But what about Michael Behe, who is a tenured biology professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. I fully agree that his scientific work conducted prior to earning tenure at Lehigh was legitimate science, and he was a real scientist then. But now his "research" focuses on intelligent design, which is a philosophical, pseudoscientific program (but there is little his university can do about that; for many years, a famous psychology professor at Harvard has been conducting research into the extraterrestrial alien abduction of humans, something which he devoutly believes occurs; his colleagues tried to get rid of him, but tenure ultimately prevented them). In addition, Professor Behe has engaged in many debates with legitimate scientists in the popular philosophical literature and on the Web, and he has refused to change any of the illogical arguments he uses to reason to his conclusion. His book, for instance, Darwin's Black Box, is one long argument from ignorance, which has been pointed out by dozens of scientist reviewers, including myself, but he obstinately refuses to acknowledge this. This is not the mark of a true scientist. Michael Behe's book has received universal criticism and condemnation from the scientific community; for dozens of negative reviews and criticisms by scientists, please visit Behe's Empty Box at <http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Catalano/box/behe.htm>.
Dr. Michael Behe is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute-Center for Science & Culture. He actually accepts quite a bit of modern evolutionary theory, but he insists--contrary to all evidence--that an intelligent designer was necessary to get the evolutionary process going early in Earth's history by somehow creating the first "irreducible complexity" in nature. He and his other DI associates identify this intelligent designer with the Christian God, but he claims this is irrelevant for a scientific understanding. Well, that's nonsense; the identity and characteristics of any presumed intelligent designer would have to be susceptible to empirical study by other scientists, but this can't be done when dealing with the supernatural. Many scientists, including myself, have published reviews of his writings that demonstrate that his concept of irreducible complexity of structures and processes is wrong, and criticize him for his refusal to explain how the intelligent designer actually created the first complex organism. But Behe continues to indulge in ad hoc arguments to maintain his beliefs. This is not the mark of a true scientist.
Discovery Institute Written Testimony
The Discovery Institute written testimony, "A Preliminary Analysis of the Treatment of Evolution in Biology Textbooks currently being considered for adoption by the Texas State Board of Education," is a warmed-over version of a book by Discovery Institute-Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, in which Dr. Wells tries to convince the reader--using the entire armamentarium of pseudoscientific pseudoscholarship--that the standard or classical textbook arguments and illustrations of evolution (the "icons") are variously misguided, misrepresentative, and false. His book has received universal criticism and condemnation from the scientific community. Links to most of these critical reviews can be found on the Texas Citizens for Science Hearing Page at <http://www.txscience.org/hearing.php>. Both the "Preliminary Analysis" and Icons of Evolution can be summarized as follows: they are filled with fallacious arguments, distortions, untruths, specious reasoning, and have a deceptive and mendacious attitude that is clearly observed by anyone possessing a scientific understanding of modern evolutionary theory and the evidence for it. It is practically beggars belief that any educated person would be persuaded by the arguments in these two publications, but experience has proven that humans are deceived again and again, because sophistry by definition is meant to be convincing to readers and listeners who are unprepared to respond to specious arguments. And pseudoscientists are masters of sophistry.
The Discovery Institute-Center for Science & Culture itself has the goal of "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from the natural sciences and those from the humanities and social sciences, the Center explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature." The DI-CSC proposes "a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" (www.txscience.org/files/wedge.htm). Any reader, therefore, can clearly see that the Discovery Institute associates do not have an unbiased view of evolution and the rest of modern science, and do not have the best interests of Texas students at heart. Jonathan Wells, for instance, studied to obtain a Ph.D. in biology only so he could "devote my life to destroying Darwinism" (http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm). The fact that "Darwinism"--what real scientists call the theory of evolution by natural selection--is universally accepted by the world's biological scientists, and is vital for every educated person to learn so that he or she can understand modern biological principles and processes, is seemingly irrelevant to Dr. Wells.
I am going to review the DI "Preliminary Analysis" (hereafter PA) below. Frankly, I have neither the time nor desire to review it in detail, with scientific citations and references, since this has already been done by Dr. Alan Gishlick in "Icons of Evolution? Why much of what Jonathan Wells writes about evolution is wrong," his outstanding review of Wells' book Icons of Evolution, which, as I said above, is the entire source of the PA. So I am going to review the PA superficially by simply quoting passages from it that distort the truth, responding with the correct scientific information, and allowing interested readers to refer to Dr. Gishlick's review for all details, citations, and references. To aid this process, I am including a complete copy of Gishlick's review in this testimony, but am omitting the many figures his review contains but which are available at its original source of <www.ncseweb.org/icons/>. Dr. Gishlick will be present at the September 10 hearing, so SBOE members will be able to personally ask him questions if desired.
The Miller-Urey Experiment
The Miller-Urey experiment is an excellent illustration of how modern science works. It is used in introductory biology books to illustrate how organic compounds that are necessary for life can be formed on Earth by nonbiologic chemical reactions. The original gas mixture that Miller used was later determined to be highly improbably, but subsequent experiments with other gas mixtures have achieved similar results. It is best to use Miller's experiment as an historical demonstration and mention that subsequent experiments by others have demonstrated the same results. (NOTE: All PA quotes will be indented in what follows.)Yet textbooks continue to feature the experiment, complete with photographs or drawings of Miller's original apparatus, as evidence that life's building blocks could have formed spontaneously on the early Earth.
There is nothing wrong with this. The photographs or drawings can be used for historical reasons. Life's building blocks did indeed form spontaneously on the early Earth and in the early solar nebula and solar system.Many textbook accounts of the Miller-Urey experiment fail to inform students that the Earth's early atmosphere was probably quite different from the mixture of gases used in the experiment, or that when the experiment is repeated with a realistic mixture it does not work.
All textbooks should inform students that the mixture of gases that Miller used was different than what scientists now suspect constituted Earth's early atmosphere. Experiments repeated with a more realistic mixture do work to produce organic components of life: peptides, amino acids, etc. These compounds are also found in comets and meteorites that indicates they formed early in the solar system by nonbiological photochemical reactions.Even textbooks that hint at problems with the 1953 experiment typically tell students that more realistic gas mixtures still produce "organic molecules," without informing students that those molecules include toxic chemicals such as cyanide and formaldehyde but do not include amino acids.
Cyanide and formaldehyde are toxic only in concentrated form. In dilute and diffuse form--their characteristic form in nature--they are essential building blocks of life. Cyanide and formaldehyde, and many other organic compounds, are found in interplanetary and interstellar space, comets, and meteorites, indicating they can be formed by nonbiologic chemical processes occurring early in solar system formation.The truth is that scientists are as far as ever from understanding how life's building blocks formed on the early Earth, and even farther from understanding how cells formed from such building blocks.
False. Scientists have much greater knowledge today about how life and cells may have formed in the past. Dozens of contemporary books exist that detail this knowledge.Yet instead of informing students that the origin of life remains an impenetrable mystery, most biology textbooks give students the false impression that scientists have made great strides in understanding it.
The origin of life is certainly still a mystery, but it is not an impenetrable one, as creationists like to believe. Unlike creationists, scientists don't just give up and say "God did it." Instead, scientists are making great strides in solving the problems and understanding the process.Since they misrepresent the significance of the now-discounted Miller-Urey experiment, and mislead students about current state of origin-of-life research, such textbooks cannot enable students to "analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information"
The Miller-Urey experiment has never been discounted, only revised and repeated with different initial gas mixtures. The textbooks do not mislead students about the current state of origin of life research: the research is substantial, ongoing, and productive. A textbook either presents what information is reliably known about the origin of life problem and avoids going into detail about hypothetical solutions, or it presents alternative hypotheses (organic soup, geothermal vent, origin from clay, cometary source of vital ingredients, etc.) that can be analyzed and critiqued. Either solution is satisfactory. What would not be satisfactory is to censor the vital information that all scientists believe that life began on Earth by a natural process involving abiotic chemical reactions using organic compounds that formed spontaneously on Earth and in outer space, and that modern research has given scientists many tantalizing clues about how this process occurred, but much work remains to be done. This is really a very inspiring topic, because the tools to do significant research in this area didn't even exist twenty years ago.
Darwin's Tree of Life and the Cambrian Explosion
The "Tree of Life" is a fact acknowledged by all biologists and biology textbooks. There is even an extensive website that presents and explains this tree of life in exquisite detail (www.tolweb.org). The tree of life is merely all the taxa that live now or have lived in the past arranged on a tree-like diagram that illustrates their pattern of evolutionary descent. Determining the tree-like pattern using special software tools and character data of all taxa is a major biologic research project that will help us understand the evolutionary process much better.
The figure on the next page, "Levels of detail in genetic history: From individuals to the phylogenetic tree," illustrates how biologists envision genetic continuity from individual organism to species population to species lineage to ultimately a higher-taxa phylogenetic tree--the tree of life. There is no break in genetic continuity throughout evolution for some intelligent designer to miraculously insert complexity. The important point of this figure is to illustrate that every living organism, including every human, share a common ancestor with all other living organisms. This is the most important message that biology can teach, and it should be repeatedly emphasized in every biology textbook.
This is one of the PA's oddest criticisms of the biology textbooks. This topic is peripheral to most biology books, even at the university level; it is not treated by many of them, since it is an advanced topic. But the DI critics fault the books mostly for not covering this topic in the way that the creationists wish. The PA deliberately misrepresents the most basic principle of evolutionary descent, that when taxa appear on Earth their taxonomic rank can increase over time. That is, when a new species first evolves, it is just a species, but it can--through time and contingent evolution--give rise to many more species so that its hierarchical rank in the tree increases and we would begin classifying it as a genus. This process can continue, so that what was once only a new species can ultimately give rise to a new genus, family, order, class, and phylum many millions of years later. Remember, humans assign these taxonomic ranks after the fact; they are not assigned to taxa when they first appear on Earth and then have to keep them forever!
(Figure from Maddison and Maddison, 1999, "MacClade: Analysis of Phylogeny and Character Evolution")
Most major phyla first appear in the fossil record about 520-550 million years ago, in the Cambrian Period. The fossil record is spotty and incomplete, so the ancestors of the first organisms of these phyla found as fossils are not known. The geologically rapid appearance of all these phyla for the first time is termed the Cambrian Explosion; however, these taxa appeared during a 30 million year interval, so their evolution could be gradual in normal time, since their common ancestors presumably lived 20-50 million years before them, in the Precambrian. The figure below, from Conway Morris, 2000, (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/97/9/4426.pdf), illustrates this.
Principal events across the Vendian-Cambrian boundary, spanning an interval
of approximately 60 million years (570-510 Myr) (from Conway-Morris, 2000)
However, some scientists debate the sufficiency of microevolutionary processes (see below), the speed of evolution, the adequacy of the fossil record, and the nature of the fossils themselves to explain this rapid appearance. Many paleontologists don't consider the Cambrian Explosion a mystery, since evolution can proceed rapidly. Let's now examine quotes from the Discovery Institute PA on this topic.In the fossil record, however, most of the major phyla appear fully formed at the beginning of the geological period known as the Cambrian, with no fossil evidence that they branched off from a common ancestor.
This passage is deliberately and indeed maliciously misleading. There are many reasons why fossil evidence of earlier ancestors is absent: soft body parts, rapid evolution, poor stratigraphic record, bad luck for paleontologists, etc. But by no means does this imply that there is a question that the major phyla forms didn't have a common ancestor. Of course they did! Unless one is hypothesizing that there was a break in genetic continuity and a supernatural intelligent designer just stepped in with a miracle to create those forms we see.Darwin feared that the fossil record might by its very nature be so incomplete that a solution to the problem would never be found; but he hoped that future fossil-collecting might provide at least some evidence that animals shared a common ancestor. A century and a half later, however, the problem is more serious than ever.
False. We have many more fossils today and a much better understanding of the sequence of appearance of the different fossils and their timing. Darwin never doubted that animals shared a common ancestor. Darwin did indeed express concern that the fossil record was unavoidably incomplete, but he never doubted that a solution to the problem would never be found. The problem can in fact be solved without any fossil record: a detailed phylogenetic analysis would work if sufficient data were available. The occurrence of fossils just makes this task easier.A century and a half later, however, the problem is more serious than ever. Paleontologists once thought that Precambrian animals might have been too small to be detected, but microscopic single-celled fossils much older than the Cambrian have since been discovered. Paleontologists also used to think that Precambrian animals might not have fossilized because they were soft-bodied, but it is now clear that most of the fossilized animals in the Cambrian explosion were soft-bodied.
Once again, this presentation is extremely deceptive and misleading (it was always a question whether this is deliberate or due to simple ignorance; in the past, with ICR young-Earth type creationists, one was never sure; but today, the ID creationists receive much better scientific training, so I can only conclude that the deception is deliberate and mendacious). The fact that microscopic Precambrian fossils have been found does not guarantee that the ancestors of the Cambrian phyla must be found. They would be soft-bodied and preservation of soft-bodied organisms is extremely rare. Most of the fossilized animals in the Cambrian Explosion were not soft-bodied, but we are fortunate to have so many preserved under exceptional circumstances. There are only two really good examples of soft-body Cambrian preservation: one in China and a later one in Canada. Paleontologists still attribute the rarity of earlier fossils to the fact that they would not likely be fossilized because they were soft-bodied or because they evolved quickly in an environment that did not readily support fossilization.There is no excuse for a biology textbook to deal with the fossil record without even mentioning the Cambrian explosion. Furthermore, any biology textbook that fails to discuss the challenge posed by the Cambrian explosion to Darwin's theory would not enable students to "analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information."
Introductory biology textbooks do not need to mention the Cambrian Explosion, but it would certainly be okay if they do. In fact, I would recommend to authors and publishers that all begin to cover this topic; it would be exciting for students to see pictures of the weird and wonderful fossils found 520-550 million years ago, and give them an introduction to ancient time. In either case, the Cambrian Explosion does not provide a challenge to modern evolutionary theory. Many aspects of evolutionary theory exist that can explain what we observe. The challenge is to identify the correct evolutionary processes and sequence of events, and this is indeed controversial and still under investigation. Under no circumstances does the Cambrian Explosion imply a problem with finding a missing common ancestor, as the PA implies; such an idea is nonsense, because in evolutionary biology and phylogenetic reconstruction, common ancestors are always inferred, not "found." But I doubt that the creationists who wrote the PA would know that.
Vertebrate Embryos and Haeckel's Drawings
Ernst Haeckel, the famous 19th century German evolutionary biologist, proposed a "biogenetic law" that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," that is, an organism's development (its ontogeny) goes through precisely the same stages that it historically went through during its evolution from a much more primitive ancestor (its phylogeny). While many ontogenetic stages of a vertebrate (including humans) are indeed similar to its phylogenetic history--thus graphically demonstrating the fact of evolution (for example, the human embryo develops a notochord and pharyngeal grooves or "gill slits," but these are lost during gestation)--they are not identical, so Haeckel was wrong.
To illustrate his recapitulation theory, Haeckel, an outstanding artist, produced a figure (reproduced below, from Richardson and others, 1997) that purported to show the embryonic stages of eight vertebrates (fish, salamander, turtle, chicken, pig, cow, rabbit, human). However, Haeckel exaggerated the similarities and drew the embryos, in their earliest stages, to appear to be identical (so as to better support his biogenetic law). This error was pointed out during his lifetime and periodically thereafter, but his illustration nevertheless found its way into introductory biology textbooks as a demonstration of evolution. This illustration, and re-drawings of it, should not be included in any biology textbook today, nor is it now. However, photographs and drawings from photographs that show the similarity of vertebrate embryos remain an excellent way to demonstrate the fact of evolution, and should be included.
Ernst Haeckel's Vertebrate Embryo Ontogeny Figure
From left: fish, salamander, turtle, chicken, pig, cow, rabbit, human (from Richardson and others, 1997)
Now, let's see how the Discovery Institute distorts this issue in its PA:Darwin believed that the similarity of vertebrate embryos in their early stages reveals their common ancestry, and he considered those embryological similarities "by far the strongest single class of facts in favor" of his theory.
Well, this is accurate, and still correct today. Embryological similarities are indeed excellent evidence to support the truth of evolution, and thus they should be included in introductory textbooks, since they are a vivid graphic example (that creationists therefore want to remove by political fiat).In fact, Haeckel's drawings misrepresent the evidence in three respects: They select from the wide variety of vertebrate embryos only those that come closest to fitting Darwin's theory, they distort those selected embryos to make them appear more similar than they really are, and they completely omit the embryos' earliest stages --in which their dissimilarity is evident. (The early dissimilarity of vertebrate embryos does not support Darwin's theory, but must be explained away by the theory.)
Here we go misleading again. Haeckel selected eight quite different vertebrate embryos, an appropriate number, to illustrate his, not Darwin's, theory of recapitulation. Only the earliest stages are distorted to make them identical, not the middle and last stages. Haeckel did indeed omit the very earliest stages of ontogeny (zygote, blastula, etc.), and these are indeed different for different vertebrate embryos, but he did this to favor his own recapitulation theory, not Darwin's theory, which was already accepted by biologists in Haeckel's time. The very early dissimilarity does not in any way cast doubt on evolutionary theory ("Darwin's theory"), but only on Haeckel's "biogenetic law." As I said before, the great similarity among various vertebrate embryonic stages (as pointed out by another German biologist of the 19th century, von Baer) strongly supports evolution.In 1997, a team of embryologists compared Haeckel's drawings with photographs of real vertebrate embryos. In an interview with the journal Science, the leader of the team stated: "It looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology." In 2000, Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that Haeckel's drawings of vertebrate embryos "exaggerated the similarities by idealizations and omissions. He also, in some cases--in a procedure that can only be called fraudulent--simply copied the same figure over and over again."
These are magnificent misleading quotes out of context, a sure-fire creationist tactic. The leader of the 1997 team, Michael Richardson, revealed Haeckel's duplicity in a long paper on evolutionary development that shows that vertebrate embryos in the tail-bud stage are often dissimilar. Richardson's 1997 paper never casts doubt on the fact of evolution; indeed, he explains the dissimilarities by invoking regulatory gene-controlled heterochrony during development, an important evolutionary process. Similarly, the late Stephen Jay Gould, in the paper quoted, after describing Haeckel's apparent fraud, explicitly points out that von Baer's original observation on the similarity of vertebrate embryos during ontogeny supports the fact of evolution very strongly."We do, I think, have the right," Gould wrote in 2000, "to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks."
This statement is perfectly true, which is why all biology textbook authors and publishers today have already removed Haeckel's fraudulent drawings and replaced them with photographs or drawings from photographs to make the original point--which was never support for recapitulation, but an illustration of evolution.A few textbook authors have responded to criticisms by replacing Haeckel's drawings with photographs of actual vertebrate embryos. Even then, however, the selected embryos are usually the middle stages of chick and mammal embryos, which happen to resemble each other. Pictures of earlier stages, or the other vertebrate classes--which do not exhibit an obvious resemblance to each other--are omitted. Even though these textbooks are not recycling Haeckel's fraudulent drawings, they are still misleading students by showing them only that part of the evidence that happens to fit Darwin's theory, and omitting evidence that the theory has difficulty explaining.
Now we come to the crux of the matter. The DI creationists want all illustrations of evolution removed from textbooks, so they try to cast doubt on an important one and misleadingly say it is fraudulent and thus should be removed. But that's nonsense. I agree that the very earliest stages of vertebrate embryos are dissimilar, but that's only because they have different-sized eggs, an irrelevant factor. What is vitally important, however, is that students observe and understand the structural similarities of all vertebrate embryos--the pharyngeal pouches and grooves, the notochord, the dorsal nerve cord, the ventral blood vessel, etc.--that demonstrate their close evolutionary relationships. The presence of a notochord and pharyngeal grooves in the human embryo forcefully demonstrates our close ancestry to other vertebrates. This important information is precisely what the creationists duplicitously want the Texas SBOE to remove--because it is such a powerful illustration of evolution. The creationists don't really want information added; they want to make the vertebrate embryo illustration so controversial that the Board or--more likely--the publishers will remove it completely. In fact, one publisher (Holt, Rinehart, Winston) already has.
The evolution of peppered moths is an excellent illustration of gene-controlled microevolution (but not speciation) under natural selection. The moths vary from light-colored to dark-colored depending on the degree of industrial pollution, since selection pressure from predators forces the moth population in one direction or another, depending on the shade of tree trunks and branches, which is a function of soot pollution (which darkens trees) and lichen growth in unpolluted regions (which lightens trees). Genes control the expression of melanin in wing scales, so this process is termed "industrial melanism." As an illustration of the fact of natural selection, the peppered moth example is unequaled, which is why creationists want to remove it from textbooks, or more precisely, want to make it controversial enough so that the publishers will remove it themselves (self-censorship) under pressure from the SBOE.
The original work was conducted by Bernard Kettlewell in the 1950s, but scientists today are continuing the research with excellent results. The controversial point focused on by the PA is that an illustration of light and dark moths on both dark and light trunks was artificially reconstructed (or, as they say, "staged"). Two dead moths, one light and one dark, were indeed glued to two different trees, one light and one dark. Kettlewell did this deliberately for two excellent scientific reasons: first, to be able to illustrate the moths on their natural resting places for his paper, and second, to see whether predators would indeed preferentially choose the dark moth on the light trunk and the light moth on the dark trunk (they did). The real experiment took place after this and it was not "staged": different moths were released and then captured in a restricted area to measure predation. The results showed that the selection pressure was real. All this was done, of course, after other biologists had captured hundreds of moths throughout England, noted the color differences, and proposed the hypothesis of industrial melanism, which Kettlewell experimentally confirmed. Even more spectacularly, industrial pollution had darkened most regions of England, resulting in high numbers of dark moths in the population, but when cleaner coal plants and environmental regulations began appearing in the 1960s, the moth population shifted to more light-colored.
The peppered moth deserves to be kept in biology textbooks as an illustration of the action of natural selection, but what does the PA say about it?In the 1960s, legislation reduced industrial pollution, and light moths made a comeback. Their comeback in many locations, however, preceded significant changes in the color of tree trunks, raising questions about the classical story. By the 1980s, it became clear that peppered moths don't normally rest on tree trunks. In several decades of field research, involving tens of thousands of moths, only 47 were found resting in the wild, and only six of those were found in exposed positions on tree trunks. The textbook photographs, it turns out, were staged--in many cases by pinning or gluing dead moths to tree trunks.
The second sentence is false: enough trees had changed color to permit the light moths to reappear in greater numbers. Yes, moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, but that's irrelevant. Moths normally rest under branches, which show the same color-changes as the trunks. The "staged" photographs are a perfectly normal part of scientific illustration; what was Kettlewell supposed to do--wait for months until a moth landed in front of his camera on a tree trunk?In the 1950s, when experts still believed that peppered moths naturally rest on tree trunks, Kettlewell's experiments seemed valid and there was nothing wrong with staging photographs. But when it became clear that the basic premise of the classical story was false, textbooks should have started alerting students to the fact. The staged photographs should have been dropped, or at least properly labeled. Commercial enterprises are legally required to label their products and advertisements honestly; science textbooks should do no less. . . . There is simply no excuse for textbook writers to continue misinforming students about the peppered moth story, much less accompanying the story with false and misleading photographs.
I repeat, there was nothing wrong with illustrating artificial situations, and I have no problem with textbooks mentioning that fact in the figure caption. But it is important for the books to also point out that the real experiment did not involve moths artificially pinned or glued to tree trunks, but used release and capture statistics and other observational methods to test the hypothesis of industrial melanism. However, the DI creationists don't really just want the figure caption changed; they want the entire peppered moth example removed from biology textbooks because it is such a good illustration of the fact of natural selection. This example should not be removed.
Answers to Additional Questions About Evolution
Some SBOE members asked me some additional questions about evolutionary theory after the hearing on July 9. I will answer them again here for the benefit of all members.
1. Please explain the difference between microevolution and macroevolution.
Evolution in nature is a continuous process: there is unbroken genetic continuity from the earliest common ancestor to all present-day organisms. Scientists, however, have designated artificial hierarchies or levels of this continuous process so that they can discuss it simply and coherently. Microevolution is the change in gene allele frequencies in the gene pool of a species population that ultimately culminates in speciation--the origin of a new species. Macroevolution is the evolution of all taxa higher than species and uses speciation as the basic mechanism (taxa include genera, classes, families, orders, phyla, etc.). Microevolution is easily observable in both laboratory and field populations of organisms, while macroevolution is so slow that it must be inferred from systematics, phylogenetic studies, and the fossil record.
The big question is to what degree is microevolution able to account for macroevolution; some scientists believe that there must be some natural processes that operate only on the macroevolutionary level to explain the diversity we observe, while others believe that microevolution alone is sufficient to explain it. Whatever the case, it is important to understand that organisms do not evolve by either microevolution or macroevolution; there is only one, continuous evolutionary process that scientists have artificially subdivided for conceptual and explanatory reasons. So it is inaccurate to say, "I believe in microevolution but not macroevolution." However, one could correctly say either, "I believe that microevolution alone accounts for all the macroevolution we observe," or "I believe that separate processes are occurring in both microevolution and macroevolution." Some microevolutionary processes include natural selection, genetic drift, recombination, crossing-over, random mating, etc. Some macroevolutionary processes include the founder effect, species selection, species sorting, mass extinctions, macromutations, etc.
2. What are some of the legitimate scientific controversies, problems, or issues inviting criticism about the theory of evolution?
There are many disagreements among scientists about the correct nature or explanation of the evolutionary process. These should be studied in a university evolution class, usually taught in the senior year because of the great amount of prior biological knowledge needed to understand the issues. Their existence indicates that evolutionary science is a very healthy, active, and productive field. Here are some of them, including all the most contentious ones:A. The sufficiency of microevolution to explain macroevolution v. the existence of specific macroevolutionary processes such as mass extinction, species selection, macromutation, etc.
B. Disagreements about the tempo and mode of evolution under different circumstances: slow v. fast, gradual v. punctuated, before and after a mass extinction event, background evolution v. adaptive radiation, etc.
C. Adaptation of all features in evolution via natural selection v. features resulting from non-adaptive events and processes, such as correlation of growth, body constraints, neutral theory, genetic drift, etc.
D. The role of contingency and non-progression in evolutionary history v. evolutionary progress, improvement, and repetition due to convergent evolution.
E. Disagreements about the primacy of natural selection of individuals compared to other levels of the evolutionary hierarchy, such as gene selection, group selection, and species selection.
F. Nature v. Nurture, Genes v. Environment--this is the most divisive controversy. There are at least three positions: blank slate/human potential proponents v. sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists v. biological determinists and IQ and race investigators.
G. The extent to which evolutionary theory can explain or account for human morality, religion, behaviors, self-awareness, free will, etc.
H. The reality or not of memes in the human population; memes are similar to genes, but are actually ideas or concepts that evolve throughout the human population and are affected by similar processes that affect genes, such as natural selection, genetic drift, founder effect, etc. Memes affect cultural evolution in the same way that genes affect physical evolution.
3. If evolutionary theory is truly scientific, it must be testable and falsifiable. What observations would falsify the process of evolution by natural selection?
Charles Darwin himself suggested two such tests. First, he said that any structure or feature possessed by an organism that benefits another species but not the one that possesses it would falsify his theory (evolution by natural selection). Second, any structure or feature that exists today that can be shown to be impossible to form by gradual steps would falsify his theory. Neither of these two tests has ever successfully revealed that evolution by natural selection is false: no observation has ever been made that shows the presence of such unbeneficial structures or the impossibility that any structure formed gradually. Another test would be out-of-place fossils; e.g. human fossils in the Cambrian with trilobites or in the Jurassic with dinosaurs; such fossils have never been found. Since evolution is usually defined as the change of gene allele frequencies through time in species populations, another test would be finding two different species that possess identical alleles; such species have never been discovered; indeed, only identical twins or clones have identical alleles. Evolution predicts that organic taxa will appear in nature as groups within groups; that the genes essential for the most basic cellular processes (such as genes for mitochondria, cellular respiration, ribosomal proteins, etc.) will be conserved though high-level taxa (yeast, protist, roundworm, insect, vertebrate) through billions of years; that transitional fossils and living forms will be discovered between different fossil and living taxa: the absence of corroborating evidence for these predictions would tend to falsify evolution, yet all have been repeatedly confirmed.
Dr. Steven Schafersman is an evolutionary scientist who for over two decades has taught biology, geology, paleontology, environmental science, oceanography, and petroleum geology at the University of Houston, Houston Community College, Miami University of Ohio, and the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He has also taught chemistry and biology at Permian High School in Odessa, TX. He earned his Ph.D. from Rice University in 1983 for research on the evolution of fossil marine zooplankton. He founded and was president of the Texas Council for Science Education during 1982-1994, when he helped to improve the quality and integrity of biology and geology textbooks and science curricula in Texas. He founded the Texas Citizens for Science in early 2003 to meet the new threats to science education in Texas. The Texas Citizens for Science website is at www.txscience.org.
Copyright © 2003 by Steven Schafersman Texas Citizens for Science Last updated: 8 September 2003 | <urn:uuid:ff91d497-89a8-43af-84a5-803da587707b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.texscience.org/files/icons-revealed/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951624 | 15,411 | 1.84375 | 2 |
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fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Panel on Climate Variability on Decade-to-Century Timescales, and is currently a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale University.
Marilyn Wolfson is assistant group leader of the Weather Sensing Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory. She has served as leader of the Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Weather Research Program’s Convective Weather Product Development Team, a large team of collaborating researchers from four major laboratories and other universities, since its inception in 1996. Her research interests focus on aviation weather, particularly convective weather research. She and her project team have also worked on the critical aviation need for automated tactical convective weather forecasts with the development and deployment of accurate 1- to 2-hour forecasts tailored to terminal and en route users. Dr. Wolfson has served on the National Research Council’s National Weather Service Modernization Committee and the Committee on Meteorological Analysis, Prediction and Research. Dr. Wolfson received her Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. | <urn:uuid:d5360ac0-1260-4627-91a5-040bb2c3ee21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10637&page=47 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946993 | 300 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Making the grade: Merritt Fire Dept improves upon assessment
A recent assessment by the Fire Underwriters Survey found the Merritt Fire Department is better equipped to fight fires despite its small size and limited funding, City of Merritt Fire Chief Dave Tomkinson says.
The survey looks at the city's infrastructure and its fire department to determine two separate fire protection grades: the dwelling grade, which looks at residential firefighting capacity, and the public classification, which is for commercial buildings and industry.
The ratings are then used by insurance companies in their formulas for determining fire insurance premiums.
The dwelling grade ranges from five, which is unprotected, to one, which is the best possible protection. Within city limits, the dwelling grade raised from 3A to a two, and outside the city (but within the department's jurisdiction based on agreements with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District), the grade rose from a four to a 3B - meaning both have better coverage than the last time the area was surveyed.
Outside the city, that dwelling protection grade also means people with residential fire protection could save on their premiums in the future, Tomkinson said.
"That could be a 10 to 15 per cent savings," he said. "For someone who pays $1,200 in fire insurance, they can theoretically save just under a couple hundred dollars. They've had to do nothing, the City of Merritt has made some improvements, and they will reap some benefits."
The fire protection grade for public buildings and industry falls on a scale of 10 to one, again with a score of one being the highest level of protection possible. Within city limits, the public grade rose from six to five, which Tomkinson said that rating puts Merritt's fire station on the same fire protection level as other cities similar in population size that have larger forces and budgets than Merritt's.
"We are on par with departments that are spending a lot more money operationally," he said. "The improvements we've made are significant, and the grading that we received for a community our size is quite significant."
Tomkinson said the biggest improvement the department made since the last survey in 2006 is with the work experience program, which recruits five firefighters from fire academies anywhere in Canada for a 10-month, live-in work experience.
Other improvements include more fire inspections, the purchase of a ladder truck, and the designation of a Fire Prevention Officer and prevention outreach programs.
"That's public education that never used to happen in the department. We're in schools and doing things constantly, now."
Recommendations from the survey include purchasing another fire engine, increasing the firefighting force,
"Some things are going to be really tough for us, like to increase our firefighting force," he said. "We're recruiting volunteer firefighters all the time, and there's not as much interest as we would hope. We don't have training facilities right now. We don't have a burn building, so we have to out of town to Kamloops or Maple Ridge to acquire that."
Tomkinson said the most pressing issue is the limited space at the current fire hall, which the city is looking to rectify in the next two years by adding a truck bay, living quarters for the work experience firefighters, and decontamination areas.
"We have a conceptual idea of what we want," he said. "We've made a big improvement and we've worked really hard to get there. Now, our focus is to make sure we have a facility that we can use for the next 10 or 20 years." | <urn:uuid:130d17fb-9375-4abf-952c-327dc23d7b02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.merrittherald.com/news/198865231.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972797 | 733 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Day 1 is the first day of expectation setting.
"Pushing hard" isn't hard if its all they've ever known, its just normal...it just makes them better, happier and exposed to more opportunity. How hard working, successful, energetic will be factors of nurture imho. I'm seeing first hand in NYC how crazy competitive its going to be for that generation...its like 1000x as many people to eat the same 8 slices of pie.
Don't blindly pump sunshine and give blue ribbons for everything, but teach them its okay to fail as long as you tried your hardest and got back up and went after it again and again. Don't let negativity be an influence on their outlook.
Kick out the TV, its a mind-waste. Seriously lock it up except for events like Cowboys games or something. It really is a nasty habit, even with some quality programming out there.
Get their read on! Always be reading!
Get them doing stuff always, all the time (music, languageS, building stuff, figuring things out), not just sitting absorbing garbage.
Expose them to the outdoors as much as possible...and animal life. Different topographies, climates, landscapes, etc.
Expect too much of your kids, chances are they'll deliver.
Don't coddle, don't be their "best friend" be their parent.
Teach them to question authority if it something doesn't add up.
Teach them humility, don't let them be bullies, racists, *****s...even when they are just starting out.
Expose them to knowledge as a way of life...try to build the thirst for understanding into them.
Teach them healthy eating habits...if you can go super low meat or even veggie, more power to you.
All that stuff above is just my belief that more or less we all start out with the same amazing potential...and teaching someone that staying focused on topics for long times, always being active and not just sitting on the couch, watching TV....pumps up their brain. When they are young they can learn so much so fast...its just a great opportunity to help them be exceptional and get ahead in life. I see so many that want to coddle their kids like toys or "let them be children" as it that means anything other than their adult romantic notion of not having responsibility.
Oh and finally, teach them that wearing their hat backwards may incur the unexpected wrath of about a dozen or so people that question their ability to lead others. | <urn:uuid:62d31ff2-8c8b-449b-975b-32dca513e1b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cowboyszone.com/forums/dallascowboys.php?mode=hybrid&t=235910 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974402 | 525 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The UK needs growth and it needs it now: the forecast for 2013 is now halved to 0.6% and unemployment is rising once more. So did the Budget deliver? From a growth perspective, there are various welcome measures. Putting infrastructure and housing centre stage, policies to stimulate business investment, a cut in the cost of employing people and, of course, confirming that the Heseltine Single Local Growth Fund will be implemented are all good to see. But it is too little, too late. It lacks a ‘place’ focus that means policies could have adverse consequences for both London and the South East as well as many northern cities.
Housing is a good example of what happens when you have place-blind policy. It’s good the Government is recognising (through New Buy and Right to Buy) how much many people are struggling to buy their own homes – the Centre’s Cities Outlook highlighted this. But the UK needs 232,000 new homes a year just to meet demand, and we’re already at least 100,000 homes short of that. Without more measures to build homes, and soon, there’s a danger that a further house price bubble will be fuelled, particularly in the least affordable cities which have most pressure on the few homes available. We would also have liked to see more of a place-sensitive approach: while many fast-growing cities need new houses – and this could help create jobs, other cities with weaker economies – many based in the North - would benefit more from measures to stimulate refurbishment and retrofit, also creating jobs.
Infrastructure is also another case of benefits later rather than sooner. It’s good that the Chancellor is so clear about the importance of infrastructure to growth, and an extra £15bn for new road, rail and energy projects by 2020, starting with £3bn in 2015-16, could make a big difference to cities across the UK, especially where lack of infrastructure has been identified as a major barrier to growth. But why wait until 2015? And since many of the ‘shovel-ready’ infrastructure projects are relatively local, why not loosen Whitehall’s control on the purse-strings so that local areas can reallocate money towards infrastructure projects (or even other projects, if locally-appropriate) that they know will kickstart local growth?
Central pursestrings may well be loosened with the Budget’s very welcome endorsement of Lord Heseltine’s Single Local Growth Fund, alongside a range of other commitments to devolve more control of economic policy to local areas. Yet, the impact of policies such as the Fund will depend upon their scale, and this won’t be confirmed until the 26 June Spending Review announcements. Even when it is confirmed, it won’t make a difference in the short term as, again, it won’t launch until 2015. In the meantime, it’s vital that Government make use of City Deals as a way to devolve powers and funding more quickly (and considering how to extend the ‘core package’ to all other LEPs as a way into the Single Local Growth Fund negotiations in 2015).
Some of the tax cuts may help increase spending in cities, whether the increase in the personal allowance, the scrapping of the 3p rise in fuel duty or the 1p reduction in beer duty (a boon for community pubs at any rate). And, help on childcare is also good for cities, as it’s one of the biggest barriers to work – although there are questions about whether this approach (again not happening until 2015) – will really help reduce costs for parents, a particular concern for cities like London where childcare is most expensive.
Some of the business tax cuts may also be helpful to the UK economy as a whole (and therefore to cities), although the jury is out on the additional impact of some of the measures. For example, the interesting question about the Employment Allowance – the reduction by £2k of national insurance costs for all firms - is whether the additional benefits of encouraging businesses to take on employees will outweigh the deadweight incurred by a policy that subsidises employers for doing things they would have done anyway. What is undeniable is the importance of policies to generate jobs given today's figures showing youth unemployment is up.
It was a shame that there were such limited announcements on skills, despite the Chancellor saying that it’s the most important thing for long-term growth, there was a sense he felt the Government is already doing enough. We’d like to see more investment in this area – Cities Outlook 1901 shows it’s critical to keep investing in skills – and we’d also like more of a place lens on this policy area, as our evidence clearly shows that in certain cities, a lack of jobs available is further compounded by lower levels of achievement by school leavers.
It’s also likely that, as we pore over the figures, there’ll be more interesting nuggets to come on local government funding. It was good to hear confirmation of protection from further cuts for 2013/14 but, given the £11.5bn savings that need to be found, I’m sure that this won’t last long. It’s also likely that local government will be affected by the announcements on higher pension contributions from the public sector, so I’d expect to see local finances continuing to be squeezed over the next few years. Which brings us back again to the need for more local control over the money there is, enabling local areas to decide how to spend what little money is left.
Overall, it’s a Budget with various policies for growth – but more for growth tomorrow than growth today, with the inevitable impact this will have on cities. In the short term, it is to be hoped that policies on infrastructure, housing and business can be delivered in a way that helps cities grow. And, looking to the future, the key will be implementing Heseltine in a way that changes decision-making and funding in cities so that they can drive economic growth more effectively in the future – that’s the only way to achieve the kind of uplift in economic growth that the OBR is pointing to for 2014 and beyond.
Andrew set out yesterday how housing could deliver a short term stimulus to the UK’s economic conundrum. Another area that the Chancellor has hoped will deliver jobs and growth is inward investment, as shown by his cutting of corporation tax and the PM’s recent trip to India.
Cities have been keen to jump on the agenda of inward investment from foreign businesses too. The suitably vague request for the signing of a 'Memorandum of Understanding’ with UKTI has been almost ubiquitous across City Deal submissions and conversations around them.
It’s no surprise that cities are eager to encourage investment from foreign shores into their cities. But if the Chancellor takes the opportunity to further incentivise international business into Blighty, where are they most likely to want to locate?
Our Open for Business report last year looked at the geography of foreign owned businesses across the UK. Cities in the Greater South East, led by London, are the most popular destinations for foreign owned businesses. Almost one in three of foreign owned firms in the UK are based in these cities, compared with one in four businesses overall (i.e. those domestically and foreign owned). Cities in the North West, on the other hand, tend to be the least popular. They are home to 7.1 per cent of all businesses but just 6.1 per cent of all foreign owned businesses.
Individually, the two most successful cities in attracting foreign owned businesses lie outside of the Greater South East. At 7.2 per cent of the total business base, Swindon has the highest proportion of foreign owned businesses. It is followed closely by Aberdeen at 7.1 per cent.
While there is large variation across cities in terms of the share of foreign owned businesses, there is much less variation in terms of the countries that these businesses represent.
Businesses from the USA dominate the total number of foreign firms in our cities. With the exception of Belfast, businesses whose ultimate parent is based in the USA account for the most foreign owned businesses in every city in the UK. Reading in particular is a hotspot for US owned firms – 2.8 percent of its total businesses had an ultimate parent from the USA in 2010. The next most frequent countries represented are near neighbours France, Germany and Holland.
The economies such as China and India are likely to become increasingly important for purchasing our goods and services. But the BRICS countries are conspicuous by their absence. Companies from these countries make up no more than 0.2 per cent of the total business base of the most popular city, Luton. The maps below show the geographies of businesses from the USA, Eurozone and BRICS across UK cities.
It is likely that any further moves by the Chancellor to attract companies to our shores in this week’s Budget will fall more loudly on the ears of business bosses in our traditional heartlands of Europe and the USA, rather than the fast growers of the developing world. And if history repeats itself, those businesses listening are most likely to choose cities in the Greater South East.
Follow Paul on Twitter - @paul_swinney
I’ve been reflecting on the Government’s response to Heseltine overnight. While most commentators have reacted in a broadly positive way, as always, much depends on how policies are implemented and whether the rhetoric about the Government’s commitment to devolve is supported by day-to-day decision-making.
Key points worth noting:
Creation of Single Local Growth Fund: The details of what will be in the Fund are still being negotiated as part of the Spending Review, and we would expect this to be smaller than Lord Heseltine’s recommendation of £49bn. It is good news that transport, housing and elements of skills funding (though not yet apprenticeships) will be in the Fund, and it could be good news that they’ll be looking for “alignment” with other skills and employment programmes as well as EU Structural and Investment Funds, although ‘alignment’ is one of those words that can cover a multitude of policy responses...It will be important, however, that the perfectly sensible criteria for which monies to include in the Fund (on p.42) are not applied in such a way that, where evidence is limited as to what works best at national / local level, the default is to keep everything national.
Competition: There will be an element of competition, but perhaps not quite what Lord Heseltine envisaged. The response says that the Single Local Growth Fund will be allocated “through a process of negotiation and using competitive tension to strengthen incentives on LEPs and their partners to generate growth”. This means that every LEP will get something but the exact offer will depend on individual plans. A process similar to the Wave 2 City Deals approach may be used to strengthen the quality of multi-year strategic plans and bids to the Fund, with more available to those that “put forward robust and ambitious means of delivering economic growth plans”, demonstrate greater innovation, stronger capacity and stronger governance across the LEP area.
Capacity and Local Enterprise Partnerships: An approach based on competition raises questions, as always, about the places that have less effective LEPs and partnerships; the variability of LEPs around the UK is well documented. The response is clear that LEPs will be the main bodies through which funding is channelled, as for the Growing Places Fund, but that LEPs should remain “small, responsive, business-led organisations and avoid becoming local bureaucracies”. LEPs will get an additional £10m a year to boost their capacity and support development of strategic multi-year plans for local growth, and there will potentially be some support from Local Growth teams, but more detail is needed on whether government will provide different types of support to LEPs that are less developed, particularly in economic areas that are either particularly vulnerable or have particularly high growth potential.
Governance: It’s clear that the Government is pushing hard for local areas to improve their governance. Government has said it will support local authorities to form combined authorities or other forms of collaboration through a £9.2m Transformation Challenge Award, will not prevent areas pursuing unitary status, and will seek legislation for directly elected mayors for combined authorities where this is wanted by local areas. This is all very good news, particularly ‘conurbation mayors’ – the Centre has been calling for this since 2006, although we would want to see clear powers and funding attached to a directly elected mayor, to avoid the problems that the referenda last year ran into.
Getting Whitehall thinking locally: It is good that Local Growth teams are going to be established and that every LEP will have a senior Whitehall sponsor to work with them to understand their priorities and introduce more place-based thinking into Whitehall policy. However, to achieve the kind of transformation in policy making required to ensure that every national economic growth policy at least considers place when it is developed, this will need to go beyond senior sponsors having greater familiarity with one place. Instead the senior sponsors will need to challenge policies not just as champions for their LEPs, but on the basis that national policies work best if they are able to adapt to local circumstances.
Infrastructure and borrowing: It’s interesting that a new, concessionary Public Works Loan Board Rate will be available to an infrastructure project nominated by each LEP (except London), with the total borrowing capped at £1.5bn – and will be a good test of LEPs for them to have to put forward just one project to be considered. But will £1.5bn be enough – and will sharing it out between LEPs result in jam-spreading rather than prioritisation of the projects that could make the biggest difference to growth? Understanding the (national!) criteria for allocation of the borrowing will be important to ensure that this results in the boost to local growth intended.
Generally, there’s some good news in the response to Heseltine, not least because some of the measures are tackling the culture of centralisation as well as being specific policies to change allocation of powers and funding. But the proof is always in the implementation – and the money. Just as Heseltine’s approach was, the response from Government is still a relatively centralised approach to devolution and the real test will be whether this gets implemented in a way that really does cut through Whitehall silos, whether the pot is going to be big enough, and whether Government really does let go of some of its strings.
To help point the way forward, we have distilled the 81 recommendations that the Government has committed to at least partially implementing into the top ten priorities national and local policymakers now need to focus on, including establishing a significant Single Local Growth Fund, ensuring flexibility about the way funds are allocated, and building on some of the most useful aspects of City Deals such as the ability to negotiate, with constructive challenge from Government to help local areas improve their plans.
Heseltine is a real opportunity to make a difference to the UK economy; we need to do all we can to ensure it is implemented in a way that makes the most of that potential.
In the furore associated with the Government’s response to the Heseltine Review another highly significant announcement regarding the North East has been overlooked.
Last Friday, the leaders of the seven councils that make up the North Eastern LEP (Newcastle, Gateshead, North & South Tyneside, Sunderland, Northumberland and Durham) voted to give their collaboration on economic development and transport legal status by becoming a Combined Authority.
They join a growing group that includes not only the Greater Manchester Combined Authority but also West Yorkshire (Leeds City Region) and South Yorkshire (Sheffield City Region), both of which declared their intention in their City Deals of forming combined authorities.
For those that want to know a bit more about Combined Authorities we published a briefing on them a while back looking at their powers, funding and potential advantages.
Coupled with yesterday’s announcement at the launch of the Greater Birmingham Project: the Path to Local Growth that Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP will set up a ‘supervisory board’ to manage and “provide political accountability” for single pot growth funding means that a system of city-region governance for England at least is beginning to take shape.
Once the Combined Authorities are in place then the appetite to revisit the merits of Metro-Mayors, which we’ve been advocates for since our 2006 City Leadership report, will grow.
Directly-elected Metro-Mayors overseeing strategically focused city-region authorities. Now that really would be a significant step towards ‘real’ devolution.
The Government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s report No Stone Unturned was announced today. It’s is a ‘once-in-a-parliament’ opportunity to support greater devolution to local areas.
Government has committed to 81of the 89 individual proposals, we have distilled the 10 most important reforms that central and local government must prioritise and seek to take forward beyond the forthcoming Budget and spending review. Informed by our independent research and analysis, not all of these follow Lord Heseltine’s recommendations to the letter. But taken together, we believe they represent the best opportunity free our cities to boost growth in the years ahead.
In particular, national Government should:
1. Create a single funding pot for local areas, aligned with European funding allocations to provide greater flexibility for cities to adapt policies to their local circumstances, a more efficient allocation of resources at a local level, a more effective allocation of European funding streams and more scope for local innovation in terms of service delivery and pursuing growth.
2. Be flexible about the institutional structures and geographies to which it devolves funding to ensure that funds are devolved to functional economic areas, rather than within administrative boundaries, and that the body making decisions about funding allocation is democratically accountable and committed to a long term growth strategy.
3. Resist the temptation to continue setting the agenda nationally, particularly in relation to LEPs, recognising that different areas need different kinds of support if their local economy is to thrive. Large Core Cities, fast-growing small and medium cities and cities struggling in a post-industrial economy all require different support. Government should be open to flexing policy according to different needs.
4. Implement an approach to funding allocation that relies more on incentives than competition recognising that there are challenges inherent in making all funds subject to competition, including the risk that all places pursue the same priorities. Incentives should instead focus on the fundamental capacity of areas to deliver, including a requirement for strong governance, meaningful engagement with business and a clear focus on local growth.
5. Tackle Ministerial and civil service resistance to devolution by adopting Lord Heseltine’s recommendation that Ministers and permanent secretaries should be associated with individual LEPs, as well as creating permanent, cross-departmental local growth teams of civil servants to join up government at local level.
6. Use Heseltine to set a long term local growth agenda addressing private sector concerns over a lack of certainty in relation to national and local policy frameworks that they feel is currently inhibiting investment.
Working together, national and local Government should:
7. Ensure that Local Government steps up to take responsibility for delivering economic growth. Local government and LEPs need to take a lead by taking advantage of all existing and new powers to support economic growth at a local level. When developing local strategic plans, LEPs need to ensure that they are realistic, strongly place-based, developed with partners, and backed with investment and a delivery plan.
8. Manage issues relating to limited local capacity to ensure that cities can find ways to support one another and draw on expertise from the private and third sector where necessary. Implementing Heseltine’s recommendation for senior sponsors associated with individual LEPs may help with this, as could the introduction of secondments from national to local government and making use of public private partnership arrangements.
9. Ensure that Heseltine builds on the City Deals programme by ensuring that new centres of influence and power are not set up to compete against one another. Local areas must decide on their own governance and institutional structures to implement these separate processes, while elements of the City Deals process, such as the Core Package, should also be available to all local areas provided they can satisfy minimum criteria.
10. Strengthen local leadership by working towards the difficult process of local government reform, attempting to simplify the current overly complex system to create a streamlined system that recognises functional economic geographies more closely. It is vital, however, that both national and local Government do not become bogged down on institutional reform at the expense of broader delivery on local economic growth.
We will be providing regular updates as the Government takes forward these commitments.
As the Budget gets gradually leaked in time honoured fashion (although much less than last year), today is ‘growth’ day, with the focus on the Government’s response to Heseltine, to be published later today.
We haven’t seen the detail yet but press coverage (particularly good, as usual, in the FT) so far suggests:
i) 81 out of 89 recommendations have been accepted, including: the government drawing up a national growth strategy; seconding more civil servants to the private sector; civil servants being in local growth teams; and more business engagement in the school curriculum.
ii) Recommendations that haven’t been accepted include: setting up unitary authorities; setting out plans for new airport capacity in the south of England before 2015; and beefing up the legal powers of chambers of commerce. The recommendation for a national growth council has been accepted ‘in part’ which means it hasn’t really been accepted; it’s regarded as existing already.
iii) The single pot will be implemented, but it’s likely to be much smaller than Lord Heseltine recommended. It will include skills (but not apprenticeships), housing and transport, and the exact amount is being debated in Whitehall at the moment (for which read there’s a big battle going on, and Whitehall departments are trying to make this as small as possible). The exact amount will be decided on in the Spending Review.
iv) Much of the money will be channelled through LEPs. Each will negotiate a local growth deal, presumably along the lines of City Deals, with the funding allocated depending on the quality of the bid. It will be interesting to see how this fits with what’s in the core package.
I’ll blog again once I’ve seen the detail. But there’s a missed opportunity if the single pot is so small that no meaningful work can be done, if everything is channelled through LEPs and combined authorities are to be ignored (the latest one is in the North East, announced on Friday – a significant achievement) or if local areas get a few more instruments to play with but Whitehall still gets to call the tune. More on this later.
Five years into the longest recession in a hundred years, more than halfway through the Parliament…we need economic growth now. But what will – can – the Chancellor do to turn the UK economy around?
Press coverage to date suggests that this will be a ‘steady-as-she-goes’ Budget, trying to avoid the negative headlines of last March’s Budget (still described by some commentators as an ‘omnishambles’). Despite the UK’s downgraded credit rating and public interventions by the Business Secretary, there will be no abandonment of Plan A. Instead it’s likely that the Chancellor will be looking for cost-neutral policies that will make a big difference and will not be too unpopular – and there aren’t many of those around. Bets are on housing, trying to boost lending to businesses via the Business Bank, some more infrastructure projects (perhaps supported by Qatar?) and then a few sprinklings of other policies, with childcare one that’s been discussed at length in the past few months.
But given the current state of the UK economy, and the lack of growth that has characterised the last two and half years, will this be enough? Politicians, economists and commentators from all sides seem to think not. The Chancellor is under pressure from the left and the right to take more radical action to kick-start the economy. 2013 will be a hugely significant year both economically, and politically, with a General Election looming large in 2015.
So, taking into account the circumstances that the Chancellor is faced with, what does our evidence base and analysis suggest a good Budget for the UK and its cities might look like?
First, it needs to invest more in the long term drivers of economic growth. Most economists broadly agree on what these are: high levels of skills; appropriate infrastructure; innovative businesses; strengths in a range of diverse industries; better management to improve the UK’s poor productivity. The Centre’s Cities Outlook 1901 showed how important it is to continue investing in these areas, especially skills. Previous Budgets have sustained investment in research and development, put a bit more money into infrastructure and talked about skills. This year a good Budget would be one that sets out a long term strategy that gives the private sector certainty about where to invest, and that sustains investment in key areas, especially skills and infrastructure, so that in three to five years, the UK will be in a better position to grow than it is today.
Second, a good Budget would inject some short-term fizz into the economy. Part of the problem is the time that projects take - Government has been bemoaning the lack of shovel-ready projects to put some backing behind. Another part of the problem is demand; despite all the work already ongoing to encourage more loans to small business or kickstart the housing market, demand remains fairly weak. So a good Budget would be one that would back some projects that can happen quickly and are likely to stimulate demand in a range of sectors. This may require the public sector to take a lead in identifying and de-risking these projects through up front investment, so as to make them attractive enough for the private sector to take forward.
The Centre has already written to the Chancellor asking for three specific measures to be included in the First, a bold response to Heseltine that gives cities far greater autonomy over their economic development budgets, to help them better support local economic growth. Second, focusing investment in housing on the most unaffordable cities and sites that already have planning permission, while giving cities with weaker economies a different set of housing incentives to encourage refurbishment and replacement. Third, rethink the way that investment in cities is supported through reforming Urban Development Funds.
The Centre will be publishing a series of blogs in the run-up to the Budget, we’ll be live-tweeting and blogging on the day, and then we’ll be putting up rapid response commentary. And we’ll be following up with a whole series of papers in the run-up to the Spending Review, setting out how working differently with cities could make a big difference to economic growth. It’s an important time to be debating economic policy; if we can make more of our cities economic potential, it could help get us back on the path to growth.
Seven per cent – that’s how much of the £10 million High Street Innovation Fund, set up last year to bring empty shops back into use, has been spent to date.
The figures come from a Freedom of Information request by Paul Turner-Mitchell, an independent retailer, who appears to be on a one-man fact finding mission on all things High Street policy related - his earlier FOI revealed that just 12 per cent of the £1.2 million money assigned to Portas Town Teams had been spent to date. His investigations also reveal how the money has been spent to date. In Dartford, £1,600 was used to hire a man in Peppa Pig costume.
Whilst understandable, Mr Turner-Mitchell’s displeasure at how much of this money has been spent to date, and how it has been used, misses the point. Regular visitors to this blog will be aware of Centre for Cities’ view on the Portas Review, as detailed here.
In short, a focus on retail alone is far too narrow to solve the malaise of the High Street. Retailers need sustained footfall. Unfortunately no end of grant spent on bunting and flower pots is going to deliver this. In the majority of instances the steadiest source of footfall past the doors of High Street retailers is likely to be by non-retail workers. But the Portas Review completely ignores this fact, and so too have a raft of studies published on the back of it.
The latest to do so is the London Assembly Economic Committee’s report on empty shops, published earlier this week. At the launch event, London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore, Chair of the Economic Committee, remarked that it is the outer lying High Streets of London that are struggling in particular, and it is these places that require specific attention from London policymakers to reverse their retail fortunes.
It’s worth reflecting on this point for a second to show why something that is well intended is ultimately misguided. A key economic role played by Outer London Boroughs, as shown in our report Size Matters, is to ‘export’ workers to business-rich central London. This means that the population of central London swells massively during standard trading hours, as illustrated in the infographic below (with thanks to Alasdair Rae - see his excellent blog). And so too does the potential market for retailers – this large in-migration of people every day provides them with punters to sell their wares to.
It is because of these commuting patterns that retailers such as Pret thrive in Central London. There are 193 Pret stores in the capital, the highest of any city in the UK (the next highest is Birmingham, with five). Where are these Prets located? 80 per cent are in the Inner London Boroughs. And almost 60 per cent are in Westminster, Islington and the City of London alone.
London’s core has been strengthening in recent years – more and more of the capital’s businesses are choosing to locate and is likely to continue to do so as density becomes ever more important for knowledge based businesses. This, coupled with the on-going national economic malaise and the rise of internet shopping, means that for many Outer London High Streets retail is likely to be inappropriate as a response for reversing their fortunes. Instead policymakers in London should be thinking about what other uses are suitable for these areas.
What does this mean for cities more generally? Retail thrives where footfall is concentrated. This means that, particularly in cities where we have seen a dispersal of economic activity in recent years, any attempts to revive ailing retail-dominated High Streets should be thinking about how they can encourage a concentration of economic activity in their city centres. While not the only required response – tourism, residential and leisure also have a role to play - only when this has occurred will bunting and flower pots have any sort of impact.
We should worry less about Portas money not being spent – its approach means that the money is likely to have little impact even if it had been used. This could even be a blessing in disguise – at least it gives the opportunity for it to be recalled and spent on something a little more sensible. Instead we should be thinking about how to support growth in underperforming city centres. The Centre for Cities will be investigating this in more detail in the coming months.Follow Paul on twitter - @paul_swinney
Colleagues in the office and those who know me already are aware that I am extremely interested in regional banks. It is hardly surprising that the topic is in vogue given we suffered the financial crash in 2007 and that six years on the economy continues to stutter. There are also political shifts such as the rhetoric to ‘rebalance the economy’ and a greater emphasis on local economic growth.
The discussion has been ratcheted up today with Ed Miliband delivering a speech on this topic at the British Chambers of Commerce conference. The model in Germany is often cited but how many people actually know what it looks like? Well, for those who want a bit more information, read on!
The German financial system operates within a federal political system and is based upon three tiers of banking: 1. Public banks; 2. Co-operative banks and; 3. Private banks.
Public banks are owned, run and managed by federal government, states, districts or cities and have a specific investment remit, for example development and infrastructure, with a long-term perspective. Importantly, finance is raised by issuing bonds that are guaranteed by the federal state. There are two sub-sectors of public banks: Sparkassen (savings banks) and Landesbanken (regional banks).
Co-operative banks include both credit unions and co-operatives and offer similar but differentiated products.
Private banks operate as private banks do here, in the UK. They have branches across the country (and, indeed, the world), and provide all the same services.
The UK does not have public banks but rather has a private sector led system. The difficulty in changing the system in the UK is that we don’t have a federal political system and so financial responsibilities are maintained at the national level. Moreover, public banks would also require institution building which takes time and money.
However, there are already many funding streams from central government to target specific industries – namely manufacturing or green technology – as well as specific financing ideas such as the Cambridge and Counties Bank (a partnership between the university and the county) which could benefit from such a targeted system. There may also be a role for quantitative easing to be better channelled into regions via a new finance structure.
One thing is for certain; if the idea of regional banks is to catch on in the UK the core principles need to remain and the institutions need to be tailor made to our political, economic and administrative system. Public banks in Germany have local knowledge of their economy which informs their long-run investment mentality and ensures local economic growth is championed above short-run profit. | <urn:uuid:8ba1a279-91ea-49ec-be0e-c154b838270e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://centreforcities.typepad.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95663 | 7,182 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Tix (Tk Interface Extension) module provides an additional rich set of widgets. Although the standard Tk library has many useful widgets, they are far from complete. The Tix library provides most of the commonly needed widgets that are missing from standard Tk: HList, ComboBox, Control (a.k.a. SpinBox) and an assortment of scrollable widgets. Tix also includes many more widgets that are generally useful in a wide range of applications: NoteBook, FileEntry, PanedWindow, etc; there are more than 40 of them.
With all these new widgets, you can introduce new interaction techniques into applications, creating more useful and more intuitive user interfaces. You can design your application by choosing the most appropriate widgets to match the special needs of your application and users. | <urn:uuid:b714c674-7267-4f1c-bb06-9912400f64ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://docs.python.org/release/2.2.3/lib/module-Tix.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942966 | 164 | 1.789063 | 2 |
SPRINGFIELD – Two new rules designed to improve the quality of and access to better health care, crafted by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, were approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules earlier today. The first rule ensures that Illinois patients who receive a prescription from their family doctor will have a reasonable assurance that their local pharmacy will fill the prescription in a timely manner. The second rule requires new dental sedation training for dentists and their staff. The new dental sedation rules were developed after two Chicago area patients died after being sedated for dental treatment.
The Pharmaceutical Access Rule requires each licensed retail pharmacy to deliver lawfully prescribed drugs and non-prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration for restricted distribution by pharmacies, and were designed to protect patients from having to travel extraordinary distances or to multiple pharmacies to obtain highly time sensitive medication.
“The changes in pharmacy stocking requirements will protect access to life-saving medications for all Illinois residents and will give every Illinois family reasonable assurances that they can fill their doctor’s prescription at their local family drug store,” said Brent Adams, Secretary, Financial and Professional Regulation.
The dental sedation rule increases the amount of training needed by assistants and dental hygienists who assist in cases where a patient is sedated. It also clarifies what monitoring equipment must be used and specifies monitoring procedures for the dental professionals involved in every case involving light and moderate sedation. It also clearly defines a dentist’s responsibility to ensure that staff are appropriately trained and equipped to provide emergency patient care if needed.
“The new dental sedation rules will provide a significant step in improving the safety of Illinois dental patients who seek sedation during treatment,” said Donald W. Seasock, Acting Director, Division of Professional Regulation. “By clarifying what pre-treatment planning is needed and what staff training and monitoring is necessary, we should reduce the risk for patients treated under light or moderate sedation.”
The final rules will take effect when they are published in the Illinois Register. They will be posted at www.idfpr.com when they are published. | <urn:uuid:92c4d7f3-fa5e-4c39-8113-41839184dae8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=8367 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953941 | 435 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Here is a new video podcast from Lee Stevens, a rising junior at Brown University. In this episode Lee takes a closer look at corals. Corals tend to be known as home to a dynamic menagerie of animals, bacteria and plants, but the coral itself is also a pulsating community in it’s own right.
This video was produced by Lee Stevens, with music by Transient. It is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. | <urn:uuid:6b049754-8c71-441c-b9ae-446356935593> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creaturecast.org/archives/1744-creaturecast-corals-coloniality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946643 | 103 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The New Orleans Children’s Chorus is in the process of placement hearings for the Concert, Lyric and Youth Chorale.
Concert Chorus: An advanced group of musicians who serve as the organization’s premiere touring ensemble. Singers range in age from 10-18. Members perform a variety of compositions representing many musical styles from all periods.
Lyric Chorus: A mixed ensemble for experienced high school singers that performs advanced repertoire written in four-part texture. The Youth Chorale hosted an annual Invitational Choral Festival with orchestra for ten years and has won awards at music festivals throughout the South. They have also performed at Carnegie Hall and at Walt Disney World.
Youth Chorale: Designed for singers ages 5-12, the Lyric Chorus focuses on building a strong musical foundation through practice and performance of choral repertoire suitable for beginning and growing musicians. Vocal development is stressed in addition to music reading, posture, poise, concert etiquette and teamwork.
Friday September 7th (4-6pm) & Saturday September 8th (10am-Noon). Other times by appointment. Please call 504.482.2883.
Lakeview Presbyterian 5914 Canal Blvd, NOLA 70124
Open to all singers 5-18yrs NOCC accepts all young people who are able to commit to rehearsal and performance schedule.
Tuition $400 per year, less than one private lesson—$45 a month! Family discounts, installment plans and need-based scholarships available. | <urn:uuid:fa26e44b-7339-4367-a77b-83115c40d6bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neworleanschildrenschorus.org/2011/08/25/nocc-placement-hearings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940362 | 313 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I’m a little sapped of inspiration today, in fact I’m a little sapped of everything today, but I feel I should post something, so here goes. Forgive me if I’ve long ago missed the boat, but here are some things that’ve bugged me for a while yet have somehow escaped my “ranting.” As you may have guessed, it’s going to be another installment of the blogger’s crutch: language usage diatribe! (“Wheeee!”)
- Haven’t we as a society grown weary of the idiomatic appendage “…on steroids” to signify something in a more powerful or extreme form? In my experience, the phrasings and comparisons are rarely clever or insightful and it’s so obviously a conceptual shortcut that has outlived its usefulness. To the best of my determinations, its vintage is the the early 1980s.
- What about the “War on Drugs”? This locution apparently dates from the mid-1970s. I suppose waging or declaring war on something is as equally valid as against something, but the latter seems more precise and less ambiguous, depending on who or what your enemy is. After all, being on drugs is very different than being against drugs. What if we declared War on Horses? Would that declaration still be in effect if we dismounted?
- Finally, on the same theme, how about the “Drug Czar“? The word czar is ultimately derived from the Latin caesar and is defined as:
- also tsar or tzar (zär, tsär) A monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917.
- A person having great power; an autocrat: a czar of industry.
(adapted from dictionary.com unabridged v 1.1 and The American Heritage Dictionary)
One would naturally think, then, that a “Drug Czar” would be sort of like an underworld king-of-kingpins or an über-druglord, no? Interestingly, by searching through the New York Times’ archives, I was able to get a sense of the phrase’s introduction to our language. The idea for such a cabinet position in the U.S. government was hatched during the Reagan administration: in the early 1980s it was referred to as “drug czar” (in quotes), by the mid-80s it was beginning to shed the quotes, sometimes appearing as drug “czar.” In the late mid-80s we began to see the phrase so-called drug czar, sans quotation marks. By the end of the decade, the process was complete and Drug Czar officially entered the lexicon as a no-longer-exotic animal. I, however, still think it sounds strange.
nb: The final sense of czar in The American Heritage Dictionary is: “3. Informal An appointed official having special powers to regulate or supervise an activity: a racetrack czar; an energy czar. ” This seems to me as if it’s come into usage in tandem with the 1980′s ascendance of drug czar. | <urn:uuid:b50adf13-f92d-4f3b-af2e-1a6a5fc44af2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pannonica.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/war-on-steroids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951335 | 692 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Given recent, unfortunate news, a lot of uninformed people are repeating the old, false “Airbus crashed cause pilot was overriden by computer!” meme about AF296, when an Air France Airbus, making a low-level fly-past of an airfield, crashed into trees at the end of the field.
The actual facts of the matter, as determined by the official investigation reports, unless you choose to believe the conspiracy theories, indicate the crash was due to a number of human faults on the day.
- The flight-crew were not properly briefed – the charts provided to them of the airfield (and to which AF did not usually fly) did not show the high-trees at the end of the field.
- The captain disregarded audible warnings from the highly accurate radio-altimeter and instead relied on his less accurate and/or miscalibrated barometric altimeter, which led him to make the fly-past at around 30m AGL instead of the 100m AGL he had been instructed to make it at (which would have prevented the crash).
- The pilot applied power too late to climb above the trees. There are some suggestions the engines failed to react (from which the false meme about the computer overriding the pilot seem to have sprung), however high-bypass, fan jet engines are known to be slow to spool-up at the best of times, even more so at low-altitude and low-speed. It’s also possible one engine may suffered a performance problem right at that time, due to an understood feature of turbo-fan jets (compressor stalls) – one which Airbus re-iterated in a technical memorandum not long before the crash, which the captain likely would have read.
In short, there were a series of errors. Even being kind to the captain, he failed to fly at the approved altitude and he failed to leave sufficient margin to allow for the physical, performance limitations of his engines. It was, in the greater part, caused by pilot error.
More comments (some useful) are in this slashdot story sub-thread. | <urn:uuid:d7cb77f4-a684-499f-ac62-75a5363873e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjakma.wordpress.com/tag/fly-by-wire/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970284 | 438 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Lady Gaga Is a Centaur in New Photo
We all know Lady Gaga is otherworldly, but she has further proven that fact by releasing a photo of herself as a centaur, which is half-human, half-horse.
Finally, her “Mother Monster” persona and name make a whole lot of sense. Gaga is sporting a unicorn horn, as well, so she’s furthering the mythical nature of the creature and the pose in this photo.
The image appears to have been taken during the earliest promotional phases of ‘Born This Way’ and looks like her Billboard cover sessions, since she was wearing similar attire. But it’s the first time we’ve seen this magical image. Gaga is sporting cheek implants and was prone to distorting her face during that period of promo for the record, and she took things a step further by distorting her body in this image.
Can we just tell you that we love her version of the hooves? Leave it to Gaga to transform into a creature such as this and do it fashionably, with chunky, reverse platform heels that look like horse hooves; these are something that fashion-forward women would want to wear.
The photo is beautifully done since Gaga is able to maintain perfect, upright, bipedal posture, despite having a horse’s body attached to her. It’s another example of Gaga not only breaking the mold, but creating her own mold.
Again, she shared this photo via LittleMonsters.com. She has been giving fans plenty of exclusive images via her site as of late. Like the photo of her and her boyfriend, ‘T’.’
Watch the Lady Gaga ‘Born This Way’ Video | <urn:uuid:70cec3e0-caab-457b-80ed-1d686069f443> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://1075zoofm.com/lady-gaga-centaur-photo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973079 | 362 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Why pick a military town as the site for an antiwar rally? As a military veteran and a resident of Fayetteville, N.C. near Ft. Bragg, I can think of at least 50 reasons. Each of those reasons has a name and each were members of our community prior to their deaths in Iraq.
Some may argue that voicing opposition to war in a military town is somehow disrespectful. Tell that to the military families and veterans from many wars, including the current one, who plan to gather here on March 19, the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Like the majority of Americans, we now reject the reasons used to justify the war and many of us feel that the US government failed to successfully plan for what has happened. That lack of planning affects our communities more so than most.
Antiwar activism by veterans has been largely forgotten or downplayed. During the recent election, John Kerry talked much at length about his time in Vietnam. It wasn't his service there that brought him to the national spotlight. It was his membership in Vietnam Veterans Against the War and his memorable testimony before congress. During the Vietnam War a GI-led demonstration in a park in Fayetteville drew 4000 people, many of them servicemen. On the first anniversary of the war last year, the park saw another demonstration, the town's largest action for peace in nearly 35 years. For three hours groups like Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace condemned the senseless waste in Iraq.
Former N.C. based Marine, Michael Hoffman, recently announced that the organization he co-founded, Iraq Veterans Against the War, plans to meet in Fayetteville on March 20, the day after the rally. Formed in the summer of 2004, the group is rapidly adding new members, including some who served with the 82nd Airborne. That unit and others based at Ft. Bragg produced the 20,000 Iraq vets in the local community. Hoffman hopes to add a few of them to IVAW's swelling ranks.
Military Families Speak Out, an organization of people who are opposed to war in Iraq and who have relatives or loved ones in the military formed in 2003. Its members are traveling from all over the country to be at the rally. Several members of Gold Star Families for Peace composed solely of those who have lost loved ones in the war are scheduled to speak. Local officials sponsor billboards proclaiming North Carolina to be “America's Most Military Friendly State.” These events will reflect that sentiment in a way few would have imagined.
Protesting the war in Iraq is not a new activity in Fayetteville. A group of local of veterans, military wives and their community supporters conducts occasional vigils in the center of town and has since the day the U.S. invaded. The early vigils met with catcalls. As the disaster in Iraq became evident, derision subsided and vocal support emerged.
Those local activists supported Army paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman who left Ft. Bragg for Canada, applying for status as a refugee on the grounds that he was being forced to participate in an illegal war. He was denied conscientious objector status while serving in Afghanistan after telling the review board that he would defend his squad were it to be attacked at the base. The military refused to allow him to serve as a medic, instead ordering him to continue as a rifleman.
The national director of Veterans for Peace, Michael McPhearson is a Fayetteville native. He served as a field artillery officer in the first Gulf War. He has a son stationed at the Army base, Ft. Campbell, K.Y. He will speak at the March 19 rally, just as he did last year. McPhearson's mother sometimes stands with others at the vigils behind a handwritten wall that now contains the 1483 names of American servicemen dead in Iraq.
We are tired of the ubiquitous yellow ribbon magnets that command us to “Support Our Troops.” To those of us living in this military town, real support for the troops means Bring Them Home Now!
Lou Plummer is a member of Military Families Speak Out and Veterans for Peace. He can be reached at: email@example.com.
Other Articles by Lou Plummer | <urn:uuid:b4b13fb7-cacd-4306-b14b-0278d4b5bdbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar05/Plummer0303.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975331 | 871 | 1.742188 | 2 |
If you’ve read anything that I’ve shared, retweeted, liked, +1′ed, or written myself over the past few years, you may notice a trend. The more I become invested in libraries, the more that I believe that the library of the future is less about collecting stuff and more of a space that emphasizes community created content and interaction.
The current discussions around eBooks, streaming, digital lending, and everything under that umbrella makes me believe that this is the path forward for libraries even more. We have a great opportunity to reinvent ourselves at this moment in time. I highly suggest we take advantage of it.
With this post, I hope to collect as many resources on this idea as possible. I’ll continue to update this post as I find relevant information concerning this topic.
Thank you for listening.
Keeping Libraries Current: Provide Access to Tech, Info, and People
by The Connected Librarian
As print collections are gradually being reduced to make way for increased digital resource buying and physical equipment, libraries are looking to transform themselves into relevant and viable places to get things done.
Battles and Wars by Mick Jacobsen
I don’t know about you, but I am fighting the War to make the Library vital to my community and make the community I serve the best in the world.
An eBook is not a Book by Nate Hill
In this transitional time, public libraries should aim for the future and invest in toolsets and programming that help their communities produce and participate in new digital works, not simply consume them. To make something is to understand something.
Libraries as Incubators
At a time in which both libraries and arts organizations are often having to do more with less, it makes sense for these two parts of our culture to support each other. The Library as Incubator Project calls attention to one of the many reasons libraries are important to our communities and our culture, and provides a dynamic online forum for sharing ideas.
Library You by the Escondido Public Library
LibraryYOU is a project by the Escondido Public Library to collect and share local knowledge through videos and podcast.
Skokie Public Library Digital Media Lab
(The Digital Media Lab) contains four new Apple desktop computers loaded with software that will enable users to creatively express themselves through digital videos, music, photography, websites, graphic design, podcasts, presentations and other forms of digital media.
The Hyperlinked Library by Michael Stephens
(The Hyperlinked Library is) an open, participatory institution that welcomes user input and creativity. It is built on human connections and conversations. The organizational chart is flatter and team-based. The collections grow and thrive via user involvement. Librarians are tapped in to user spaces and places online to interact, have presence, and point the way. The hyperlinked library is human. Communication, externally and internally, is in a human voice. The librarians speak to users via open, transparent conversation.
The Fab Lab at the Fayetteville Free Library
Over the past fifty years, the manner in which we process information has changed. New technological developments have changed the way we interact with information, allowing us to become “creators” rather than just “consumers.” There are few places that currently provide community access to new, innovative creation technology like 3D printers. These spaces, known as Fabrication Labs (fab labs), Hackerspaces, and Tech Shops, share common goals: collaboration and ‘making.’ They exist to give their specific communities the ability to ‘make’ through sharing knowledge and skills. They provide the technology necessary to make almost anything. | <urn:uuid:f51f8d8d-4071-4e06-ac3b-a5d5ae0554cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://justinthelibrarian.com/2012/02/21/community-is-greater-than-ebooks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949186 | 755 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Whilst everybody is familiar with the particular English, Victoria & ErvIn, along with the Normal Background Galleries and museums, Manchester offers a number of lesser-known galleries to teach and amuse tourists trying to find some thing off of the defeated course.
Families with kids can particularly take advantage of the Animation Museum, celebrating the art and also whimsy regarding math comic strips, shows and also caricatures which has a noticeably English tastiness. Your Heneage Catalogue is situated within the museum, possesses above Some,000 math comic strips and also Your five,000 books in the series; over 1,Five-hundred toons, comics, as well as caricatures are generally placed through the museum alone and also designed for exhibit. Frequent displays display the whole shebang of a certain performer as well as cartoons specialized in a specific style. The Animation Museum can be shut down on Mondays, and needs a charge pertaining to entrance.
Future prestidigitators of every age group will love a vacation to the Center to the Magic Martial arts styles, often known as the particular Magic Group Museum. Tours are available by visit only, as well as by participating in the normal Match the Magic Group of friends event kept twice each month, usually evenings. The actual Center boasts the most considerable variety of magic textbooks throughout The european union, and also displays marvelous devices, memorabilia, paper prints, and also other historic things via magic’s background. Carefully guided around the actual museum are available by simply earlier session, and have handcuffs utilized by Harry Houdini and also other historic enchanting things along with things.
The particular Freud Museum proudly displays the main lounger utilized by Sigmund Freud with regard to his psychoanalysis. Occupying the first kind house of Generate. Freud herself, your museum includes Freud’s books, study, along with assortment of uncommon antiquities via Greece, Ancient rome, as well as The red sea. Movies showing you his or her family life are provided in the course of many excursions. The beautifully-preserved residence supplies a distinctive investigate the private lifetime of the father of contemporary psychoanalysis, and it is any must-see for beginner researchers as well as background buffs likewise. The particular museum is shut down Thursdays along with Mondays, and requirements a fee pertaining to entrance.
Conspiracy enthusiasts will like the actual Collection as well as Museum regarding Freemasonry, one of the most considerable series involving Masonic literature along with keepsakes inside the world. Images, treasures, as well as Freemason regalia are saved to display in the museum, which include a number of products belonging to Winston Churchill. The actual catalogue houses a new near-comprehensive catalogue associated with Uk publications upon Freemasonry, and genealogical info is available too to a family event people in prior Freemasons. The actual Selection as well as Museum are usually available to the public Wednesday via Feb 5th; entry costs nothing.
The honor on the customer life-style, the actual Museum associated with Makes, The labels as well as Advertising provides an considerable series across English promoting and also presentation in the Victorian times to the present day time. A variety of events spotlight advertising and marketing designs as well as styles, with the concentrate on the actual famous facets of promoting as well as marketing. The actual museum will be closed Mondays, and requirements a fee with regard to entrance. | <urn:uuid:763550f5-bc98-4e30-a365-3eef937ae871> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.magicatthemuseum.com/tag/memorabilia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955204 | 693 | 1.789063 | 2 |
India's insurance business was full of promise when it was thrown open to competition in 2000, but has instead been brought to its knees by losses, regulatory change, uncertainty and a sharp slowdown in economic growth.
Many firms are fed up and looking for the exit.
"What is required is some stability in the regulatory regime, for companies to really focus on business rather than deal with the onslaught of regulatory change," said Rajesh Sud, CEO of Max Life, owned by Max India and Japan's MS&AD Insurance Group.
Last week, the government sought to remove a key barrier to bringing in much-needed capital by proposing to raise the cap on foreign ownership of insurance firms to 49 percent from 26 percent.
But the measure, part of a series of sweeping economic reforms, requires parliamentary approval, which will not be easy given that the ruling coalition is technically in a minority and other recent reforms have inflamed populist opposition.
Workers at former state monopoly Life Insurance Corp of India, which has a 70 percent market share and about 1.3 million agents - as many as those employed by the 23 private sector firms - have held street protests against the proposal.
The life insurance industry, which makes up about three-quarters of the sector, has lost a combined $4 billion in the past decade and was battered by a 2010 clampdown on the sale of lucrative equity-linked products.
Life insurance companies say a revival will depend on faster approval for new products and regulatory changes to allow banks to sell products of more than one insurer to cut distribution costs.
In the non-life segment, where six of the 27 firms operating are state-run, 13 private sector insurers including units of Canada's Fairfax Financial and Japan's Tokio Marine reported losses in the year ended March 2011.
The cumulative underwriting losses for non-life insurers were nearly $6 billion in the year to March 2010, the Boston Consulting Group said in a report last year, and industry officials said the figure may have since touched $7.5 billion.
The life insurance industry, where many smaller firms have lost interest in pumping in fresh capital is also ripe for consolidation, though buyers may be scarce, banking sources said.
Max Life's former partner, New York Life, this year became the first foreign insurer to exit India, citing international business "repositioning" when it sold to MS&AD.
It is unlikely to be the last.
ING is looking to sell its stake in its India insurance joint venture as part of the planned sale of its Asia business. Local media have reported that HSBC was also looking to sell its stake in its local insurance venture. A company spokesman declined to comment.
"It's all nice talk, but I just don't think it will get through," said Gary Bennett, who runs New York Life's Asia business, referring to the need for parliamentary approval of the foreign investment proposal. "It would be good for the industry. It needs something to give it another shot in the arm because it was really savaged by regulation over the last couple of years, and a slowing and sort of plateau in the middle class," he said.
Nine of the 23 private sector life insurers, including units of HSBC, Italy's Generali and Dutch life insurer Aegon, lost money in the year ended in March.
Many operators have been shutting branches and shedding staff to manage their costs. Some, including ING's tie-up with Indian car battery maker Exide as well as the joint venture between France's Axa and Bharti Enterprises, owner of India's biggest cellular carrier, have never made money.
Some Indian companies rushed into insurance hoping the cap on foreign ownership would be quickly raised, enabling fresh funding from overseas partners and through initial public offerings. Some now want out so they can focus on their core businesses.
Future Group, India's biggest retailer, has been looking to exit its venture with Generali, while DLF, India's largest listed property company, wants to leave a joint venture with Pramerica as part of its efforts to pare its debt, bankers have said.
"If you look at the local shareholders in India who own 74 percent, you have companies whose core businesses can be banking, telecoms, all kinds of sectors," said François-Valéry Lecomte, regional chief financial officer of AXA Asia.
"Every penny they inject in insurance is diverted away from their sector," said Lecomte, who believes an increase in the foreign ownership cap to 49 percent will help bring in funds. "If the balance was 49-51, there would be much more capital flowing into the market because international insurers are willing to invest in India."
India's insurance industry needs an estimated $12 billion in capital to be adequately funded.
Life insurance penetration in India is about 4.4 percent of the country's gross domestic product in terms of total premiums underwritten in a year. That compares with 8 percent in Japan and 9.5 percent in Britain.
Tough competition and little product differentiation means companies generate low margins. India's new business margin for insurers, a key gauge of profitability, is around 10-15 percent against 20-25 percent in China and 30 percent-plus in Hong Kong, industry officials said.
Standard & Poor's said in a report in July the absence of progress in raising foreign ownership could result in "continued volatility" in the life insurance market.
That could change if New Delhi finds the political support to turn its proposal to raise the ownership cap into law. Recent moves to increase foreign ownership in supermarkets and airlines met fierce opposition, but did not need parliamentary approval.
"We are approaching it with optimism, but I won't say that we have declared any kind of victory or success on this because it's still a long way to go," said Max Life's Sud. | <urn:uuid:c7c5d340-0f1d-436b-9ada-97851c0e13f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/393901/20121013/india-insurance-business-foreign-investment-regulation.htm | 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 | 0.972527 | 1,191 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Children in Vietnam were expressing genuine excitement because it was their first time using computers which are donated by ASUS.
According to the statistical data from Vietnam center, the 21 new computers donated to three elementary schools in Vietnam, are used by 600 people every month.
So it cannot be denied that ADOC project did bring a lot of happiness to those kids in Vietnam.
Children in Vietnam were so excited about the computers, even the class had already dismissed, they were too excited to leave.
This is an unforgettable experience for those children. It is a priceless learning experience for the children. | <urn:uuid:9e95c1ac-8def-4508-b77a-6725e1a596e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apecdoc.org/site/blog/2012/03/27/vietnam/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986068 | 118 | 1.640625 | 2 |
But before I do, I want to share with you an awesome quilt!
One of the things I absolutely love seeing as a teacher is the variety of Leader/Ender projects that students bring to class!
Over the past week between my time at Fabric Fanatics in Plano, and with the Quilt Asylum girls in McKinney ---I saw everything from 4-patches to 9-patches to half square triangles to tumblers, and yes there were bow-ties and spool blocks and every little unit that you can possibly imagine.
And as I walked by ---students were explaining to other students just WHAT these little units were and how a “free quilt” can build itself between the other lines of piecing. Nods of “Oh! I get it” were seen from those who were unfamiliar with the term or the concept!
This morning I want to share Susan’s awesome leader/ender quilt with you ---- Each of her “big blocks” contain 144 pieces ---or 16 9 patches, or 36 4 patches, however you want to build it!
The over-all effect is stunning!
Susan is the owner of Quilt Asylum in McKinney, TX. She worked from a plastic shoe box…cutting scraps into 1.5” squares, using the squares as leaders & enders in between piecing other projects. When the variety in the shoe box ran low, she’d scrounge up more scraps --- yes, working in a quilt shop helps ---she admitted to some pieces being harvested from trash bins!
There is no rhyme or reason to the placement of the value or color within each block – it is completely random.
After the blocks were made she decided how to set them, using a poison green print from a long past Pilgrim & Roy line to set them with ----and we laughed about fabric that resurfaces from the “Deep Stash” ((Said with your voice as low as you can get it….)) It was the perfect fabric for setting these blocks off! 9 patch cornerstones were the perfect choice!
Leader/Ender quilts do not have to take a lot of planning ahead of time. Just start with a handful of squares. You can cut more later ----just plan THAT far ahead ---and watch how you can “grow a quilt” without having to spend much time at it at all – just by ending each seam with a pair of squares that stays under the presser foot while you go press --- | <urn:uuid:79972905-e381-4059-82ad-87ca11a52fb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/01/time-zones.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975746 | 524 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Goal 3: Realize Penn State’s Potential as a Global University
Strategy 3.2: Build International Partnerships at Home and Abroad
International activities involving collaborations with other universities must be based on a strong faculty engagement or the activities will not survive for long or contribute much to the long-term internationalization goals of the University. There must be effective partnerships between UOGP and the academic colleges and campuses, especially on key initiatives that are broad and deep and meant to be building blocks for programming that will benefit both faculty and students. Most academic colleges and campuses have a faculty or staff member who is assigned responsibility for furthering internationalization within the unit itself, and these individuals must be knit into an effective coordinating body to assist in creating an outstanding, highly networked set of information resources upon which to leverage international initiatives. Further, the senior leadership of UOGP and the academic colleges (including all campuses) should engage systematically and periodically to build strong collaborative international approaches.
Over the course of several decades, UOGP and various colleges and campuses of Penn State have acquired a large number of formal agreements with overseas institutions to further student and faculty exchanges and otherwise engage in collaborative programming. Unfortunately, many of these agreements represent little more than a piece of paper, an agreement struck in the excitement of a visit, and often negotiated and ratified by university administrators rather than based on concrete engagement by the faculties of those units who are expected to participate. Thus, the outcomes of many such engagements have been disappointing.
Penn State must make a fundamental change in the way it engages overseas partner institutions by focusing on fewer and more strategic universities in a true partnership manner. A recent task force studying UOGP has strongly recommended that Penn State adopt a policy of partnership with “Global Engagement Nodes,” which would be a select and limited set of institutions in key global areas such as Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Our strategy is not to seek opportunities to build and/or operate campuses in other countries—as some of our peer institutions are doing—but rather to establish deep and broad partnerships with a set of universities that build on already established linkages or create new ones in key areas. An initial action item, then, will be the identification of complementary partners and the creation of new value-based relationships. Such linkage sets must contain, not entirely but to a significant extent, partner universities that are peers and that have faculty and students who can collaborate meaningfully with Penn State counterparts. This is the only valid basis for partnership, as arrangements that lack a strong rationale for faculty and students to be involved will not survive very long in any substantive way.
Partnerships with select universities should include joint degrees and requisite foreign language preparation so that Penn State students are fully capable of undertaking degree work in foreign universities in the local language. We need to avoid an enclave mentality focusing only on those universities where English is used.
As the new School of International Affairs(SIA) reaches out to relevant colleges, campuses, and institutes and identifies areas of mutual interest, it will also be an important vehicle through which Penn State’s global strategies can be effectuated. The SIA has strong academic and administrative ties to the Penn State Dickinson School of Law and a core group of faculty drawn from several academic colleges in the University. The SIA provides an outstanding opportunity through which Penn State can gain visibility, attracting international students and scholars, and providing a wide range of legal, environmental, political, and economic development policy analysis on important issues affecting international relations, peace, and security. The SIA represents a particular source of strength that UOGP can leverage for even wider benefits to the University community.
As the University engages nations and institutions around the globe, conversations about engagement and collaboration must be tightly coupled with conversations about informational and transactional systems, architectures, and infrastructure. | <urn:uuid:b7088421-dbe6-46ec-8441-18f7f67ff6d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://strategicplan.psu.edu/partnershipsabroad | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94484 | 782 | 1.757813 | 2 |
When Richard Blanco was named as the 2013 inaugural poet, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith said in an email that the White House had made an ideal choice, citing the scope of his poems, "their beautiful fidelity to private experience, to place, to community and to a complex sense of self." Last month, Blanco, 44, became the youngest poet to read at an inauguration; he is also the first Latino and openly gay poet to win the honor.
Blanco worked as a civil engineer before turning to poetry. One of his first poetry teachers was the former Chicago poet Campbell McGrath. Blanco, who lives with his partner in Maine, is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent of which is "Looking for the Gulf Motel."
Printers Row Journal caught up with Blanco by phone the day after he read his poem, "One Today," at President Barack Obama's second inauguration. Blanco's baritone voice was raspy from the several weeks of preparation and the celebratory events that followed. Here's an edited transcript of the conversation.
This piece first ran in Printers Row Journal, delivered to Printers Row members with the Sunday Chicago Tribune and by digital edition via email. Click here to learn about joining Printers Row.
Q: Were you relieved when your reading was over?
A: Relieved? I suppose. There was a relief from all of the work, certainly. It was more euphoric. I was misty-eyed. My mother was sitting next to me. And then I was anxious. The vice president shook my hand; the president shook my hand and whispered some things into my ear (Blanco declined to elaborate). I felt like they had my back, and that built my confidence up a great deal. I felt a good connection with the crowds. I read the way I had planned to; I read it at that moment better than I had prepared.
Q: What led up to that moment on stage?
A: [The White House] asked me to write three poems. They selected one. That's really as much as I know. I can tell you that after the selection, when it was clear which poem was to be read, it allowed me to do a rewrite which kept the poem similar, but which gave me room to make it that much better, during the editing process.
Q: What inspired "One Today"? How did you prepare to write it?
A: I read poetry. I reread Walt Whitman. I reread Allen Ginsberg. Elizabeth Bishop always is so inspiring. A friend of mine, Nikki Moustaki, wrote a poem called "How to Write a Poem After September 11th." It was one of the first poems I went to. I also moved my stuff out of my office in my home and worked at the dining room table. There is a view of the mountains that helped me creatively. I read (Elizabeth) Alexander's and Maya Angelou's poems and the history of the inaugurals. At the same time, I didn't want to be overly locked into that work. My first-draft was a bit list-y and esoteric. I had the idea that something was missing.
Q: What moved the process then?
A: How I treated the subject became eye-opening. That was the breakthrough: I remembered familiar things to me. Campbell (McGrath's) voice came back to me. I remembered lushness of language, texture, things that I knew about my own background that could speak to others. I write narrative, immediate experiences, and I went back to that for my voice. I wasn't writing about my family, but I used my language and description for this subject matter. You know, in my very first poetry class, Campbell had us write a poem about America. It is something I have always spoken to in my poems. The third poem (which wasn't used for the inaugural) was about my mother: having the courage to leave her country, Cuba, getting on the plane and looking back.
Q: Will we get to see the other two poems?
A: No one really has the text in their hands right now. I'm going to put the poems in a proper presentation, with some art that my cousin is working on, to give to the president. And then, hopefully, we will publish the poems and art in a book form.
Q: You're the youngest poet to read at an inauguration and you're also gay and Cuban-American. Did those elements of your life influence your work?
A: Absolutely. The contemporary setting speaks to my generation. And there are stereotypical items I wanted in the poem: the fruits, the colors of the rainbow in the poem. (I wanted) to acknowledge who I am, who we are in the poem: the six languages I used, our long, long history of the Latino presence. That I was up there was a statement. I wanted the pronouncement of the words to be subtle and to reference Martin Luther King Jr. My writing had to represent America. I didn't want to be selfish.
Q: Did anyone comment once you were done?
A: Walking back to my seat, James Taylor touched my elbow, like a congratulation or great job. "I can die now," I thought. Taylor had inspired so much of my own muse. Later, in the holding room, Beyoncé came up to me. These great performers are so used to this; their nerves are incredible. But Beyoncé said something like she sang someone else's song and complimented me on writing an original piece. I was honored. The entire thing has been a gift.
Q: And the public reaction? | <urn:uuid:3635abc2-c97e-43c7-bd88-c9367cffd669> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailypress.com/topic/ct-prj-0203-richard-blanco-20130201,0,2441977.story | 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 | 0.988604 | 1,175 | 1.78125 | 2 |
New Delhi -- Suzlon Energy, India’s largest wind-turbine maker, received approval to put 66 units of its 2.1-megawatt turbine at the Cookhouse wind farm in South Africa.
Suzlon, based in Pune, India, was selected to develop the project in the first round of renewable energy auctions held by South African in 2011, it said in a statement to stock exchanges today.
The company, which said its lead bankers for the project include Standard Bank and Nedbank, didn’t give information about the project’s value.
It plans to generate 2,000 megawatts of power in the country within five years, Silas Zimu, chief executive officer of Suzlon’s South African unit said in April.
Suzlon shares rose as much as 8.2 percent to 26.55 rupees and traded at 25.60 rupees as of 12:19 pm in Mumbai (8:19 SA time) today.
The stock, which has gained 37 percent this year, fell to 14.95 rupees on August 29, the lowest since its 2005 listing.
The wind energy company’s lenders last week approved a 95- billion rupee ($1.78 billion) debt restructuring plan, which will help bring down its debt repayment costs.
Suzlon on October 11 failed to pay $209 million, the biggest convertible note default by an Indian company. - Bloomberg | <urn:uuid:af9a80e3-271b-4521-8eec-a5cbb894ad93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/suzlon-build-66-wind-turbines-in-sa-1.1462505 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959982 | 300 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Clayton— When you think of wineries, you might think of Napa Valley, however the North Country is becoming wine country as well.
Phil Randazzo, retired as a business owner of a Fantastic Sam’s franchise in the year 2000. After taking a vacation to Italy with his family, Mr. Randazzo was inspired to make his own wine. So, in 2007 Randazzo planted grapes, simply thinking he would make some wine for family and friends.
Expecting to make and sell wine on a very small scale, Mr. Randazzo opened up Coyote Moon to the public in June of 2009. In just two short years, Mr. Randazzo and his wine have won 400 medals and accolades. “I owe most of my success to the Minnesota grape” said Mr. Randazzo, “these grapes can live in -35 fahrenheit. These northern variety grapes are amazing.”
Coyote Moon often run events where they draw as many as 2,000 people in a day. Their Blue Grass Festival drew people as far south as West Virginia, Tennessee and from the north into Canada. “They came here and packed the place with motor homes” said Mr. Randazzo, “it’s great, here in the North Country and people are coming from all over just to see us.”
According to Phil Randazzo, Coyote Moon is the second largest tourist attraction in the North Country next to Bodlt Castle with over 100,000 people visiting last year alone. Coyote Moon is the largest vineyard in the North Country with approximately 18 acres and roughly 14,000 grape vines. | <urn:uuid:7b51b56c-6741-43f5-888c-0286371c0621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myabc50.com/news/local/story/Award-Winning-Winery-Tucked-Away-in-the-North/-G9gJz3jbU-Q9NwnU0J-Tg.cspx | 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 | 0.979477 | 348 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Local colleges are starting a new school year, but they have less than a year to prepare for a big change that some students haven't even heard about yet.
Earlier this month, the national debt ceiling deal included eliminating some graduate school loans in order to fund the Pell Grant program for low-income students.
Starting July 1, 2012, federal subsidized loans for graduate students will be cut. That means the loan interest that the government used to pay will be added to the student's tab. It's supposed to save at least $18 billion over the next decade, but financial aid offices at local colleges worry about the impact it will have.
"These students are working hard going back to school, they're trying to prove themselves and improve us as a nation, and a lot of them aren't going to be able to afford to do that now. And that's a shame," says Jackie LaTorella, director of financial aid at the University of Tampa.
All loans signed off on before next July will be exempt from the change, and students will not see a reduction in the amount of money they're allowed to borrow.
About a third of graduate students nationwide took out subsidized loans to cover the 2007-2008 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. LaTorella says the change could affect 300 students at UT alone.
"We just don't want students to be surprised when they're out and they get their bill and they had all this loan money that wasn't subsidized," says Billie Jo Hamilton, director of University Scholarships and Financial Aid Services at the University of South Florida. "It's a singular change, but not insignificant."
According to Hamilton and LaTorella, the elimination of subsidized loans could affect students very differently, depending on how much money they borrow and how long it takes to pay back. On the low end, the additional cost could be about as much as the price one latte a week. Other students, especially those who also use their loans for living expenses, could see a $6,000 increase over the course of a loan.
"I'm really glad that [the government] expects to be able to fund Pell Grants for our neediest students for next year," LaTorella says. "But it is really a hardship on the graduate students." | <urn:uuid:83754819-4ca8-4aee-9e9c-9f40840fc93e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtsp.com/news/reporter/article/207025/79/Colleges-talk-about-federal-loan-cuts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98149 | 473 | 1.8125 | 2 |
I have a six year old who just started attending a local Karate school four months ago. I have some concerns .But, I must tell you I know nothing about Karate. Only what I have read on-line.
She attends twice a week. She earned her yellow belt her first month. And as I watch more classes I do not understand how it is decided when someone gets a test card. They gave her another card for her second belt test(orange)but I did not let her test for it yet. My reasons I felt where legitimate. She does not know here punches, or kicks, the ones she does know are done incorrectly. She does not even do her horse stance correctly half of the time.Do they grade children differently? Everyone seems to move from belt to belt very quickly! Adults and children. There are nine year olds walking around with black belts. Three kids tonight moved up to purple belts.Is this normal?I have coached for years and I always believed perfection before progression. Please let me know what you think. She loves the classes. But I do not want her to continue to attend classes repeating bad form. I feel it will be harder to correct the more she repeats the same incorrect moves. But I also do not want to insult the teacher if this is how they teach children. | <urn:uuid:2c4117ef-b76d-4aac-bd18-6bde16799ead> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=118137 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977973 | 268 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Earlier this afternoon, Sens. David Vitter (R-LA) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) made a pitch for their amendment to the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill that would require the US Census Bureau to add a question about immigration status to its 2010 survey. Vitter and Bennett both adamantly claimed that Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina would all lose federal representatives if undocumented immigrants are not singled out and excluded from congressional apportionment decisions:
VITTER: Under the federal plan, the way the Census is designed, the US House would be reapportioned counting illegal aliens. States that have large populations of illegals would be rewarded for that. Other states — including my homestate of Louisiana — would be penalized…if you vote against this amendment, you’re voting against the interests of your state…we should not award states for having large illegal populations and penalize states who do not.
BENNETT: If we have this tremendous number of illegal aliens concentrated in a few states, we have an impact of changing the one-man one-vote dictum of the Supreme Court. That is, a state with a large number of illegal immigrants will see to it that its voters have greater representation than voters where the illegal immigrants are not.
In a recently released report, the Drum Major Institute (DMI) points out that “concerns about ‘vote dilution’ are misplaced.” The Fourteenth Amendment clearly stipulates that representation should be determined by “counting the whole number of persons in each State,” or in another words, an indiscriminate population count. The purpose of including non-voters is to paint an accurate portrait of a state’s demographic makeup and population density that’s key to effective and adequate representation. Currently, children, ex-felons, legal residents, and several other nonvoters are also included in the census apportionment data.
While Bennett insists that his amendment will not affect funding formulas, he fails to take into account that most undocumented immigrants will probably be deterred from responding to the Census if there is a question about their immigration status. That wouldn’t be such a big deal if census data weren’t also used to efficiently distribute federal funding and Community Development Block Grants that benefit all residents. According to DMI, non-participation of undocumented immigrants could lead to inaccurate demographic information and result in costly mistakes in infrastructure, education, and healthcare planning.
Ultimately, it’s pretty counter-intuitive that Bennett and Vitter are supposedly arguing on behalf of many of the states that have benefited from a recent influx of undocumented immigrants. This past April, the Pew Hispanic Research Center released a report showing that undocumented immigrants are “more geographically dispersed than in the past.” While California’s 42% share of undocumented immigrants in 1990 declined to 22% in 2008, the state of North Carolina has become “a new immigrant destination” and is now home to approximately 350,000 undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, immigration has accounted for 75% of the midwest’s population growth, which has helped counter the region’s overall population decline. In the case of Vitter’s homestate, migrants have given Louisiana a much-needed population boost and helped rebuild its infrastructure following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Taken together, all of this information indicates that Senators from the states that Vitter listed might be shooting themselves in the foot if they vote for his amendment considering the fact that it would eliminate the inclusion of a growing population in the apportionment of their congressional seats and impede an accurate Census count which their state funding depends on. | <urn:uuid:e2d31248-db22-4be0-9746-3a7bb1159426> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/security/issue/?m=20091007&mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954915 | 774 | 1.625 | 2 |
A look from above the Black Hills gives new perspective on the number of elk that call the area home.
Game, Fish and Parks is trying to get a better idea of how many elk live in the Hills. It brought in a helicopter crew to fly over and do a count of the animals.
Earlier this week, they came upon a group of 1,200 elk. The crew handling the aerial photography says it has never seen a herd this large.
KELOLAND's Derek Olson will have more on the findings tonight on KELOLAND News at 10. | <urn:uuid:7e9b1e89-e189-4b4e-9100-96588a45bd67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/large-elk-herd-located-in-the-black-hills/?id=144770 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937497 | 119 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Apple awarded patent for iPhone interface
When Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone at Macworld Expo 2007, he lauded its multitouch interface. “And boy, have we patented it,” he added. It seems that now, four and a half years after Jobs declared the iPhone’s innovations worth protecting, that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has agreed.
On Tuesday, Apple was awarded U.S. Patent 7,966,578, for a “Portable multifunction device, method, and graphical user interface for translating displayed content.” In other words, Apple received a patent on the basic behaviors of the iPhone.
The patent application was first filed back on December 19, 2007. In its patent-ese, the application laid out a description of the iPhone’s general function, with an emphasis on its multitouch interface:
An N-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display. In response, the page content, including the displayed portion of the frame content and the other content of the page, is translated to display a new portion of page content on the touch screen display. An M-finger translation gesture is detected on or near the touch screen display, where M is a different number than N. In response, the frame content is translated to display a new portion of frame content on the touch screen display, without translating the other content of the page.
There’s no denying that Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with the launch of the first iPhone. There’s similarly no denying that the iPhone’s interface spawned a slew of competitors who, shall we say, seemed to pay the iPhone the sincerest form of flattery. What might Apple’s newly-awarded patent mean for the Android and Windows 7 smartphones of the world?
Via an email to Macworld, patent expert Florian Muller—a vocal critic of software patents—described Patent 7,966,578 to as “excessively broad.” Though Muller acknowledged “that Apple is a truly innovative company,” he suggested that Apple—like other large companies—“understand[s] the name of the patent game,” and thus aimed for a broader patent that could theoretically give it more legal muscle to exert over potential competitors.
“Unless this patent is invalidated or at least narrowed, it will be a potential impediment to innovation until December 2027,” Muller said. “I don’t see any innovative achievement disclosed in that patent document that would justify a monopoly of that breadth and duration. Apple could use it in various ways throughout that period, including some that would be highly undesirable.”
The “highly undesirable” action to which Muller alludes is that, armed with its new patent, Apple now has new legal means by which to go after its rivals in the smartphone market. Apple could, in theory, demand high patent licensing fees from Google, Microsoft, and other multitouch mobile OS developers—or seek to prevent the sale of infringing devices in the U.S.
Matt Schruers, the vice president for law and policy with the non-profit Computer and Communications Industry Association concurred with Muller’s conclusions. “This seems to be a very broad patent,” he told Macworld. But, Schruers added that it’s hard to know just what would happen with Apple’s new patent were it tested in court. “The length and impenetrability of [the patent’s] claims will ultimately dictate the patent’s scope,” he said.
“Whether a court is going to uphold a patent of that kind of breadth is impossible to say… It’s hard to predict how a patent will be construed by an individual judge,” Schruers added.
According to Spyros J. Lazaris, a patent attorney with Los Angeles-based Lazaris Intellectual Property, “It could cover any mobile device with a screen capable of accessing the web and showing web pages, including tablet computers and smartphones.”
Added Muller: “This patent is so broad that I can’t see any alternative [technical] implementation that wouldn’t be found to infringe it.” That is, the patent seems to cover the breadth of multitouch support on mobile devices; even if a company achieved the same effect using a different technological approach, in Muller’s view, that approach would still violate Apple’s patent.
And how might Apple leverage its new patent, based on how the company has handled its patents historically? According to Muller: “In the smartphone patent wars no other company seeks to drive competitors out of business the way Apple does. The only way companies can deal with Apple is if they bring patents to the table that Apple needs. In that case, there can be a cross-license. If you don’t have that bargaining power, tough luck.”
Schruers was equally blunt. “Patents like this create uncertainty, which generally leads to negotiations. Patent lawyers for Apple show up with a big stack of accordion files, Google’s lawyers come with their stack, and back-room patent cross-licensing begins.” He described the process as “a cold war of mutually assured destruction of your opponent’s patent portfolio.”
Apple has a long history of pursuing legal protection for its user interfaces. The company sued companies that attempted to emulate its iPod interface on Microsoft Pocket PCs, threatened companies offering Aqua-style themes for Windows, and—most famously—fought (and lost) a drawn-out “look and feel” case against Microsoft over Windows’s own attempts to emulate the Mac’s visuals.
More recently, Apple has sued Samsung, claiming the company copied various elements of the iPad.
How Apple chooses to wield its new iPhone patent, of course, is entirely up to Apple. The company didn’t respond to Macworld’s request for comment on how it intends to leverage the patent. One suspects, however, that Google and Microsoft are asking, too. | <urn:uuid:99b308f0-e68f-4862-a035-4d9c5a66dfdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.com/article/1160664/apple_iphone_patent.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935784 | 1,278 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Safeway's profit falls 16 per cent as company fights to hold onto customers
The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company says higher costs offset a bump in sales and improving market share. Going forward, the company is hoping its new "just for U" loyalty program will bolster its market share furthermore.
Safeway and other grocery store operators have been struggling to hold onto market share at time when big-box retailers just as Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. are expanding their food offerings. Traditional supermarkets nevertheless account for 51 per cent of grocery sales, down from 66 per cent in 2000, according to UBS Investment Technology.
Making matters worse, supermarkets are facing rising costs to keep their shelves stocked as a result of higher prices for corn, fuel and other commodities. Now they're afraid to pass on those costs, lest clients decide to shop elsewhere.
Total sales rose 2 per cent to $10.39 billion, which as well topped Wall Street expectations. Sales from stores open for the moment a year edged up 0.8 per cent, when excluding fuel costs. The metric is a key gauge of health, because it strips out the impact of newly opened and closed stores. | <urn:uuid:b85e55cb-1f13-49c4-8140-410000e4b265> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allinvestnews.com/safeway-s-profit-falls-16-per-cent-as-company-figh.html | 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 | 0.948019 | 242 | 1.507813 | 2 |
(CNN) -- Alabama's governor on Thursday called in lawmakers for a special session in part to further explore changes to the state's anti-illegal immigration law, considered the country's toughest.
The day before, lawmakers had passed a bill, HB 658, which proposed changes to the state immigration law, which is currently being challenged in federal court.
Rather than sign it into law or veto it, Gov. Robert Bentley summoned lawmakers to take up the bill one more time.
Supporters of HB 658 said the changes would make the law better, but critics quickly pounced on it, saying it would make it even worse.
The new bill addresses unintended consequences of the state's immigration law, including clarifying the types of documents that can serve as a form of official identification, but does not address parts of the law that are at issue in federal courts.
Bentley wants to "have an opportunity to further clarify the law," a news release from his office said.
As passed by the state House and Senate, HB 658 appears to be an attempt to mollify some of the bill's critics.
But it fell short, said Justin Cox of the ACLU's Immigrant Rights Project.
Religious leaders complained that their missionary work could be criminalized if the recipients of their aid were undocumented immigrants, and one version of the new bill included an exception for this. But the final bill barely had anything resembling an exception, Cox said.
"I think it was just window-dressing," he said.
The new bill also eased the most strict measures against subcontractors who unknowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said the biggest problem of the new bill was the requirement that the Alabama Department of Homeland Security post online the names of illegal immigrants that appear in state courts.
The ACLU criticized the new bill for not tackling any of the most contentious parts of the law whose constitutionality is being challenged.
Bentley's call for further discussion on the law cites his desire to see some of the controversial parts of the law modified.
One portion of the law that is currently enjoined calls for schools to collect information on the immigration status of their students.
"Governor Bentley believes that revising this section to prevent children from being interrogated would allow the injunction to be lifted, making the law more effective," the statement said.
The governor also cautioned against the provision requiring the online posting of court records of undocumented immigrants, something critics have called the "Scarlet Letter provision."
"Such a list could be counterproductive and take away from the focus of the original law," the governor's new release said. "The purpose of this particular section of the law is to gather data and statistics, not names."
"The essence of the law must remain the same, and that is if you live or work in Alabama, you must do so legally," Bentley said. "We must make sure that final revisions to the immigration law make the law more effective, help promote economic growth, ensure fairness, and provide greater clarity on the application of the law. I believe these additional revisions will help us as we accomplish those goals. A more effective, enforceable bill is a stronger bill."
During the special session on Thursday, Alabama lawmakers introduced two new immigration bills, one in the House and one in the Senate. The text of the bills appeared to be largely identical to HB 658.
The bills were not debated, and no debate on them has been scheduled, said Scott Tracy, a spokesman for Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard.
Jeremy King, a spokesman for Bentley, said Thursday night that the legislators would set a calendar detailing when issues come up in the session.
"The governor has been involved for months on various issues including the revisions to the bill. We think there are opportunities to further clarify and simplify the immigration law and make it more effective," King said. "We have a good working relationship with the legislators, and we are ready to work with them during this special session to see that these issues are addressed."
CNN's Joe Sutton and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:e45fcd5b-e1b4-4596-9030-8bfcb8585542> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/17/us/alabama-immigration-law/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970184 | 843 | 1.65625 | 2 |
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