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Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke
The economic outlook and monetary policy
At the Bond Market Association Annual Meeting, New York, New York
Presented at the World Economy Laboratory Spring Conference, Washington, D.C.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the members of the Bond Market Association. I know that you have a keen interest in the likely future course of the economy and of monetary policy, so I will use my time today to comment on both topics. I will begin with the economic outlook, discussing prospects for economic growth, the labor market, and inflation, and conclude by drawing some implications for monetary policy. As always, my views are my responsibility alone and are not to be ascribed to my colleagues in the Federal Reserve System.1
The Prospects for Economic Growth
Household spending, which has not slackened significantly at any point in the past three years, has continued its advance, supported by positive wealth effects and tax cuts. Except for a modest decline in auto sales (relative to the strong pace of the previous quarter), consumer expenditures on most major categories of goods and services were well sustained in the first quarter, as recent data on retail sales testify. Household spending is likely to continue to grow at a solid pace for the remainder of this year, especially if the job market improves as expected.
A question that many have asked is whether household spending, including spending on new homes, will remain strong if interest rates rise. I think that consumers are not badly positioned for a normal cyclical increase in interest rates. The balance sheets of most households are in good shape: Perhaps most important, the ratio of household net worth to income is relatively high, not far below its pre-recession level. Also, households took advantage of low long-term rates during the last cycle to reduce their exposure to short-term and high-interest debt. Although household debt burdens have risen, most household debt today is in the form of mortgage debt, of which some 85 to 90 percent is at fixed rates and thus insulated from interest-rate increases.
The decision to purchase a home is probably the most interest-sensitive decision made by households. Private housing starts rebounded in March from a possibly weather-related dip in February, and sales of new and existing homes during the first quarter remained close to record levels. I expect residential investment to continue strong this year. Mortgage rates have risen in the past month but remain low relative to historical experience, while new household formation, improved job prospects, and income growth should ensure a continued healthy demand for housing. However, residential investment is unlikely to rise much further from current high levels and thus its contribution to GDP growth over the next year or two can be expected to decline.
Energy price increases have reduced households' real disposable personal income by about $30 billion since December. This development will probably shave a tenth or two from the growth in personal consumption expenditures in 2004 but thus far, at least, the rise in energy prices does not materially affect the outlook.
A key factor in the economic turnaround in the third quarter of 2003 was the resurgence in business fixed investment, particularly in equipment and software. That component of spending seems set to continue to expand as output grows, profits improve, and firms become more confident in the durability of the recovery. Double-digit growth in real spending on equipment and software seems quite possible this year, in part because the expiration of partial expensing allowances at the end of 2004 will lead some firms to move forward investment they otherwise would have made in 2005. Given the very low inventory stocks currently held by businesses, inventory investment should also support growth. In contrast, nonresidential investment remains weak, reflecting low capacity utilization rates in factories and high vacancy rates in office buildings, and the improvement in that sector seems likely to be gradual.
The Federal government's budget deficit is expected to peak this year at something between $450 billion and $500 billion. Both increased government expenditures and reduced taxes will support growth in aggregate demand in 2004, though fiscal policy will provide somewhat less impetus and may even be slightly restrictive in 2005. U.S. exports are likely to continue their recent rise, because of a weaker dollar and economic recovery among our trading partners. However, rising U.S. incomes will spur imports as well. On net, the external sector will probably continue to be a slight drag on U.S. growth, and little if any progress is likely to be made in closing the current account deficit this year.
The State of the Labor Market
If we look past the erratic month-to-month changes in payrolls, the labor market does appear to be gradually improving. On average, private nonfarm payrolls grew by 161,000 per month in the first quarter, up from 58,000 per month in the fourth quarter of 2003. Recent employment gains have not been confined to a few industries. For example, in March the one-month employment diffusion index, which measures the proportion of industries with expanding employment relative to the share of industries with contracting employment, reached its highest value since July 2000. Initial claims for unemployment insurance have also been falling and are now at pre-recession levels. The decline in initial claims is consistent with other data that suggest that the pace of layoffs has slackened considerably. The rate of new hiring has been exceptionally sluggish for the past several years, however, and the available evidence suggests modest improvement at best in hiring rates so far this year.
Although the labor market appears to be sitting up and taking fluids, it has not hopped out of bed and begun a round of jumping jacks. Despite the strong payroll gains in March, nonfarm payrolls remain 343,000 below their level of November 2001, the official trough of the recession, and private nonfarm payrolls are more than half a million below the trough level. The average workweek of production and nonsupervisory workers declined slightly in March; at 33.7 hours, the workweek is low on an absolute basis and barely above the 33.6 hours average attained during the third quarter of last year, the lowest quarterly figure in 2003.
The data I have cited thus far come from reports provided by employers, through what is known as the payroll survey. Much has been made of the differences between the results of the payroll survey and those from the household survey, which is based on the responses from a random sample of households.2 When its coverage is adjusted to be comparable to that of the payroll survey, the household survey shows a net gain of about 1.7 million jobs since the November 2001 trough, compared with the already noted loss of more than 300,000 jobs reported by the payroll survey. Since June of last year, when the pace of output growth picked up significantly, employment as measured by the household survey (on a comparable payroll basis) has risen by 1.42 million jobs, more than double the increase of 689,000 jobs reported by the payroll survey. Recent revisions of both surveys--in the case of the household survey, to take into account the likelihood that immigration to the United States since 2003 has been below earlier estimates--have only modestly reduced the gap in estimated job creation.3
Although resolving the differences between the two surveys is important, my own assessment of the labor market does not change markedly even if substantial credence is given to the data drawn from the household survey. For example, although the unemployment rate (measured by the household survey) has fallen to 5.7 percent from its peak of 6.3 percent last June, that rate remains high relative to recent experience and in comparison to most plausible recent estimates of the sustainable rate of unemployment. The evidence suggests, moreover, that the official unemployment rate of 5.7 percent understates to some extent the true amount of slack in the labor market. Notably, to a greater degree than in past cycles, discouraged job seekers have been withdrawing from the labor market rather than reporting themselves as unemployed. According to the household survey, the labor force participation rate has actually declined significantly since the official trough of the cycle, from 66.7 percent of the working-age population in November 2001 to 65.9 percent in March 2004.4 From its peak last June, the unemployment rate has fallen by 0.6 percentage point, from 6.3 percent to 5.7 percent. However, during the same period, the labor force participation rate also fell by 0.6 percentage point, from 66.5 percent to its current value of 65.9 percent. The net result is that the employment-to-population ratio has barely changed since the middle of last year. Thus even the household survey, its relatively more encouraging job-creation numbers notwithstanding, paints a picture of ongoing softness in the labor market. So long as the labor market is weak, the economic recovery will be incomplete. Indeed, by reducing confidence and spending, a failure of the labor market to improve could conceivably threaten the sustainability of the expansion.
One way to see the extent of the slack in the labor market, as measured even by the household survey, is to ask how much job creation would be needed to bring the unemployment rate down further. Underlying the household survey's employment calculations is an estimate that the adult non-institutional population grew in March by 193,000 people. If the population grows by the same absolute amount in April and the labor force participation rate remains unchanged at 65.9 percent, the labor force will grow by about 127,000 during the month. To keep the unemployment rate at 5.7 percent in April, then, household employment (as opposed to payroll employment) would have to grow by 120,000 jobs. To reduce the unemployment rate under these assumptions, of course, more than 120,000 net new jobs would be needed.
The standard calculation I just presented was based on the assumption that the rate of labor force participation does not change, an assumption that may not be valid during a cyclical recovery in the labor market. If people perceive a significant improvement in the job market, new job seekers may enter or re-enter the labor force as employment grows. To illustrate the possible implications, let us suppose that improving job prospects lead the participation rate to rise 0.1 percentage point in April, from 65.9 percent to 66.0 percent. (Remember, the rate was 66.5 percent as recently as last June.) This increase in the participation rate would imply a total increase in the labor force (including the portion attributed to the rise in population) of some 350,000 people and hence a need for more than 330,000 net new jobs to keep the unemployment rate from rising. The implication is that, with the labor market still in a relatively early stage of its cyclical recovery, an unusually high rate of job creation may be required for a time to bring the labor market back into balance.
In short, the unusual rate of productivity growth has driven a wedge between the recovery in output and the recovery in the labor market, leaving considerable cyclical slack in the labor market despite ongoing growth in output. The economic recovery will not be fully realized, in my view, until the labor market has established a more normal cyclical pattern of expansion.5
The Outlook for Inflation
The dominant fundamental factors influencing the inflation outlook are the ongoing resource slack and the remarkable rate of productivity growth. Together, these factors imply that unit labor costs will either continue to fall or at least remain quiescent. Moreover, price-cost margins are at high levels (as can be seen in the strong growth of profits), providing an additional cushion for absorbing any inflation pressures that may emerge on the cost side. These forces should largely offset the effects on core consumer price inflation of the rising costs of raw materials--the byproduct of the gathering global recovery and continuing rapid growth in East Asia--and last year's decline in the foreign exchange value of the dollar. As I discussed in some detail in a speech earlier this year (Bernanke, 2004a), the direct effects of commodity price increases and a depreciating dollar on inflation at the consumer level are generally small. This modest direct impact reflects the small share of total costs accounted for by raw materials and imported inputs as well as the fact that a portion of cost increases tends to be absorbed in producers' margins.
In thinking about the implications of higher commodity prices for inflation, one should also make the distinction between a one-time rise in commodity prices and an ongoing process of commodity price inflation. Commodity prices can only contribute to inflation at the consumer level when they are rapidly rising. Commodity prices may well remain high in an absolute sense over the next few years because of the high global demand for raw materials. Yet if the rate of increase in commodity prices slows significantly, as is implied for example by futures prices, the effect of commodity prices on the rate of inflation will eventually become negligible. Similarly, dollar depreciation contributes to inflation only to the extent that it is ongoing; we cannot predict whether last year's decline in the dollar will continue, of course, but so far this year it has not.
In describing what I consider to be the most likely scenario for inflation, I do not wish to convey an unwarranted degree of certainty. Like employment, inflation is difficult to forecast. One factor that may be of great importance in inflation determination but can be particularly hard to gauge is the state of the public's inflation expectations (Poole, 2004). For example, wages and prices that are set for some period in the future will of necessity embody the inflation expectations of the parties to the negotiation; increases in expected inflation will thus tend to promote greater actual inflation. More subtly, my conclusion that the effects on inflation of transitory changes in commodity prices or in the value of the dollar tend to dissipate in the longer run depends on the assumption that the public's inflation expectations are well anchored. If expectations are not well tied down, inflationary impulses that are in themselves transitory may become embedded in expectations and hence affect inflation in the longer term. Therefore, an essential prerequisite for controlling inflation is controlling inflation expectations.
Assessing the current state of inflation expectations in the United States is not entirely straightforward. Survey measures of near-term inflation expectations, including those based on interviews of professional forecasters, individual consumers, and firm managers, have in some cases ticked up slightly in recent months, though long-term inflation expectations appear stable. The spread between the yields on Treasury debt and inflation-indexed Treasury securities of similar maturity, known as the breakeven inflation rate and conventionally treated as an indicator of expected inflation, has also risen.
From a policy perspective, a difficulty with all these measures is that they reflect expectations of headline inflation rather than the core inflation measures usually emphasized in the monetary policy context. Headline inflation has of course been significantly affected by the recent surge in energy prices. The breakeven inflation rate derived from indexed Treasury securities has additional problems as a measure of expected inflation. As I discussed in a recent speech (Bernanke, 2004b), breakeven inflation may differ substantially from the market's true expectation of inflation because of possibly time-varying risk and liquidity premiums. I will discuss inflation expectations further in the context of monetary policy, to which I turn next.
Before addressing this question, I would like to point out that, in an appropriately broad sense, monetary conditions in the United States are already in the process of normalizing. I base this statement on my view that the stance of monetary policy should be judged not only by the current setting of the federal funds rate but also by the level of rates that are tied directly or indirectly to expectations about the future path of monetary policy, of which the yields on Treasury securities are the leading examples. In part because of the FOMC's communication strategy, which has linked the future stance of policy to the level of inflation and the extent of slack in resource utilization, market interest rates have generally responded continuously and in a stabilizing manner to economic developments.
The March employment report, which cited an unexpectedly high rate of job creation, provides a recent example. Treasury yields rose sharply on its release as market participants traced out the report's presumed implications for monetary policy. Mortgage rates, corporate bond rates, and other yields and asset prices moved in sympathy, with important effects on the cost of borrowing and hence, presumably, on aggregate demand. For practical purposes, therefore, monetary conditions tightened significantly the day of the March employment report, notwithstanding the fact that the federal funds rate itself was unchanged. This episode illustrates both the power and the importance of clear communication by monetary policymakers about their objectives and their evaluation of economic conditions.
With respect to future decisions about the policy rate, for me two considerations are most relevant: first, the degree of confidence one can place in the sustainability of the economic expansion and, second, the evolution of inflation and inflation expectations.
As I have indicated, the economic expansion is showing increasing signs of being both strong and self-sustaining. However, to my mind, some uncertainty about that sustainability remains, arising primarily from the slow recovery of the labor market. Indeed, if one takes into account the long delay between the official recession trough and the trough in employment, the labor market today remains at what effectively is an early stage of its normal cyclical expansion. Although the recent improvement in employment is encouraging, from the data in hand it is not yet clear that employers have overcome their reluctance to hire at a normal pace. Additional confirmation that the recovery in the job market is both sustainable and quickening would be most welcome.
Regarding inflation, as I noted earlier, the economic fundamentals appear consistent with core inflation's remaining under control, in the general range of 1 to 2 percent. In particular, I see no indication that the U.S. economy is in imminent danger of overheating, productivity growth is keeping the lid on labor costs, and the effects on inflation of the increases in commodity prices and the decline in the dollar to date, which are likely to be small in any event, may well have dissipated a year from now. As I have acknowledged, however, there are risks to my relatively sanguine inflation forecast. In particular, a rise in the public's expectations of inflation, whether "justified" by underlying forces or not, may put upward pressure on the actual rate of inflation. Moreover, expectations of inflation can themselves be destabilizing, as when an "inflation scare" in the bond market inappropriately raises long-term yields, with adverse effects for the real economy. To avoid instability in expected inflation, and the volatility in actual inflation, output, and employment that might result, I believe that the Federal Reserve should maintain at all costs its hard-won credibility for keeping the inflation rate low and stable. That involves, at a minimum, formulating policy with a close eye to indicators of inflation and inflation expectations. More generally, as I have suggested in earlier talks, I believe that the FOMC's credibility and clarity would be enhanced if it announced the inflation range with which it would be comfortable in the medium term (Bernanke, 2003a, 2003b). In particular, policy would be both more coherent and more predictable if FOMC members shared an explicit common objective for inflation at the medium-term horizon.
To conclude, monetary policy is now in a transition phase. That short-term interest rates must eventually be normalized is a given. However, the remaining uncertainty about the likely paths of both employment and inflation of necessity implies that the timing of policy changes at this point also remains uncertain. Like my colleagues on the FOMC, I will continue to watch the relevant data very closely. The challenge that lies before the Committee is to manage policy in a way that permits the economy to realize its productive potential while simultaneously maintaining firm control of inflation and inflation expectations.
Bernanke, Ben (2003a). "A
Perspective on Inflation Targeting," Speech given at the Annual Washington
Policy Conference of the National Association of Business Economists,
Washington, D.C., March 25.
Bernanke, Ben (2003b). "Panel
Discussion," At the 28th Annual Policy Conference: Inflation
Targeting: Prospects and Problems, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, St.
Louis, Missouri, October 17.
Bernanke, Ben (2003c). "The
Jobless Recovery," Speech given at the Global Economic and Investment
Outlook Conference, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Bernanke, Ben (2004a). "Monetary
Policy and the Economic Outlook: 2004," Speech given at the Meetings of
the American Economic Association, San Diego California, January 4.
Bernanke, Ben (2004b). "What
Policymakers Can Learn from Asset Prices," Remarks made to the Investment
Analyst Society of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15.
Juhn, Chinhui, Kevin M. Murphy, and Robert Topel (2002). "Current Unemployment, Historically Contemplated," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1, pp. 79-116.
Poole, William (2004). "Inflation Signals and Inflation Noise," Remarks made at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas, April 6,
2. Formally, the payroll survey is known as the Current Employment Statistics survey and the household survey as the Current Population Survey. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces both surveys. Return to text
3. Although recent additions to payrolls are much greater according to the household survey, as of March 2004 the payroll survey reports a higher level of employment, by about 600,000 jobs, than the household survey (on a comparable payroll basis). At face value, this fact seems to be a bit of evidence against the view that the payroll survey systematically undercounts some jobs that are being captured by the household survey. Bernanke (2003c) provides more discussion of the two surveys. Return to text
4. Conceivably, part of the decline in the participation rate could reflect factors other than simple discouragement. However, I will proceed under the plausible assumption that most of the decline is a response to labor market conditions. Return to text
5. My presumption that the current slack in the labor market is primarily cyclical, rather than structural, is based on several observations. First, the recent high rates of productivity growth are clearly above secular trends and suggest that firms have been working employees more intensely, deferring maintenance, and taking other temporary measures to raise output, behavior that is characteristic of the early stages of an employment expansion. Second, I see little evidence (for example, in the job flows data) to suggest that the pace of structural change today is greater than it was after the 1990-91 recession or in the expansion of the mid- to late-1990s. Third, factors affecting labor supply and the efficiency of job matching, including demographic changes, greater worker experience and education, increases in incarceration rates, increases in disability rolls, increased use of temporary help firms, and increased job search through the Internet, suggest strongly that the sustainable rate of unemployment has steadily declined since the mid-1980s, to a level below the current rate. The relatively sharp disinflation of recent years is consistent with that view. Finally, an increasing tendency of low-skilled workers to leave the labor force rather than remain formally unemployed has also likely lowered the sustainable rate of unemployment (Juhn, Murphy, and Topel, 2002). Return to text | <urn:uuid:448d6d25-01b9-427e-a38c-cfa104d0160c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2004/200404222/default.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957117 | 4,765 | 1.789063 | 2 |
UPDATE: Be sure to read my follow-up post on this topic as well.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced some exciting news about the formation of the CodePlex Foundation (not to be confused with CodePlex.com project hosting website despite the unfortunately confusing same name) whose mission is to “enable the exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities”.
This is an 501(c)(6) organization completely independent of Microsoft. For example, search the by-laws for mentions of Microsoft and you’ll find zero. Zilch.
One thing to keep in mind about this organization is that it’s very early in its formation. There was debate on trying to hash out all the details first and perhaps announcing the project some time further in the future, but that sort of goes against the open source ethos. As the main website states (emphasis mine):
We don't have it all figured out yet. We know that commercial software developers are under-represented on open source projects. We know that commercial software companies face very specific challenges in determining how to engage with open source communities. We know that there are misunderstandings on both sides. Our aim is to advance the IT industry for both commercial software companies and open source communities by helping to meet these challenges.
Meeting these challenges is a collaborative process. We want your participation.
I’m personally excited about this as I’ve been a proponent of open source on the Microsoft stack for a long time and have called for Microsoft to get more involved in the past. I remember way back then, Scott Hanselman suggested Microsoft form an INETA like organization for open source as an editorial aside in his post on NDoc.
How does it benefit .NET OSS projects?
However, all is not roses just yet. If you read the mission statement carefully, it’s a very broad statement. In fact, it’s not specific to the Microsoft open source ecosystem, though obviously Microsoft will benefit from the mission statement being carried out.
If you look at it from Microsoft’s perspective, there are many legal and other challenges to participating in open source more fully. While Microsoft has made contributions to Linux, has collaborated closely with PHP, etc. Each time presents a unique set of challenges.
If the foundation succeeds in its mission, I believe it will open the doors for Microsoft to collaborate with and encourage the .NET open source ecosystem in a more meaningful manner. I don’t know what shape that will take in the end, but I believe that removing roadblocks to Microsoft’s participation is required and a great first step.
I’m honored to serve as an advisor to the board. In our first advisory board conference call, my first question asked the question, “what does this mean for those running open source projects on the .NET platform?” After all, while I’m a Microsoft employee by day, I also run an open source project at night and I have my own motivations as such.
I’m happy to see the mission statement take such a broad stance as it seems to be focused on the greater good and not focused on Microsoft specifically, but I am personally interested in seeing more details on why this is good for the open source developer who runs a project on the .NET platform. For example, can the foundation provide something more than moral support to .NET OSS projects such as MSDN licenses or more direct funding?
These are all interesting questions and I don’t know the answers. Microsoft put some skin in the game by seeding the foundation with a million dollars for the first year. The foundation, as an independent organization, will be looking for more sponsors to also pony up money. They will have to find the right balance in how they spend that money so that they can continue to operate. I imagine the answer to these questions will depend in how successful they are in finding sponsors and operating within their budget. As an advisor, I’ll be pushing for more clarity around this.
The full details for what the foundation will do are still being hashed out. The interim board has 100 days to choose a more permanent board of directors. Now is the time to get involved if you want to help make sure it continues in the right direction.
Related Blog Posts From Others | <urn:uuid:8993a24e-3612-4e5b-b243-fc041a58ea3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haacked.com/archive/2009/09/10/codeplex-foundation.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953847 | 891 | 1.53125 | 2 |
By Nico Bougas
Is been some time since the Apostle Paul wrote his two letters to the Corinthians. In the coming summer vacations some 750 villages and towns in the area surrounding Corinth, Greece will again be receiving the letters from Paul, as well as the rest of the New Testament writers.
Around 300 volunteers from around the world will take part in a mass distribution of scriptures to 90,000 homes in the area. The copies of the New Testament will be in modern Greek published by the Bible Society.
Very few Greeks own a copy of the Bible as it is regarded as a study book for theologians and clergymen. And not intended to be read by the masses. Those that do possess a copy of the Bible treat it more as a good luck charm or an ornament.
During this project 90,000 households will be receiving a beautifully bound copy of the New Testament in a language they would expect to find in their daily newspaper. It is the sort of Greek the venerable apostle would have used if he had been sending out his epistles today.
Greek New Testaments
The campaign is being organized by Hellenic Ministries, a Greek-based evangelistic mission operating out of Athens, Greece. The mission was started by Costas and Alky Macris who had returned from their own work as pioneer missionaries in Irian Jaya for health reasons and immediately began a new ministry in their native Greece.
This project is the biggest evangelistic effort in the long history of Greece. When Paul wrote his two epistles to the Corinthians it was probably delivered to a small handful of believers, who were facing real problems. This time 90,000 homes will have access to the Word of God as found in the New Testament. Remembering that “. the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12, NLT)
Johnathan Macris, President of Hellenic Ministries, and his small staff are confident that the area will be greatly impacted for “the entrance of Your word brings light, it brings understanding to the simple.” (Ps 119.130). Their vision is to distribute a million copies of the New Testament throughout rural Greece. Over the past few years 224,000 New Testaments have already been distributed to homes across Greece.
The ages of the volunteers ranges from pre- adolescent teens to senior citizens. They come as individuals, church groups, and families – all with the sole aim of getting the writings of Paul and his fellow New Testament writers to the masses.
How the Apostle Paul would have loved to have had such an enthusiastic, energized group at his disposal. For further information and application forms to join this exciting project see: www.operationjoshua.net or contact the Project Coordinator, Janet Sewell. email@example.com | <urn:uuid:76f83d79-41e3-4393-a5b7-24f98cc46a84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.godreports.com/2011/05/another-epistle-to-the-corinthians/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97137 | 607 | 1.796875 | 2 |
OTTAWA — The Senate will conduct an internal audit to determine if its members are actually living in the locations they claim for expenses purposes.
The Ottawa Citizen reported this week that Conservative Senator Mike Duffy and Liberal Senator Mac Harb, both longtime Ottawa residents, have each billed more than $30,000 for maintaining “secondary” homes in the city.
Senate rules allow senators to claim up to $21,000 annually in accommodation and food expenses while in the National Capital Region — away from their declared primary residences in their home provinces.
The Senate’s committee on internal economy, which sets rules for senators’ spending, announced Thursday that it has asked the Senate administration to “conduct an audit to assess whether all senators’ declarations of primary and secondary residence are supported by sufficient documentation.”
The audit will be performed by the Senate’s audit branch. It is expected to assess whether tax records, drivers’ licenses or other documentation support senators’ claims to live in their primary residences.
Every senator is required to produce a sworn statement attesting to residency and ownership of $4,000 of land in his or her home provinces. False information on this form would be considered perjury and could jeopardize membership in the Senate.
A subcommittee of the internal economy committee is already looking into a CTV News report about the secondary residence in nearby Gatineau, Que., claimed by Conservative Patrick Brazeau, who lists his primary home in his father’s apartment in Maniwaki, Que.
That subcommittee has also been directed to review allegations raised about Harb, according to a press release issued by the Senate. There is no reference to any review of Duffy’s living arrangements.
Conservative Senator David Tkachuk, who chairs the committee, said the bipartisan subcommittee will look into allegations in an Ottawa Citizen report on Harb’s expense claims. He said the story raised similar issues to the CTV story on Brazeau.
Tkachuk said Harb’s situation differs from Duffy’s.
“They’re separate issues,” he said.
Both Harb and Duffy say their expenses claims for secondary residences fall entirely within the Senate’s rules.
Tkachuk told the Ottawa Citizen earlier this week that Duffy had done nothing wrong and said there was no reason for him not to claim the National Capital Region expenses.
Duffy, a senator for Prince Edward Island, has lived in the Ottawa area most of his life and has owned his current home in Kanata since 2003. He also owns a home in his province, as required by the constitution. He has claimed $33,000 in National Capital Region expenses since September 2010.
Duffy spent most of his broadcasting career reporting on Parliament Hill from Ottawa. He is registered to vote in the Kanata-area riding of Carleton-Mississippi Mills.
Harb owns several properties around Ottawa, including a condominium unit near Hog’s Back that he listed as his address on recent real estate documents. He counts as his primary residence a home in the Pembroke, Ont., area, about 90 minutes from the city.
Because his primary residence is listed as more than 100 kilometres from the city, Harb was able to claim more than $31,000 in National Capital living expenses over the same period.
His office won’t say the exact location of his primary home, but property records show Harb owns a $300,000 bungalow near Westmeath, along the Ottawa River.
Harb, an Ontario senator, spent most of his adult life in Ottawa after emigrating from Lebanon in 1973. He served as a city councillor from 1985 to 1988, when he was elected MP for Ottawa Centre.
- Conservative Senator Mike Duffy claims living expenses, despite being long time Ottawa resident (o.canada.com)
- Senate living expenses brouhaha sparks audit (cbc.ca) | <urn:uuid:2e7c0236-337d-4021-8868-631a9610568d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://o.canada.com/2012/12/06/senate-launches-investigation-of-senators-primary-residence-claims/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970043 | 822 | 1.5 | 2 |
Will Obama's promises get mugged by reality?
Modern presidents have struggled to keep their campaign pledges. Here's how we can judge Obama's record.
The danger of being "mugged by reality" looms for a new president as he tries to follow through on campaign promises.Skip to next paragraph
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In the 1988 campaign, George H.W. Bush pledged to not raise taxes. "Read my lips! No new taxes!" he assured the country. That line helped him win. When under severe economic pressures as president, however, he reversed course, supported a tax increase, and severely damaged his quest for reelection.
President Bush was not alone in his decision to renege. Modern US presidents have fulfilled less than 70 percent of their campaign promises, according to historical studies. So the question arises: How can citizens fairly judge a president's promises?
In his remarks to gay activists at the White House earlier this summer, President Obama said: "I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps."
He may have meant to emphasize that results matter. Fair enough. But at face value, it sounds like we should disregard his "words" and "promises" he can't or won't keep and only look at the results of those promises he decides are important. That's disconcerting.
Promises matter. That was the consensus of former top presidential domestic policy advisers who participated recently at a symposium at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. These advisers spoke candidly about the "realities" that assault new presidents, and they shared some ideas about how citizens can evaluate a president's promises. Here are three:
1. Do the president and his staff regard campaign promises as gospel?
Bruce Reed, who served President Clinton, said: "Campaign promises" should be seen as "gospel." They are "sacrosanct." He said that Mr. Clinton saw the campaign as the "ultimate job interview," and that the administration's success in honoring his campaign promises would determine whether the president would be "rehired." Mr. Reed described the extent to which this commitment filtered down to Clinton's staff. On Clinton's first day in office, The Washington Post ran a full-page spread listing all of his pledges. Reed and other staffers posted the list above their desks and referred to it on a daily basis.
2. Does the president prioritize the most fundamental campaign promises?
The president must take care in prioritizing his campaign promises. The more fundamental and categorical the promise, the more responsibility the president has to carry it through and the less forgiving will be the response if that promise is broken.
Margaret Spellings, who counseled President George W. Bush during his first term, confirmed that the promise Bush made to reform our educational system was one of the "must haves" (as opposed to the "nice to haves"). The "No Child Left Behind" program was the central initiative in Bush's domestic policy, and he spoke frequently and knowledgeably about its importance and implementation. As a result, the electorate understood the high priority he placed on educational reform. While Ms. Spellings acknowledged that "9/11 changed everything," and constrained Bush in pushing forward his promise of educational reform, he was nevertheless successful in getting most of his promised educational reform legislation passed. | <urn:uuid:b33c4293-2103-4a91-bec7-9d6b77c30046> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0813/p09s03-coop.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978623 | 706 | 1.617188 | 2 |
As such an important and prominent transport hub, the surroundings of Gare du Nord are a desirable place to stay in Paris and hence contain many hotels. From here visitors have easy access to nearby Gare de l’Est and to the popular district of Montmartre. For these reasons there are many hotels in the near vicinity of Gare du Nord. The appropriately named New Hotel Gare du Nord is an attractive hotel situated opposite the station. Chain hotels, such as Mercure Terminus Nord Hotel, are also present in the station’s surroundings, and a large number of budget hotels can be found near Gare du Nord. The breadth of choice and the convenience of its location make Gare du Nord an attractive place to book a hotel.
The area surrounding Gare du Nord is one of the most popular places to look for hotels in Paris. Over 180 million travellers pass through Gare du Nord train station every year, making it the busiest railway centre in Europe, and the third busiest in the world. Gare du Nord is a main passenger link to northern France, the United Kingdom (via the Chunnel), the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. This terminal is one of six large terminus stations in Paris. Gare du Nord acts as a useful connection point for the RER train from Charles de Gaulle Airport and two metro lines that connect the north of Paris to the south.
Gare du Nord is housed in a beautiful building, designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff, which was constructed in the 1860s. Besides the platforms, this building also hosts cafes, a currency exchange, newspaper stands, and a gift shop. For travellers’ convenience there are e-ticket collection machines, as well as wireless internet access and a registered baggage service. The washrooms have baby changing facilities. The station is decorated with a series of sculptures that represent cities served by the Chemin de Fer du Nord Railway Company. Among the cities represented are Paris, London, Vienna, Brussels, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Frankfurt, and Berlin. The sculptures were created by artists including Jean Louis Nicolas Jaley, Francois Jouffroy, Jean Joseph Perraud, and Pierre Jules Cavelier.
Please provide this reference number to our customer service center representative on request, so we can help you better | <urn:uuid:a5b55aa9-d5cc-410f-9196-9032f7adca1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.easytobook.com/en/france/paris/paris/train-stations/gare-du-nord-paris-hotels/?amu=280822288¤cy=RUB | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935426 | 467 | 1.515625 | 2 |
President Obama must go to the people
President Obama tried to galvanize the country to progressive purpose in his inaugural speech, arguing that in this era, advancing time-honored individual aspirations requires collective action.
As attempts to square the ideological circle go, this was a rhetorical triumph. Yet if Obama is to realize his goals, he will have to rally the country on a continual basis.
A reasonable man, Obama craves a return to a time when agreeable people were able to work out sensible compromises.
That, however, doesn’t describe this period in American politics.
Mind you, House Speaker John Boehner has some of the same adult inclinations. He clearly would like to accomplish big, serious things — if he weren’t riding a Tea Party tiger and glancing anxiously over his shoulder at the ideological young guns who are eager to replace him. But he is — so Boehner won’t argue forcefully for the middle road he might pursue if left to his own devices.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, has simply not demonstrated that he cares about serious governance. For him, sadly, gamesmanship seems to be the entire game. The overriding purpose he has brought to his high public post has been to foil the president.
So where does that leave Obama as he confronts large and controversial issues like climate change, gun control, and immigration reform, to name just three? The best prescription comes from the (late) scholar Richard Neustadt, an adviser to several presidents.
“Effective influence for the man in the White House,” Neustadt wrote in his influential examination of presidential power, “stems from three related sources: first are the bargaining advantages inherent in his job with which to persuade other men that what he wants of them is what their own responsibilities require them to do. Second are the expectations of those other men regarding his ability and will to use the various advantages they think he has. Third are those men’s estimates of how his public views him and of how their publics may view them if they do what he wants.”
Given today’s politics, the third source of power will prove particularly important to Obama’s success. But that will mean going outside the capital and waging a campaign for what he wants done inside the Capitol. Although that’s not necessarily the way he’d prefer to govern, Obama does it well. After all, in a year when a number of economic models predicted he’d lose, Obama argued his way to a handy victory over Republican Mitt Romney.
In the last four years, Republicans were often able to indulge their obstructionist instincts because of these intertwined realities: Many issues never rise to the level of widespread public awareness, while others that do are sometimes difficult to elucidate to the country.
The first explains why Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama, a small-minded Senate baron, was able to deny Nobel Prize-winning economist Peter Diamond a spot on the Federal Reserve Board.
The debt ceiling controversy stands as a prime example of the second. Many people don’t understand that lifting the debt limit is an essentially redundant vote to authorize borrowing for spending Congress has previously approved. In 2011, Obama let Republicans use the debt-ceiling vote to lure him into a protracted debate over deficit-reduction.
This time around, however, the president declared he wouldn’t bow to brinksmanship. Likening a GOP threat not to raise the ceiling without offsetting spending cuts to going out to dinner and then running out on the check, Obama made it clear that if the United States defaulted on its obligations, he would make the GOP wear the blame for the economic consequences.
Lo and behold, congressional Republicans have now backed off that threat, saying they will support raising the debt ceiling for four months, while using other tools to push for spending cuts.
The central GOP complaint about Obama’s inaugural oratory was that it was a campaign-style speech. There’s some truth to that, but the criticism is more interesting for what it reveals about the critics. Republicans were objecting to what they fear: Obama’s ability to appeal to the public.
That’s instructive. As he starts his second term, Obama must keep uppermost in mind that the best way to win in Washington is make his opponents fear the consequences of thwarting him.
Scot Lehigh is a columnist for The Boston Globe. | <urn:uuid:5f588627-6356-4e5c-a723-ddafd583b342> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20130124/OPINION04/701249957/0/HSFOOTBALL08 | 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 | 0.970443 | 917 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Byline: Reviewed by Alun Thorne
Each year thousands, maybe millions, of Russians take to the streets to celebrate May Day.
Even since the fall of Communism and the end of the great Union more than 15 years ago, Russians still dress up in their fineries, unfurl their banners and march for International Workers' Solidarity Day.
Many diehard Communists hanker for the day, as unlikely as it may be, when their nation returns to the principles of the old Soviet regime of collectivism and dictatorship.
But many millions more revel in their new found freedoms, as fragile as they may still seem to the outside world, and have no desire to return to … | <urn:uuid:2de2603a-e3d5-4425-9f92-8dd797926cab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-148493807/book-reviews-the-human-face-of-tyranny-i-want-to | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969781 | 141 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Many types of plastic surgery procedures fall under the cosmetic surgery procedures category only. This isn't to imply there is anything wrong with using plastic surgery for cosmetic purposes. Getting breast implants augmentation or a Brazilian butt lift are both plastic surgery options that are cosmetic but can help people feel more confident and better about themselves.
Rhinoplasty is a type of plastic surgery that can be cosmetic surgery or corrective surgery. Revision rhinoplasty is a very common procedure carried out in many reputable plastic surgeons offices in Florida and elsewhere more and more each day.
For some patients, rhinoplasty is purely a cosmetic surgery procedure. For others it is a corrective procedure. Then again some patients get benefits from both revision and cosmetic for an overall improved quality of life. If you are considering getting a nose job or corrective rhinoplasty you may be wondering what some of the benefits are.
# 1 -- Breathe Easy There's a reason there is such a high market demand for products that help people breathe better. Breathing problems are a common complaint among a high percentage of people these days. Whether a mild case or more severe, not being able to breathe correctly can be a frustrating and downright scary issue to face. The most common type of procedure to help patients breathe easier is septoplasty. Most people have at least heard of a deviated septum, but many people don't even realize they have one. Or if they do they may not realize the extent or how much better their breathing could be if they had corrective surgery. If you want to improve your airflow, rhinoplasty for a deviated septum could help you.
# 2 -- Sleep Better Many people suffer with sleep issues related to breathing problems. Some of these issues can be as severe as sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can cause people's airways to actually be blocked or closed up and can lead to various health problems. There are methods of treatment these sufferers may use at home, but in some cases, revision or corrective rhinoplasty may be the best alternative. By working with a trained and certified plastic surgeon, you can have your nasal passageways "redesigned" to help alleviate much of the breathing issues that cause sleep issues.
# 3 -- Feel Great Even if you are getting your rhinoplasty procedure to help correct a problem, you will more than likely feel better about your physical appearance. Even corrective rhinoplasty causes a change in the nose. You can work with your plastic surgeon to help determine how much you want to alter or change the look for the final result. Many patients getting a nose job make it a point to get cosmetic surgery as well.
By reducing the size, shape or position of the nose, you can help alleviate breathing problems and look different. If you are considering revision rhinoplasty to help alter your breathing, find out about what final look you can expect or what you may be able to request for changes. For many patients a combination of cosmetic surgery and corrective surgery is the perfect combination for the best final rhinoplasty results.
Keep in mind, it is more important than anything to make sure you work only with a trained and Board Certified plastic surgeon for your rhinoplasty, especially for corrective work. Failing to do so and settling for cut rate rhinopasty can result in further, more severe complications. Often times these complications also lead to more plastic surgery procedures. You can find low cost rhinoplasty in Florida without sacrificing quality. Schedule your consultation and get started today. | <urn:uuid:f5256e1c-7709-4875-86fc-10fb5abd10a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coralgablescosmetic.com/plastic-surgery/top-3-benefits-rhinoplasty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952012 | 723 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I came upon this idea when making a bigger version of it for our MOPS group. I found metal roofing shingles (roofing section of Lowe's ) for 63 cents each. They are 8 x 12 inches. I used spray adhesive to adhere cute paper on, and made holes for the hanger with my Cropadile punch/setter- but you could use a drill very easily. I made magnets with the flat glass pebbles you can find in a floral section ( I got mine at the Dollar Store) and leftover paper from the board. I used Aleene's Paper Glaze to glue the paper to the glass, but you could probably use Mod Podge too. I hot glued magnets to the glass pebbles, and there you have it. You can decorate it as much as you want- I used a hot glue gun for ribbon too. Instead of the glass pebbles, you could use cute buttons- there's so many fun buttons out there- cut the shanks off with wire cutters and hot glue magnets on. The mini bulldog clips are also fun to hot glue a magnet to and work well with the board.
This is a basic version of it, you could decorate more than that certainly.
Here's pictures of the bigger one we made for our MOPS project in October ( I taped 2 metal sheets together and then glued foam core board on the back to stabilize it, and decorated similarly) There are different options for the magnets:
by momsoccerNovember 14, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Thanks for sharing the idea its REALLY cute!!
by maryw24November 18, 2009 at 9:58 AM
Very cute..thanks for sharing!! I might have to do this for my kitchen...and I have some scrabble tiles too!!
by BizmomDecember 7, 2009 at 4:41 AM
These are neat and great for principles as well as teachers, we got together one year and made a large one for the principle for her office, it was actually one of the ladies that helped chaperoned some of the field trips, her husband worked with sheet metal and had extra peices and she asked each of us to bring in something to add to this board she was giving to the principle, so we did, she covered hers with the shelf paper, very pretty patterned paper, we had all kinds of things from the scrabble peices to flat stones to poms poms. she loved it and still uses it to this day. we all wrote our names and date it was made her. since then there has been requests of making more. lol yours is very nice. love the paper you used. love the flat stones. we used the colored ones. these are great for gifts.
by tammystiendaNovember 23, 2010 at 8:03 AM
This is sooo cool! I think I will do this with my son for his teacher. I think that this is something that she would really like!
by Delirium003November 23, 2010 at 8:05 AMAdorable!!
May 23, 2011 at 8:43 PM
So Cute!!! I'm def going to steal this idea!!!
by ohmichelleMay 23, 2011 at 9:04 PM
this is totally cool and I can use it in my sewing room/office :-)
by swdesignsMay 24, 2011 at 7:33 AM
What a great idea! I'd love to make one for my craft area!
by SamnbellsmomMay 31, 2011 at 6:42 PM
Awesome Idea!!!! I'm going to use it to make Chore charts for my kids. I have a feeling I will enjoy them more than they will...... | <urn:uuid:a183e450-afda-4de9-b2be-cf5f673ff8f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobile.cafemom.com/group/25285/forums/read/10248703/Inexpensive_gift_for_teachers_or_anyone_else?use_mobile=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971899 | 771 | 1.65625 | 2 |
People in Bayou Corne have spent over two months dealing with evacuations, the smell of crude oil, and the uncertainty surrounding A sinkhole in yards away from their homes.
Texas Brine officials told the audience they have removed most of the crude oil from inside the failed cavern. They say so far the company has removed 2,600 barrels of crude oil from inside the cavern and close to 600 barrells so far from on top of the sinkhole. Clean up work around the sinkhole continues. The company plans to add 7 geoprobes around the Bayou Corne community in approximately two weeks.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, Parish emergency officials say the volume of the sinkhole doesn’t match the amount of debris inside the failed brine cavern, and scientist don’t know where the extra material came from yet.
Officials say 3d seismic survey is needed to figure out exactly what happened in the cavern, but that is not expected to happen until mid November.
Residents are worried another sinkhole or disturbance under the surface could happen while state and local officials wait for more test to come in.
“We need to move with urgency now,” said Bayou Corne resident Dennis Landry, “It’s time we get some answers on the whole situation.”
Landry says he understands testing results take time to develop but, he says the Bayou Corne community can’t wait much longer. | <urn:uuid:80857f1a-a049-47b4-8de7-2f406bf29695> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/10242012-bayou-corne-townhall-meeting-tuesday-october-23-2012/ | 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 | 0.947021 | 301 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Normally, failing isn’t something to tout. But work-based mishaps are unavoidable. And instances of falling short can offer powerful insights about how to do things differently next time. Here are 12 job-related fails that fit the bill.
1. Get stuck in a rut
Falling into a workplace rut can happen so slowly it’s more like oozing. Getting your groove back takes work, self-awareness, and discipline. But after you’re back on track, you’ll know you can do it again, and you’ll be able to recognize the signs of its presence.
2. Lose your job
I lost my job three times before I was 30 through “downsizings” in totally different sectors: the federal government, the publishing industry, and then financial services. Getting laid off made me much more resilient and able to see the signs that so typically foreshadow workplace restructures.
3. Lose out when a finalist for a job
This humbling experience can ignite self-reflection. Pros see it as an opportunity to professionally and politely ask for feedback.
4. Take a career detour that doesn’t work
This is risk-taking, and there is plenty of growth in that. If you don’t take the opportunity, you won’t know. (No lingering doubts for me: I’m just not cut out for selling bonds at an investment bank.)
5. Trust a colleague who burns you
Instead of getting bitter about this one, use it to become better at assessing who has your back and who will stab you in it.
6. Be lied to, or misled, by a manager
Same theme, here. But the consequences can be much bigger. One way to deal with this one is to reach out to leaders, elsewhere, who do play fair, for counsel or advice.
7. Quit when you don’t have the next job lined up
Not. A. Good. Idea. Especially, if you are about to get engaged to your girlfriend (which is a long story that involves my now-husband and me living 14 time zones apart for four months after he popped the question.)
8. Alienate the office manager
These folks have more power than many office workers might realize. Stay on their good side or try to make amends if things go awry.
9. Make a mistake
The goal is to make that mistake only once. Then communicate to your boss what you learned and what you’ll change so it never happens again. A pattern of huge mistakes is a fail that gets you fired.
10. Work for someone you can’t stand
This is incredible training for how to maneuver a transfer to a different department or office. It’s also excellent motivation for a targeted, well-executed job hunt.
11. Take a job you don’t like
Sometimes you’ve got a hunch even before you start. Other times, the distaste isn’t clear until you’ve been wearing the work-ID tag for a while. No matter, after it happens, you’ll vet potential offers with more skill.
12. Take a calculated risk that backfires
Success in business is saturated with the stories of entrepreneurs or others who dared and failed.
Unfortunately, I have either personally experienced, or witnessed, each one of these on-the-job fails. I am convinced that they gave me insight and provided an opportunity for growth.
Any job fails you’d like share?
Becky Gaylord worked as a reporter for more than 15 years in Washington, D.C., Cleveland, and Sydney, Australia, before she launched the consulting practice, Gaylord LLC. You can read Becky’s blog Framing What Works. A version of this story first appeared on the 12 Most blog. | <urn:uuid:ec3121d4-e64b-4c99-bf5e-3ba583dadb90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prdaily.com/mediarelationsEU/Articles/11115.aspx | 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 | 0.939004 | 811 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Please go to www.ahrq.gov for current information.
Press Release Date: November 10, 1998
Medicaid managed care enrollment is growing at an explosive rate, but not in rural America where, according to a new nationwide study sponsored by the U.S. Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), it is progressing more slowly.
Findings show that Medicaid enrollees in only slightly over half of all rural counties in the United States were covered by some type of Medicaid managed care in early 1997, compared with nearly three-fourths of urban counties, and there are important differences in the types of managed care programs.
"This comprehensive, nationwide picture of Medicaid managed care implementation in rural areas provides an important evidence base for state policymakers and health care planners to use in making decisions aimed at improving their rural citizens' access to health care," said AHCPR Administrator, John M. Eisenberg, M.D.
According to the study, mandatory fully capitated programs are less common in rural counties than in urban ones (10 percent versus 23 percent), although seven states do have statewide mandatory fully capitated Medicaid programs. Rural counties are also less commonly covered by programs that combine types of managed care. The study also found that Primary Care Case Management (PCCM), a form of managed care involving no financial risk to the provider, is more common in rural counties than in urban ones.
"These findings can serve as benchmarks for research on the impact of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997," said lead author Rebecca T. Slifkin, Ph.D. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. " However, it remains to be seen if the legislation will spur states to expand fully capitated programs in rural areas."
The most common reasons given by state Medicaid officials for including their rural enrollees in managed care programs is to save money and/or improve access to health care and establish a medical home. Yet over half the states who said their main motivation was to reduce costs operated PCCM or mixed type plans rather than full-risk programs.
The study further found that:
- Many states do not plan to implement capitated programs statewide.
- Aside from the statewide capitated programs, most other states have not yet attempted nor been successful at generating significant rural enrollment in capitated programs.
- Provider resistance and inadequate provider supply are major obstacles to implementing Medicaid managed care in rural areas.
- Other obstacles include lack of health plan interest in rural markets, consumer resistance, and lack of education and communication in rural areas about managed care.
However, many states are determined to at least partially overcome these obstacles and have taken diverse approaches to implementing capitated Medicaid managed care in rural areas.
The findings are based on telephone interviews conducted in 1997 with Medicaid officials in all 50 states—the first stage of a larger collaborative effort between staff at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and staff at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Details are in "Medicaid Managed Care Programs in Rural Areas: A Fifty State Overview," by Dr. Slifkin; Sheila D. Hoag, M.A.; Pam Silberman, Dr. P.H., J.D.; Suzanne Felt-Lisk, M.P.A.; and Benjamin Popkin, J.D. It appears in the November-December 1998 issue of Health Affairs.
For additional information, contact AHCPR Press Office: Karen Migdail, (301) 427-1855 (KMigdail@ahrq.gov). | <urn:uuid:6789023d-33d5-4ee6-962a-f37ee35e7da1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.ahrq.gov/news/press/medicaid.htm | 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 | 0.953356 | 817 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Most people who have been in business for a while (or even those who are just starting out) know that a good logo and effective marketing materials are an important part of building a business. As a result, many business owners and directors of non-profit organizations work with professional designers to help communicate their organization’s mission and values to their target audience. With concerns about global warming and protecting the environment mounting, more organizations than ever are trying to send the message of their commitment to socially and environmentally responsible business practices. But how do you start sending a green message to your audience? What can you do as a business owner or non-profit director to encourage eco-friendly practices?
One place you can start is by choosing paper wisely. Although those glossy sell-sheets and brochures you get from your online printer might look snazzy, most glossy stocks only contain about 10-15% post-consumer waste, which means that most of the fiber from these sheets come from new trees, which leads to increased deforestation. In fact, most traditional papers labeled “recycled” are only required to contain 30% post-consumer waste (for those who are unfamiliar with the term, “post-consumer” refers to paper which has been used by consumers and recycled instead of thrown in landfills). In addition, the paper industry’s dependence on the use of chlorine-based bleaching agents in the creation of paper “places this industry as the worst water polluters in the world.”
However, a growing number of paper companies have started to heed the call of environmental stewardship, and there are now a significant number of eco-friendly sheets available for everything from the most high-end brochure to the simplest copy job. Some of my favorites include: the Environment line from Neenah paper (I print my business cards on PC100 Natural); Fox River’s Confetti Line (a nice selection of speckled sheets in great colors); and Mohawk Options (Mohawk Color Copy paper, by the way, comes in a 100% PCW version and is manufactured using 100% wind energy.) No matter what you’re using it for, no matter what your budget, you can find an eco-friendly paper that will suit that purpose.
When specifying paper for a print job, look for high levels (50-100%) of post-consumer content, and that it’s manufactured using a PCF or TCF process (PCF means that no new chlorine has been introduced in the recycling process, although chlorine may have been used in the original paper; TCF means totally chlorine free, and often applies to sheets which use virgin fiber). Unsure where to look? Ask your printer or designer – most designers (such as myself) prefer to deal with printers themselves, and letting them know you prefer eco-friendly papers will help them make the most responsible choice for your materials. If you do decide to deal with the printer yourself, make sure to tell them the type of papers you’re looking for – color, coated or uncoated, finish, and level of post-consumer content. Printers generally have great relationships with various paper mills and distributors, so they can be a terrific resource for finding a quality sheet.
For more information on choosing recycled paper:
Treecycle.com–Information on recycling and recycled paper
Conservatree–Environmentally sound paper overview
Celery Design San Francisco’s Ecological Guide to Paper
Wikipedia article on paper recycling | <urn:uuid:13e426d9-71de-477a-836d-a5d0aeaf5952> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://creativelatitude.com/articles/article_200608_nordin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944778 | 721 | 1.742188 | 2 |
pueraeternus wrote:Venerable Huifeng: I wanted to reply to your earlier posting but it was deleted for some reason. In any case, I would still like to ask - could you briefly describe how each of these organizations are perceived (with regards to their focus, forte, doctrinal specialties, etc) in Taiwan?
icylake wrote:if one wanted to know what Chinese Busshiam is, then Foguangshan would be the best choice. their linage came from Lin ji Chan tradition(Rinzai Japan, lIm je, Korea, lam the, Vietnam), but since Chinese Lin ji sect had evolved to hybrid of pure land and zen practice after Song dynasty, so main practice of Foguangshan is very like that of pure land-Nian Fo-
This is why the organizations are so heavily attached to their founders at the moment. It might also prove to be their undoing in the long-term.
JKhedrup wrote:You would know better than I Huseng, but according to my limited observations it seems Dharma Drum Mountain has so far weathered the passing of its founder Master Sheng Yen quite well, with the abbotship passing to a senior bhikshu and disciple.
Huseng wrote:icylake wrote:if one wanted to know what Chinese Busshiam is, then Foguangshan would be the best choice. their linage came from Lin ji Chan tradition(Rinzai Japan, lIm je, Korea, lam the, Vietnam), but since Chinese Lin ji sect had evolved to hybrid of pure land and zen practice after Song dynasty, so main practice of Foguangshan is very like that of pure land-Nian Fo-
Foguangshan like most of Taiwanese Buddhism is a highly reformed and modified form of what used to be Buddhism on the mainland. There are vast differences between what you see now and what used to exist. Some examples of this is the improved status of nuns, the emphasis on complete Vinaya ordinations, the lack of wandering monks and the system of having a single master for thousands of disciples. They also threw out the old pagan gods of old from the temples. You don't even see much of the old Dharma Guardians that are commonly found in more traditional temples and of course Japan where they have preserved a lot of Chinese Buddhism that was otherwise abandoned or destroyed in China and Taiwan. In some ways Japan has better preserved classical Chinese Buddhism than later and modern China did. The true heirs to Tang Dynasty Buddhism are found in Japan ironically.
Understandably a lot of people defer to him on matters of doctrine and so on, but a leader who has passed away can no longer invoke vibrant spirit into a living tradition.
JKhedrup wrote:Yes this is a very good point. I saw some degree of this during my stay at City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas, where Master Hua remains very much the figurehead, "root guru" if you will of the monastery, even though he passed away quite some time ago.
Everyone is a disciple of one grand master, all property is owned by a single entity and you are not to take on your own formal disciples. This allows for a lot of stability and great material management
icylake wrote: i agree with your opinion in general. but i think we must consider Japanese buddhism itself has very distinctive Japanese characteristics,
JKhedrup wrote:I think it is also a big part of the ability of those organizations to set up branches in foreign countries. If you don't have the funds or the human resources to be able to build temples and then staff them with monastics and management people, it is very difficult to get things going.
JKhedrup wrote:Yes I agree with you. Because the Tibetans lost their country I think they had no choice but to adapt- they had to reach out not only to transmit the dharma but also to find some other ways of supporting their institutions.
Because this is not the case with Chinese Buddhism, and because in many cities in the West the Chinese population is large enough and well off enough to support the temple singlhandedly, perhaps there is not so much of an incentive to reach out to Westerners.
Of course, this will become a challenge with the next generation, as the children of the parishioners may be more comfortable in English for example than Mandarin.
Certainly discipline could be maintained but with less rigid forms. Chinese could be used for liturgy and conversation classes given, but philosophy could be taught in English or the language of the land.
I also remember spending hours and hours trying to learn how to fold the blanket the way it should be, and always being marked incorrect (which carried with it punishment after a few instances).
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest | <urn:uuid:6b099966-cbae-46ba-b5ab-5fb4f4d5a55d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=141809 | 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 | 0.973831 | 1,006 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Posted: Feb 12, 2013 4:19 PM by MTN News
GREAT FALLS - An illegal intrusion into the nation's Emergency Alert System, or EAS, is under investigation.
During yesterday's cyber-attack, at least four stations were the victims of a hoax after hackers broke into their EAS equipment.
The stations were WBKP and WNMU in Marquette, Michigan; KNME - KNDM in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and KRTV in Great Falls.
Cordillera Communications owns KRTV.
Company Vice President Jon Saunders issued a statement, saying, "KRTV, along with several other stations across the country, was subject to a cyber-attack that intruded into our EAS system. We're still investigating what happened."
Montana Broadcasters Association President and CEO Greg MacDonald said the intrusion is a very serious federal offense and is being investigated by the FCC and the FBI. He says stations in Utah and California were also affected.
MacDonald says preliminary reports indicate the hacker initiated the attack from overseas. | <urn:uuid:7bcff1d5-f693-45d8-bee4-525655965acb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://montanasnewsstation.com/news/emergency-alert-system-hacked-montana-tv-station-among-those-affected/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974205 | 218 | 1.578125 | 2 |
APRIL IN THE ALABAMA FLOWER GARDEN
PEONIES– One of the prettiest flowers in my gardens is the Peony. This year I have planted another “Sarah Bernhardt” and I am so excited to see that it is already sending up shoots. I have 5 peonies already established in our different flowerbeds and they are all covered in buds. Some may bloom before the end of the month – but that is not certain. This is one plant that I watch each day. The blooms are magnificent and well worth the effort. They need full sun and good soil. I amend with a little compost each spring. There is never much need to water because here in Alabama we have abundant spring rains usually. One thing I did learn was not to plant my peonies where they would get spattered with rain. This causes a virus and the buds don’t form properly and eventually just drop off.
ROSES – I suppose you already know about my addiction to roses! Yes, I love them. Recently I have been investigating the David Austin roses. The Old English roses are so delicate and lovely!!! I pruned our roses back in the month of January and really took a good look at their structure. One thing Roses cannot tolerate here in the south is lack of airflow. This is a guarantee for Blackspot! Which is almost a given anyway. You need to examine your roses and make sure that the branches are not rubbing and poorly placed in their growing direction. I am particularly referring to the Hybrid Teas. But I also like to trim up the climbers as well.
You need to fertilize your roses with a complete Rose fertilizer in the spring when you see new growth, which you probably already have. Once buds begin forming keep an eye out for ants and aphids. Ants actually “farm” aphids and will intentionally carry them to your plants. They milk them for their honeydew. Now the natural enemy of the aphid is ladybugs! So if you find a ladybug – take it to your roses.
A good rule of thumb when buying a new rose to place in your garden is to examine it carefully. Examine the stems and branches and even the flowers if there are any. You don’t want to bring in a plant that already has the signs of virus or disease much less one that already has insect damage. If there are discolored leaves or such don’t buy it!!! Also, once you get it home and get it planted, cut it back. And definitely cut off any buds or blooms. You want all the energy to go into roots to get it established. If you will do that then the plant will reward you with many more blooms.
LILIES – There are incredible varieties of Lilies available right now. We have several different types of lilies: Oriental, Asiatic and Trumpet in various places in our gardens. They are just stunning. I loved having the “Easter Lilies” (Trumpet Lily) blooming out there at Resurrection Day. It was such a sweet joy. Lilies like a rich soil and require good drainage.
Lilies grow from bulbs and so they are to be treated like any other bulb. I highly recommend buying the lilies while they are in bloom. This way you know the color and the height and can plan your garden a little better. I am a visual person myself and I like to SEE what I am getting.
TULIPS – On my last birthday, my sister-in-law, Shanna, gave me some tulip bulbs and a box of bone meal. She is such a thoughtful person!!!! Anyway – I planted them and they are blooming so beautifully now! Each time I see one I think of her and her precious family. Tulips will thrive in almost any type of soil where there is reasonable drainage. During the growing season they like plenty of moisture but the roots must not stand in water.
POPPIES – This is the second year that I have sown Oriental Poppy seeds. Last year they came up fairly well but were small and not what I had wanted. SOOOO this year I have planted some in the garden – some in seedling trays inside and I have some more that I will sow on Saturday. I am hoping that they will come up well this year!
This month many of the flowering plants that are in our gardens will come up. I have said this many times before and I will say it again. I really do not like buying annual flowering plants unless they reseed heavily. It just seems like a waste of money. I do however buy them from time to time to add a little color to the garden, especially in the window boxes or the ancient wheelbarrow that we plant in each year.
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Release Date: March 6, 2006
BUFFALO, N.Y -- Giving so that others can communicate, DynaVox Technologies has donated equipment and systems valued at nearly $116,000 to the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences in the University at Buffalo's College of Arts and Sciences.
The hardware and software will support UB's Center for Excellence in Augmented Communication (CEAC) in the areas of clinical practice, teaching and professional training, says Jeffery Higginbotham, Ph.D., center director and associate professor in the UB Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences.
"Without this gift from DynaVox, we would not be able to serve nearly as many clients as we do, nor offer as complete an educational opportunity," Higginbotham said. "Now we can provide hands-on, high-quality training for our graduate students, who will become the profession's leading practitioners."
The center trains speech-language pathologists, and each year serves many Western New Yorkers with a variety of complex communication needs due to laryngectomy, Asperger's syndrome, autism, traumatic brain injury, stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.
In addition to training students and serving individual clients, CEAC conducts research, hosts support groups, provides workshops for professionals and consults with area agencies.
"It's very exciting for us to share our technology with UB," said Joe Swenson, president and CEO of DynaVox Technologies. "Professor Higginbotham is a leading researcher and clinician in the field and his work not only benefits those in need, but it also advances the profession and provides companies like ours with feedback that leads to ever greater innovations."
Based in Pittsburgh, DynaVox Technologies is a privately held company that develops software and hardware technology to improve the quality of life for the nearly 4 million children and adults in the U.S. with severe speech disabilities.
To learn more about DynaVox Technologies and its products, visit http://www.dynavoxtech.com or call 1-866-DYNAVOX. | <urn:uuid:6328d39a-2b96-46cb-ad9d-92e0217595ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffalo.edu/news/news-releases/philanthropy.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2006/03/7800.detail.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952329 | 453 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I saw this goose in the park. After consulting with two experienced bird watchers, they both agreed this this goose was probably a hybrid. This goose also was feeding with some docile Canada geese. When I approached the hybrid goose it was not afraid and did not move away from me.
13 male mallard
~7-8 female mallard
These mallards were use to human feeding because they actually left the water and walked towards me and waited. They followed me further after I started to walk away.
I saw one pair of Canada Geese. One of the geese seemed to have had something stuck stuck in it's wing.
Planted by Dave Lewis in 2005
Clinging to a screen of a second story window. Observed there the previous day too.
I saw a brown butterfly that had folded wings. I don't know what specific type of skippers.
I saw a mink swim along my side of this pond and after a few minutes I saw it scurry back with a crayfish in its mouth.
- The American Mink marks its hunting territory with a fetid discharge from its anal glands
- Males mate with several females but eventually live with one.
- American Minks of both sexes are hostile to intruders
I noticed this rabbit ratting some plants or weeds and it showed no sign of fear or care when people walked by and when I stood up to talk to a man.
I saw these two raccoon on the side of Adam rd and Satterlee. The first photo shows that two raccoon died recently at or near this location. The farther carrion was harder to positively ID as a raccoon in the first photo and closer up. But I believe it was a raccoon.
I first saw this Egret on the other side of this pond. After about 30 min the egret fly over to my side of the pond. It was great to see this bird fly across the pond.
I saw 3 chipmunks at Riverside park. One came within 8 feet of me. I am wondering of this chipmunk has been hand feed before. It did not come right up to me, but it appeared to not care that I was setting near him.
I watched 3 water strider moving through the water. At one moment it appeared to be 2 fighting or mating.
I saw this dragonfly flying around the pond. | <urn:uuid:306ac22c-5dea-495e-a940-fccb3c5f85af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lat=42.527571&lng=-83.242754 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984098 | 495 | 1.789063 | 2 |
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, of Argentina, has a big job ahead for him – but, luckily, students at Holy Family Regional Catholic School in Huntsville have some advice for him -- and will be watching to see how he leads.
The choice of Bergoglio fulfills the hopes of Sam Farley, an eighth grader at Holy Family. Farley and his classmates have been studying the process of electing the pope.
“I hope it’s someone who knows a lot of languages – and someone who knows the people, who’s been around regular people,” Farley said just before the noontime election of Bergoglio was announced Wednesday, March 13, 2013. “I think he should travel to poorer countries to help them and pray for them.”
As a cardinal, Bergoglio, who is fluent in Spanish, Italian, Latin and German, cemented a reputation for humility by refusing the fancy apartment available to bishops. He lived instead in a smaller room, using public transportation, and cooking his own meals.
“If I were pope, I would work to bring all the religions together,” said Juan Gordillo,
“If I were Catholic, I would make a law that Catholics should not start war between each other,” said Quinny Ruiz.
“I think he should help the church start more charities to help people in poorer countries,” said Abby Sexton.
“I think he should tell companies to put aside greed and donate money to charity,” Gordillo said. “And he should tell people to pray for guidance and try to do something good for the community.”
“And help animals, especially the ones that are endangered,” said Tyresse Collins.
“And, if I were pope, I would make a rule that all Catholic people should wear crimson and white,” said Monty Rice, a fan of the University of Alabama.
“What religious significance does that have?” his teacher asked.
“Red for the blood of Jesus and white for the resurrection,” Rice said, thinking fast.
The hopes of nearly one-sixth of the world’s population rest directly on the shoulders of the new pope, and the eyes of most people in the world will be watching to see how he leads the Church.
“My hope,” said Father Joseph Lubrano, pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, “is that the new pope is very pastoral and inclusive. And that he will listen.”
Lubrano, who worked with Cardinal Timothy Dolan when Dolan was archbishop in Milwaukee, would have been happy to see Dolan elected, he said before Bergoglio's selection was announced. Lubrano remembers Dolan as a gregarious, joyful leader.
But the vitality and growth of the Catholic Church in South America, Africa and Asia, means that having a leader who reflects the church’s international nature will be good.
“There have been all sorts of conjectures – if the new pope would be from Africa or Canada or Asia, because there are many more cardinals from those countries now,” Lubrano said. “That really shows the changing face of the church.”
Lubrano, along with DeKarlos Blackmon, music minister at St. Joseph’s and also the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Peter Claver, a nationwide Catholic service organization especially for African-American men, joined others in the parish office at St. Joseph’s Wednesday to watch the TV news feeds from St. Peter’s Square in Rome.
But the face of the pope matters less than the heart, Blackmon said.
“The Knights of Peter Claver just are praying for a good and holy man, a pastoral man to meet the needs of the universal church,” Blackmon said.
And no matter who the new bishop of Rome is, Father Lubrano said just before the new pope stepped on to the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, his boss will remain the same.
“The Big Boss doesn’t change,” Lubrano said, smiling and pointing at the heavens. “And the Holy Spirit is running the church. Even when I don’t know the Holy Spirit is running it, the Holy Spirit is in charge." | <urn:uuid:a282879d-8c5e-453f-ab86-1956dbf63845> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2013/03/pope_francis_election.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967655 | 934 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The day after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed the NAACP convention in Houston, Vice President Joe Biden, representing President Obama, addressed the gathering in a speech interrupted by multiple applauds, according to a transcript.
Biden offers defense of Obama administration
In his speech Biden defended Obama's efforts to deal with the current economic malaise, including the bailout of the auto industry, the stimulus package, "saving America's financial system", and cutting $100 billion from the federal deficit.
Biden mentioned that Osama bin Laden was killed on President Obama's orders.
Biden also touted the health care reform act, which he said provided 30 million Americans with affordable health care.
Biden suggested that Republicans did not help Obama's efforts
Biden listed a litany of measures, in his speech, that Obama passed that he said Republicans offered no or little support. These included the Recovery Act (aka the stimulus package), the Affordable Care Act (aka health care reform), the extension of the payroll tax cut, and the Lilly Ledbetter equal pay. Biden also mentioned the controversy over raising the debt limit when Republicans attempted to tie that action to cuts in federal spending. He ascribed this action to Republican obstructionism.
Biden attacked Mitt Romney
In his speech, Biden conducted a number of attacks against Mitt Romney, who had addressed the convention the day before. He accused Romney of not regarding education as very important, suggesting that as president he would cut funding for a number of federal education programs. Biden also suggested that Romney was against a clean environment and the administration's green energy programs. Biden suggested that Romney, unlike President Obama, would hurt women, children, and the elderly for opposing a number of government programs. Biden also suggested that Romney's opposition to health care reform -- for which the candidate had been booed at the NAACP convention the day before -- would hurt the uninsured and would benefit insurance companies. Biden also attacked Romney's position on taxation, which he said favored the rich. The vice president also suggested that Romney's approached to foreign policy was rooted in the Cold War, unlike that of the administration. Finally, Biden attacked Romney's views on civil rights and voting rights, suggesting that a Romney justice department would be unfriendly to both.
Biden gets warm reception
In contrast to Romney's speech, which had been interrupted by booing at certain points, Biden's address was well received, according to the Houston Chronicle. The account described Biden as "folksy and impassioned." It mentioned that Biden was booed only once, when he indicated that he was winding his speech up.
Obama sends video greetings
Due to what was called a scheduling conflict, President Obama did not attend the NAACP convention, offering video greetings instead, according to the Huffington Post. He praised the organization for standing with him and his program to help, in his view, the middle class. He did not mention Mitt Romney,
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. | <urn:uuid:b61d7db9-5ce9-4b93-beff-88daa593835e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/biden-addresses-houston-naacp-convention-enthusiastic-response-020800393.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977085 | 611 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Editor's note: In the Jan. 15 Ranger Today, we had an article about Interim Provost Fred Ebeid's journey to India. Much of the article focused on the exchange agreements signed between UW-Parkside and IndSearch, a business management institution in Pune, India. But there was more to his trip. Ebeid served as "Chief Guest" and keynote speaker at the International Conference on Innovative Practices for Business Excellence, organized by the Rajagiri Center for Business Studies, in Kochi, Kerala, on Jan. 14. He was accompanied by UW-Parkside Business Professor Dr. Abey Kuruvilla, who initiated contact with the institution and made arrangements for the visit.
After opening the conference with the lighting of a traditional bronze lamp, Ebeid spoke in his keynote address about the growing challenges faced by students in the 21st century and the response of higher education. He emphasized UW-Parkside's efforts in creating the concept of a global classroom and highlighted the newer concepts in higher education like massive online open courses, flex degrees, and online classes.
In addition to touching on higher education's challenges, Ebeid spoke on the need for continued efforts by educational institutions to create access and excellence for students. He later stressed the need for collaboration and partnerships in education as a response to these growing challenges. Responding to questions afterward, Ebeid said change is the only constant and institutions of higher learning can better respond when they are flexible and open to challenges.
Ebeid was introduced by the Rajagiri Center's Principal Dr. Joseph Injodey. The conference was attended by numerous Fulbright Scholars, several international dignitaries, heads of other institutions, and the Center's students, faculty, and staff.
During the conference, Abey Kuruvilla presented the paper "Community Engaged Learning in Business: A 2012 UW Parkside Exemplar." The presentation drew upon UW-Parkside's initiatives and success in engaging the local community through student projects. The paper generated a considerable amount of discussion among participants.Ebeid and Kuruvilla also met with Rajagiri Center leadership to explore possible collaborative opportunities for UW-Parkside. The Rajagiri group is one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the South Indian state of Kerala, a state that achieved 100 percent literacy about a decade ago. The conference was covered by several newspapers including the Times of India, the Indian Express, and Deepika. | <urn:uuid:7d9645b8-90d6-4adf-84a8-4ddec2be7f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uwp.edu/colleges/business.economics.computing/newstemp-new.cfm?storyID=6519 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951586 | 510 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Editor's Picks: What We Like
BackBy CertMag Editor —
You Called It
Imagine you have a remote control that can command myriad devices — a modern-day magic wand, if you will. It’s a common fantasy, played out in such movies as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Adam Sandler’s “Click.”
Well, soon it might be more than just a fantasy. According to a recent CNN.com article, analysts predict that people in the United States will be able to use their mobile phones “to make electronic payments, open doors, access subways, clip coupons and possibly act as another form of identification” within the next five years.
This kind of technology already has a foothold in parts of Asia, with 15 percent of Japanese respondents to a Forrester Research survey saying they make payments and purchase products using their phones.
Though this idea was tested in the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it didn’t catch on, and experts are unsure about whether the technology will be more widely adopted today.
The Cybraphon, a robotic musical band housed in an antique wardrobe, is obsessed with its popularity and its fans on MySpace and Facebook.
A recent Wired blog reported on the odd machine, which was handcrafted by three U.K.-based artists. They designed the robot to respond to its online audience with wild mood swings: When the Cybraphon receives lots of attention on the Internet, it plays a happy tune; when it sinks into the doldrums due to its lack of fame, it sings a melancholy song.
The instruments play live at the robot’s location in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Cybraphon is controlled by a MacBook Pro, which “runs software written in Python and MAX/MSP to monitor the Web and update Cybraphon’s emotions according to [the] rate at which its popularity is changing,” according to the Wired blog.
One of the robot’s creators said the Cybraphon was developed as a “tongue-in-cheek comment on people’s obsession with online celebrity.” You can follow the Cybraphon’s volatile emotions on its Twitter feed.
Autumn’s Awesome Audio and Momentous Movies
This fall has been a veritable avalanche of what we like on the audiovisual front. First, the entire Beatles catalog was reissued on Sept. 9, 2009 (Get it? “number nine, number nine, number nine”). The band’s albums had not been reissued on CD for a staggering 22 years; by contrast, Elvis Costello reissues his early albums seemingly once a year. The albums are available for purchase individually and as one big box of the entire discography. Every disc comes with a video documentary on the making of the album. This release was hyperbolically hailed as the end of the CD era — the last gasp of essential music in a physical format.
On Sept. 11, Jay-Z released his long-in-the-works “Blueprint 3,” which is either a continuation of his post-retirement streak after “American Gangster” or a cameo-cluttered mess and a total letdown. Either way, it’s sure to dominate a lot of attention in the remaining months of 2009.
Over on the silver screen, September saw the release both of “Jennifer’s Body” — which shrewdly cast Megan Fox in a romp resembling films such as “Heathers,” “Jawbreaker” and “Mean Girls” with a sci-fi horror twist — and of “Surrogates,” a “Matrix”-like thriller starring Bruce Willis from “Terminator 3” director Jonathan Mostow. | <urn:uuid:d435e769-c4fd-41da-9d54-8c6e4edafe9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.certmag.com/print.php?in=3896 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957608 | 821 | 1.507813 | 2 |
State budget cuts devastate local social service organization
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and the waiting room of the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center in Santa Cruz is dark and silent. Mid-week, the center would normally be crowded with people waiting to see a counselor about domestic violence support services, or for a literacy class, a workshop for teens, or one of the many other programs the Center provides. But today there is no one, and the homemade signs taped to the windows outside tell part of the story: “17 People Unemployed Today – Funding Cuts Hurt.” “Governor Terminates Funding For Domestic Violence Services.” “Wednesday = No Shelter, No Food, No Safety, No Education, No Groups, No Legal Services.”
Just blocks away, on Front Street, the Drop-In Center, a program run for 10 years by the Santa Cruz AIDS Project (SCAP), prepares to close its doors for good on Sept. 15. SCAP is scrambling to find a new place to hold the needle exchange and HIV testing programs it provided at the Drop-In Center. The Center also assisted with referrals for housing and health services. These are just two of the Santa Cruz institutions impacted by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s budget cuts in late July, which cut more than $200 million from social services organizations, including eliminating 100 percent of funding for California’s domestic violence programs, $20.4 million in total.
Dee O’Brien, executive director for the Women’s Center, says the situation is bleak all around. “There is no state funding for any domestic violence services,” she says. “I can’t tell you how many shelters have already closed. We’re a family resource center, so we have diverse funding. But we did have to do some dramatic cuts that have really impacted us.” They have been forced to eliminate one staff position, cut the hours of other staffers by 20 percent, and close every Wednesday. Only the funding they receive from non-domestic violence-related grants keeps them open.
SCAP is similarly strapped. “We are in crisis mode,” says Merle Smith, executive director. “The governor absolutely cut off every dollar for education and prevention for our agency and for this county.” Though she struggles to remain positive, focusing on the fact that SCAP will be able to maintain the programs formerly hosted by the Drop-In Center, she’s indubitably worried.
Of special concern to her is the impact on the community if the needle exchange program does not find a new home. “I don’t think people realize the needle exchange program is designed to save lives, not to encourage drug use,” she says. “The purpose of the needle exchange is harm reduction—to reduce harm not only to the person who is using the drug, but to the public who are harmed by being exposed to that drug paraphernalia if there’s no place to safely collect it.”
Smith is certain that the lack of a needle exchange program will result in more needles being found throughout the city, causing Santa Cruz to face an imminent and potentially lethal public health hazard. “If we have no staff to collect those needles and put them in biohazard bags to be disposed of, you will find even more on the levees, on the riverbanks, in the parks, in the bus stations, and in local restrooms where they are easily accessible by the public,” she says.
O’Brien and Kristie Clemens, the Women’s Center’s director of domestic violence services, foresee equally devastating consequences because of the cuts to their programs. Along with Women’s Crisis Support—Defensa de Mujeres, they’ll suffer a combined loss of $635,000 in funding. Losing one day a week means that their services are often overcrowded on other days, and they fear that some people seeking help for domestic violence will be forced to leave before they are seen, and may not be able to return.
“It takes all the courage in the world to walk through those doors and ask for help. Sixty percent of women being harmed never do,” says O’Brien. “When you eliminate the funding, it means that about 30 women a day are not getting that support.” She points out that this also means that other, already overstretched programs will be further inundated: police departments, courts, emergency rooms, and homeless shelters all see increases in their client numbers when preventive services like SCAP and the Women’s Center have to curtail operations. Both organizations are in desperate need of help from the community. They say that financial donations are crucial, but so are volunteers.
“Community support has kept us going,” Smith says simply. But like O’Brien, she too is concerned that losing the Drop-In Center means losing a chance to offer free, non-judgmental services to people who might not receive them otherwise. “We are a first entry point,” she explains, not just for intravenous drug users or people living with AIDS, but many others in need of help. The center also offers practical supplies, information, and referrals to children and elders suffering from abuse or neglect, homeless youth, and domestic violence victims.
“We don’t care who it is,” she says. “We don’t care about ethnicity, gender, or the financial status. You’d be surprised at who comes to the Drop-In Center.” She adds that one fewer place for people to receive help means that more people will end up going without. “For 25 years this agency has been here because people realize the value of our services, because we have shown and proven that our activities are cost-effective,” she says. “If you eliminate this program, where will those people get those services?”
SCAP may soon lose even more federal cash, which the county may funnel off to fund their own HIV/AIDS program. “We are currently in negotiation with the county to not take away our federal grant monies to sustain their staff,” says Smith. “We’re trying to convince them that where they may see 30 people with their care team, we have 215 clients. If you balance it on that alone, it would appear that it would be better to sustain our program.”
Ultimately, both SCAP and the Women’s Center struggle with an uneasy feeling that these devastating budget cuts are far more than an economic necessity; that instead they may signal a fundamental and disturbing shift in how the state government views issues like AIDS and domestic violence. “The message this sends to the community is that somehow the governor has decided it doesn’t matter. Is it no longer a public health issue? Is it not important?” asks O’Brien.
“In the big picture, this is not a lot of money for them,” adds Clemens. “So why were we targeted? For us to regain that money will take so much time and energy and commitment and generosity from the community. It’s short term gains, long term costs … We’re not as far as we would like to be as a movement and as a society that doesn’t tolerate abuse. To have the funding cut just really limits how we’re able to serve people who are vulnerable.”
For her part, Smith is determined to keep SCAP alive. She points out that people living with HIV and AIDS are still some of the most stigmatized members of society. “These people have no one to advocate for them except us,” she says. “We will make it through this. But who’s advocating for us now?”
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:2b5e518f-67a9-4446-a1d5-901b1d9b45be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php/santa-cruz-news/santa-cruz-local-news/85-care-interrupted.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963602 | 1,653 | 1.671875 | 2 |
I have the right tool for just about every job. You won't ever find any on the Snap-On truck; nor will they appear in any Craftsman catalog. The best part is, these tools are seldom exotic and hardly ever cost more than a quarter. In fact, I pluck most of them from the dusty crevices at garage sales and swap meets. While most would regard my various coffee cans filled with odd-sized fasteners, worn-out sockets, and broken-handled wrenches as junk, I prize them as treasures. I'd be a fool not to; they've fixed many a lost cause and saved me a ton of grief (not to mention money).
Most recently, my carefully selected palate of highly specialized tools extracted the inextricable. As you may recall, I mentioned in the May issue's electrolytic rust removal story that the process can break the bonds that lock together corroded metals. Well, there's good reason I said can rather than always; the process couldn't break loose the pistons in that master cylinder. Why? The pistons were aluminum, and the galvanic reaction that corroded them within their iron bores over the decades effectively locked them solidly in place.
Ordinarily, heat and a few well-placed hammer blows through a drift would free such a booger, but the blind hole the piston lived in precluded that option. I also could've delivered hydraulic pressure generated by a grease gun through the outlet, but that required the right inverted flare fitting (which I didn't have), some fabrication (which I didn't want to do), and the integrity of a 40-year-old rubber piston ring (which I didn't want to count on). Even if everything went my way, I still don't know how I would've kept the pressure from escaping the fluid inlet in the reservoir once the piston uncovered it.
So I brought out the gimps. Drawing upon pearls imparted by a crusty old machinist friend, I decided to make the piston itself part of the extraction tool. By tapping the piston, I used a bolt and the mechanical advantage of their threads to generate enough force to extract the piston.
I could've used this force two ways: against the interior of the cylinder's closed end or against the perimeter of the cylinder's open end. I chose the latter, as the first option required threaded rod (which, curiously enough, I don't have) and a through hole, which would've totally destroyed the piston. My choice required an oversize socket, as you'll see, but that's easy; I can't resist random giant sockets and rescue just about every one I encounter.
This trick has more uses than merely extracting pistons from master cylinders, by the way. In fact, its potential is unlimited. Simply slip the fastener through an oversize socket on one side of a wrist pin and into a nut on the other side of the same wrist pin and you can safely remove junk pistons from good connecting rods. The same goes for kingpin bushings; I've extracted and installed many this way with great results. Leaf-spring bushings are a piece of cake, and one of my old shop manuals even shows how to replace lower control-arm bushings this way.
Master the art of improvisation with humble tools and you'll surprise yourself with your ingenuity and astound your buddies with your abilities. Not only does it feel good, it sure beats selling your soul to the local tool dealer. | <urn:uuid:dbc0f050-2910-4a3f-b792-e0b186a6b5b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rodandcustommagazine.com/techarticles/0707rc_custom_car_tools/ | 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 | 0.964267 | 718 | 1.625 | 2 |
Flexible Poll Dorset ewes are allowing a Cumbrian farming couple to cut their flock numbers by half, yet still produce a similar number of lambs.
Karen Hodgson and her Poll Dorset rams and 10 month old ewes.
Mark and Karen Hodgson farm two tenanted holdings in West Cumbria - the hill farm Wasdale Head Hall and Pickett How, Egremont, 18 miles away.
On the National Trust farm in Wasdale they run 1,200 Herdwick ewes which are bred pure on 1,100 h/a of mostly freehold fell running up to England’s highest peak, Scafell Pike.
At the 327 acre Pickett How, part of the Leconfield Estates, they run 120 Angus-Limousin suckler cows along with a flock of breeding ewes which, until recently, had been 600 three quarter Texel-Mules.
After initial success with the Poll Dorsets, the couple are now planning to replace all the commercial ewes with 300 of the pure bred ewes which will produce a similar number of lambs from three lambings over two years.
The Marren Dorset flock began after Mark, who had seen the performance of the sheep on a neighbouring farm when he was a youngster, said he would like half a dozen of the sheep for his birthday.
“We bought six in-lamb hoggs four years ago from local breeder Catherine Pritt at Gosforth. We were lambing them at the same time as our 600 commercial sheep and we left the Dorsets to lamb themselves which they did without problem or any supplementary feeding,” said Karen.
“We were so impressed that we went to the breed society sale in Exeter and bought 27 pure bred shearlings and set up a pedigree flock and within two years we had 96 Dorsets!
“This year the Dorsets lambed outside and we lost only three lambs from the 96 females which included hoggs, we only assisted 1 hogget and a ewe with twins. We had built a new shed for the commercial sheep to lamb in and we were watching them 24 hours a day.
Poll Dorset ewes.“With the Dorsets, we had no mismothering or any problems with prolapses or caesareans. Our commercial ewes were eating one and a half times more silage per kg of bodyweight than the suckler cows.
“We bit the bullet and decided we were going to sell the commercial flock and 300 of the ewes went at the beginning of June. We now we expect our feed inputs to be a quarter of what they were.” said Karen.
In early summer, the Hodgsons looked at sheep in 12 flocks in Northern Ireland which is only 40 miles away directly across the Irish Sea, thinking that the type of sheep bred there would be more suited to the climate in Cumbria, and they bought the best sheep they could afford - 100 females, giving them a total of 220 breeding ewes.
“We bought the best we could afford and now we have a solid foundation flock we can breed up increasing our numbers to around 300 hopefully by next September.
“Mark took a bit of convincing that we could produce as many lambs with a half as many sheep but now he’s a convert to the Dorset,” added Karen.
“The sheep get no supplementary feed and do not need much rich pasture as they get too fit. It makes it so much easier when you are not having to feed the sheep and they are also easier to check. They are just so low maintenance yet the ewes produce plenty of milk and are good mothers.
“They are very placid. Halter breaking a tup for showing takes just a couple of hours,” she said.
Traditionally, lambing started on March 6 and was finished by the end of April-early May. The plan is to bring the Dorset lambing forward to February and have subsequent lambings in July and November, with each ewe lambing roughly every 8 months.
Last winter the ewes were outside without any concentrate feed and the March lambing ewes scanned at 182 per cent with 176 per cent born.
2011 is the third summer there have been lambs born at Pickett How and there have been no problems with fly strike as the ewes appear to clean up any lamb scours.
The lambs are sold finished off their dams. Last November’s crop were sold from the beginning of March at weights of 34kg to 40kg, through H&H, Carlisle, and averaged £97.25 each. Other lamb crops have been sold off their mothers at only 10 - 12 weeks old.
There are still 150 commercial ewes, including some of the best Texel type lambs which are being retained as replacements, enabling the flock be closed.
“The Dorset rams work so hard. Last autumn we used Dorsets as chaser rams to the Texel, in the first three weeks of lambing only 150 sheep lambed, once the Dorset lambs started coming they just didn’t stop, 450 ewes lambed within the week.
Ewe with her July-born lambs.The Dorset sired lambs do not have large heads and shoulders which make lambing easier. We are retaining some of the Dorset cross ewes.
The flock has six stock rams, which includes three home bred tups. These include two Irish-bred one from Richard Currie by Blackhill Jack and a ram lamb bought at the August 2010 Carlisle sale from Ben Lamb by Rossiz King Kong out of Trevilley lines.
The Poll Dorset’s ability to lamb out of season has made the ewe popular as a recipient dam for embryo transfer work. But her natural lambs can be timed to take advantage of peaks in the market.
“We can plan to sell the lambs to fit the market which is a lot more satisfactory than the market dictating the price to us. People have asked us how we can manage to lamb so many times a year but they are trouble-free and running half as many ewes frees up grazing ground for the cattle.
“The breed is so versatile that you can fit them around other activities on the farm, such as our spring calving sucklers and the hill sheep which lamb from April until the end of May at Wasdale Hall,” said Karen.
The Dorset also produces valuable wool and with a combination of price increases from the Wool Board and the change of sheep, this year’s wool cheque has increased threefold.
Last year the Hodgsons, on the suggestion of their New Zealand contract shearer, clipped half the November and March-born lambs in May to see if it impacted on growth rates. The clipped lambs grew around 2 inches taller in body frame. This year all the gimmer lambs have been shorn.
NMR Silent Herdsman Has Heat Detection Covered
An Efficient Option to Optimise Milk Storage
Science Saves the Hardy Herdwicks | <urn:uuid:12ab07d5-10ad-4ea0-9069-042634b718ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stackyard.com/news/2012/01/jennifer/02_hodgson.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970513 | 1,521 | 1.671875 | 2 |
History: Lotan Center for Creative Ecology Edit History Back to page | View logs for this page Browse history From year (and earlier): From month (and earlier): all January February March April May June July August September October November December Deleted only For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history. (cur) = difference from current version, (prev) = difference from preceding version, m = minor edit, → = section edit, ← = automatic edit summary (cur | prev) 17:27, July 1, 2011 Ben Hedrick (Talk | contribs) . . (1,526 bytes) (+17) . . (Adding categories) (undo) (cur | prev) 20:05, April 24, 2008 Tom Sponheim (Talk | contribs) . . (1,509 bytes) (+1,509) . . (New page: As Jewish Environmental activists and educators, we have been following the efforts to provide solar cooking to those in need. Part of the tour in our eco-center includes brewing tea in a ...) Retrieved from "http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Lotan_Center_for_Creative_Ecology" | <urn:uuid:b8481021-c232-46bc-aedb-91034e8e90cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Lotan_Center_for_Creative_Ecology?action=history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968572 | 261 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Individuals with military experience already have a jump start on the career development process. Through your commendable service, you have most likely developed personal qualities and skills that can transfer to a new career.
This section is a starting point for veterans to evaluate their skills, abilities, and interests when choosing what type of career and degree program to enter. The career development process may not necessarily move in a “linear” path.
Many veterans choose to enter degree programs which reflect their military background while others pursue lifelong career goals unrelated to their service. Either way, your military experience can remain an important part of your identity as you expand your career interests and select a college program that is right for you.
Research Career Paths
Identify Transferable Skills | <urn:uuid:df6aacf3-5e14-4726-8f05-1ab7b586a411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wearevirginiaveterans.org/Vets-on-Campus/Career-Decisions.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955161 | 152 | 1.84375 | 2 |
710 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403
LOOKING BACK 1916–1965
The Pantages, which now seats 1014, opened in 1916 as a vaudeville house and part of Greek
immigrant and impresario Alexander Pantages’ renowned consortia of theatres. It was designed by the Minneapolis firm of Kees and Colburn in an Art Moderne/Beaux Arts style. The Pantages’ first show was a vaudeville lineup that included singers, comedians and a banjo player. In 1922, the Pantages was remodeled by renowned theatre architect Marcus Priteca/RKO and a new stained glass dome was added, which remains among the Pantages' most lovely features. In 1945, Edmond Ruben purchased the Pantages and renovated it by adding bird’s-eye maple. The grand reopening was on April 14, 1946 with a screening of "Gilda." In 1961, Ruben sold the Pantages to Ted Mann, who owned five other downtown Minneapolis theatres including the Orpheum Theatre. Mann renovated the Pantages yet again, and reopened it as a top-notch movie house the Mann Theatre on March 15, 1961 with the movie "Spartacus." That same year, United Artists previewed "West Side Story" at the Mann; and the film went on to win ten Academy Awards. In 1965 director Robert Wise, recalling his success with "West Side Story," decided to preview his new movie, "The Sound of Music," at the Mann. The showing at the Pantages was a terrific success and went on to become the longest running film in Twin Cities history – just under two years. The theatre operated sporadically from 1965 through 1984, continuing to show movies including the Mann’s last Twin Cities premiere of "Annie" in 1982.
In 1984, the Mann Theatre closed and remained shuttered until 1996, when current Hennepin Theatre Trust President/CEO Tom Hoch and former Historic Theatre Group President Fred Krohn initiated a five-year effort to save and restore the Pantages Theatre. During the renovation, architectural drawings were found and used to restore much of the theatre’s decorative plasterwork and character. The stained-glass “monitor,” a false skylight in the center of the auditorium’s ceiling, was revealed after layers of paint were removed. In cooperation with the City of Minneapolis, on November 7, 2002 the completely renovated Pantages re-opened at a cost of $9.5 million. Since then, the intimate Pantages has presented music, theatre and dance artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Vince Gill, Feist, Todd Rundgren, The Blenders and collaborative productions with Twin Cities’ organizations including the Jungle Theater, the History Theatre, Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, Cantus and Theater Latté Da. Hennepin Theatre Trust is now the owner and operator of this magnificent structure. | <urn:uuid:1824164c-d04e-4a5e-81ac-097118b10897> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hennepintheatretrust.org/our-theatres/pantages-theatre?quicktabs_174=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961141 | 614 | 1.648438 | 2 |
"The Father killed the Son": the offence of the Gospel?
While preaching at the recent New Attitude conference, as reported on the associated blog, CJ Mahaney said:
Who killed Jesus?It is perhaps not surprising that on that blog every comment so far, except for my own (I wonder if it will be allowed to stay there?), is gushingly positive about these words. But that is not everyone's response. A certain Duck has written:
The Father. The Father killed the Son. Feel God's love for you revealed in this verse. He crushed his son. For you. He crushed Him. He bruised him. He punished him. He disfigured him. He crushed him. With all of the righteous wrath that we deserved. That's what the Father did.
So great was his love for sinners like you and me.
If any single quote could encapsulate why I am not a Christian, this one, by C J Mahaney, has to be it.How should Christians respond to this? Adrian Warnock's response was simple:
The gospel is veiled to the perishing . . . .But is this the Gospel? Is the barbarity of a father killing his own son really the essence of the good news of Christ? Now I do not go along with Duck in rejecting the theology of substitutionary atonement, for that is clearly taught in Scripture. But, as I wrote in that comment on the New Attitude blog:
Where in Scripture does it say that "The Father killed the Son"? It is important to get things like this right. ... If the offence we are causing to [Duck] is the offence of the Gospel, of course it must stand. But we must make certain that it is the offence of the Gospel, and not the offence of our theological constructions which go beyond the Scriptures. | <urn:uuid:6ed4024e-1e75-48be-b022-1a741ef13ece> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/2006/06/father-killed-son-offence-of-gospel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975111 | 378 | 1.742188 | 2 |
……. (can we see the similarities between what happened years ago to what is happening now? A leopard cannot change its spots. A party doesn’t change its malicious ways no matter how much they are saying otherwise..)
In the 1970s the favourite political gimmick employed by DAP was to either ‘boycott parliamentary sessions and state assemblies’ or to stage ‘walk-outs’ even if the event was an important one such as Budget presentation. In 1970, 13 DAP MPs boycotted the Budget speech at the Dewan Bahasa on December 22nd, and the habitual boycotting of Parliamentary and State Assemblies became the norm of DAP’s political tactic and style for years to come.
Why is DAP adopting this irresponsible mode of representing the voters when it accused others of the same? Will such boycotting contribute to nation-building? DAP has an impeccable record of boycotts, the national education consultative council and numerous walkouts in Parliament and State Assemblies.
When DAP is not invited to give their views, the Opposition accused the BN of being undemocratic and dictatorial; but when they are invited, they have nothing to contribute. Instead they staged political gimmicks to obtain cheap publicity and political mileages. For once voters in the DAP constituencies should convey a strong message in protest against DAP’s trampling politics.
This contradiction is a typical example of DAP leadership since its founding years. Its wishy washy political policies are always subjected to the whims and fancies of its leadership depending upon the political moods of DAP leaders in exploiting the political circumstances of the day. In 1972, two DAP National Vice Chairmen left the opposition citing many of the current DAP leaders as “opportunistic, unprincipled and hankering for personal power and glory”. Many of the DAP staunched leaders like Goh Hock Chuan, Dr A. Soorian who had earlier condemned the policies of the Alliance, came to realise the ‘final truth’ of the DAP in later years.
By June 20th 1972, DAP lost four of its 13 MPs and twice that number of Assemblymen. The DAP was split in Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Melaka (the whole committee of Melaka Branch resigned in August) and Penang. The DAP fell foul of old friends with whom it had an election understanding in 1969 and refused membership of the National Consultative Council (just as it boycotted the NECC in 1989) and boycotted KL City Day. The DAP was virtually in the ‘dumps’. Dr A. Soorian, former DAP national vice chairman was expelled because he was increasingly ‘critical’ of Lim Kit Siang for having betrayed the trust and ideal of the DAP as laid out by founder members such as Devan Nair. Lim Kit Siang’s leadership according to the former DAP leader, had no fixity of purpose or sense of direction, and “Kit Siang behaves as though the DAP belongs to him”.
4. DAP devoid of ideologies and principles
As early as 1967, precisely on 5th October, 28 years ago, current DAP Chairman Dr Chen Man Hin who held the same position then, said that the DAP was a multiracial party which would ‘never’ desert its cause by aligning itself with a racialist party, (quote): “… be it the Pan Malayan Islamist Party (currently PAS) or any other chinese or indian chauvinist party” (unquote). In 1971, DAP secretary general outdone his Chairman by saying (quote) : “The DAP must learn from the mistakes of compromising with political opportunists. The people must not repeat the mistakes of desiring on “opposition unity” at “whatever costs regardless..” (unquote).
Yet, seven years later in 1978, the same Lim Kit Siang made a generous offer to PAS to work together “in the name of benefitting all Malaysians”. The pertinent question we have to direct to Lim Kit Siang is that: “What benefits have all Malaysians received from the DAP-PAS political “marriage of convenience”? We know that DAP has played a key roe in assisting PAS in capturing Kelantan State government. We know that the Kelantanese chinese community is living in fear and apprehension of PAS in imposing the proposed Hudud laws and all types of restrictions in the name of PAS Islamic rules are being enforced, restricting Kelantanese chinese community’s rights and freedom to their economic and cultural practices.
Yet, DAP was willing to sacrifice those purported principles it so gallantly preaches by covering up PAS’ misdeeds and seeks electoral pact with PAS to fulfil Lim Kit Siang’s personal ambition of becoming Penang Chief Minister. In 1990, Lim Kit Siang stated openly in the Malaysian Press that DAP was more than willing to work with PAS to further “its own interests”. In other words, DAP National Chairman Dr Chen Man Hin’s open declaration not to align with PAS was meant either to ‘deceive’ the voters or that DAP is void of “principles”. Can Malaysian voters place their trusts upon DAP national leaders who have no principles, and having been exposed to have said something at a particular time but doing something else at another time!
Kit Siang realising his past follies and own lies had caused uneasiness within his own rank and file is trying to make amends by recently “covering up with another lie” that DAP will go to the polls “alone” suggest that DAP will distance itself from PAS. Should Malaysians voters believe again and again these lies? Should Malaysians in the coming general elections, increase DAP representation knowing that DAP rank and file are powerless to stop their “unscrupulous” Kit Siang’s lone ranger actions and absolute powers. Kit Siang being an old fox is bound to change his political tactics to woo public sympathies by “lying” that he is old and ought to be given a last term in Penang state. In the 1990 general elections, did Kit Siang give Lim Chong Eu a last chance to serve the constituents? The answer is obviously ‘no’., Kit Siang is too arrogant and in 1990, politically killed Lim Chong Eu.
Now that Koh Tsu Koon has replaced Lim Chong Eu for Gerakan in Penang, it is time that Lim Guan Eng should replace Kit Siang in DAP. What assurances are there to stop DAP from exercising “dictatorial rule” in Penang, exactly the way Lim Kit Siang runs DAP? Greater liberalisation in supporting DAP means a support of “tyranny” (unjust rule by a person or small group of people who have power over everyone else in the state or party).
5. DAP & educational policies
DAP has no constructive educational policies. Since its founding years, the party’s policy has been one of opposing for the sake of opposing. When MCA initiated the Tunku Abdul Rahman College, the DAP in 1968 “accused the MCA of using education to produce a race of fanatics who were prepared to sacrifice ordinary laws to the party machinery (source: NST 16th September 1968)”. [JMD - very much like the DAP law-breakers we have now..]
It further slandered MCA by saying that TAR College teachers would be “indoctrinated with the beliefs of MCA and that text books would be written to glorify MCA”. The DAP compared MCA’s proposed TAR College to schools in Germany turning out Hitler’s Youth who graduated into the Gestapo.
This is the type of opposition leadership within DAP of yesteryears and the quality of its leadership has since deteriorated by employing new political gimmicks, malicious methods and destructive means to keep the DAP afloat. Not only does DAP wants to do nothing to the cause of Malaysian education, the DAP leadership also wants “others” not to do anything worthwhile towards education our younger children. Envious and jealous of MCA initiating the TAR College in 1968, the DAP spread malicious lies, sowed seeds of suspicions and doubts among the community just to sabotage a beneficial community project. If DAP had been successful in sabotaging the TAR College project, hundreds of thousands of Malaysians would be deprived of educational opportunities and careers. To be exact, 40,500 TAR College graduates would be deprived by DAP of their educational opportunities and thousands of careers wiped out at the costs of nation-building.
Today, DAP lies have been proven to be malicious and has further proven that those DAP leaders who made such lies are liars. None of these graduates has been ‘indoctrinated” by MCA and not a single graduate turned out to be a Hitler Youth! [JMD - but these days it is alleged that most students in UTAR are pro-DAP. Irony.]
There is a mentality among voters who support the DAP for the very reason that the opposition was needed to “voice their grievances” and to provide “checks and balances” in government. In reality, DAP is “morally and ethically incapable of voicing your grievances for the very simple reason that DAP leadership is no longer capable to protect your interests. DAP is predominantly occupied by protecting its own political survival.
Recently the dAP has adopted “new political technologies” to survive. It has mastered the art of “claiming credits” to its name. Never mind, whether the achievements are economic, political or social related. Malaysia’s development progress is attributed to DAP’s existence! And DAP hopes to “hoodwink” the voter in the street even though it might be an insult of intelligence to the man on the street. Another “political technology” employed by DAP since Tanjong Two failed to materialise was to “beg” for sympathies by threatening to “resign”.
Lim Kit Siang during his 25 year political career as DAP Secretary General has threatened to resign no less than 50 times either within DAP or to the electorate, an average of two threats per 12 months of his political office. His practice of using “tricks and threats” to solicit sympathies is synonymous to Lim Kit Siang’s norm and childish prank he endears to, in order to keep absolute power.
DAP has been this way since its inception. Wither Malaysia should they are given another chance to wield power in Pakatan Rakyat. | <urn:uuid:6cb8f950-425c-4852-8d7d-048017220f8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jebatmustdie.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/ideological-weaknesses-of-dap-leadership-part-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963776 | 2,304 | 1.625 | 2 |
A 99-year-old Jerusalem resident passed away last week, leaving behind an estimated 1,400 direct descendants.
Israel's Ynet news portal reports that Rachel Krishevsky lived most of her life near Jerusalem's Mahane Yehudah open air market. She and her husband, who were married in 1929, took seriously the biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," and had 11 children.
Krishevsky instilled in her own children that same duty to lovingly raise as many children as possible, and each of them were blessed with large families, totaling more than 150 grandchildren for the couple.
Those grandchildren when on to have some 1,000 offspring, who in turn have provided at least several hundred great-great-grandchildren.
Family members said they were not sure exactly how many direct descendants Rachel had, but noted with pride that she had remained close to all of them up until the end of her life. | <urn:uuid:e38c807d-929a-42da-b72e-db5c9d0ee6f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/19613/Default.aspx?archive=article_title | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990138 | 194 | 1.625 | 2 |
After Action Report: Combat Command AAR
Contributor "Obsolete" takes us into Combat Command with his AAR of Allied forces attempting to secure the Medjez El Bab-Tebourba Gap in Tunsia against the Axis.
Longstop Hill, December 23-25, 1942
Size of Battle: Small
Type of Battle: Allied Attack
Description: A small, tense battle for possession of a key position in the Medjez El Bab-Tebourba Gap area features interesting attack opportunities for each side.
02:00 (Night), 23 Dec 1942
What a time of day (erm night) to start off a scenario. Since the terrain looks rather bland and dark at night, not to mention the night-time Fog-of-War (FoW) rules would make other units hard or invisible to spot (depending on terrain and postures), I decided to fill in the rest of the landscape here with some other windows.
The Order-of-Battle (OOB) below shows our armyís breakdown. One thing that is of interest here, is that the allies are made up of three separate nationalities. But whatís most interesting in that, is they are all part of the same division, sharing the same divisional HQ, and there is an absence of regimental HQs.
This actually is fine for me, since it keeps things much simpler than having to be careful on mixing different division penalties, and reassigning HQís while trying to be careful not to overextend command ranges, etc. Those are better served for the much larger scenarios, this one however is played on a small scale size. It is also important to note that we are not going to be getting any reinforcements. The units that we start off with in the first turn, are the only ones which we are going to get.
One of the first things my eyes want to see is the Victory Objectives. This window here tells us that there are a total of 5 objectives. We hold none of these yet, but by 12:00 on the 25th of December, we are going to need at least 85 points in order to pull off a marginal victory. Since we just rolled over into the 23rd, that gives us at least 48 hours (and change) to see what we can do here.
Usually I start off by planning to go for a decisive victory, and then only go for the margin when that plan fails. However, another way to go about things is to try and secure a strong position for the margin first, and then try to free-roll your way to a decisive as a bonus.
And now, letís take another look at our allied troops here. You can see most of them are rifle companies, with one US machine gun and another US tank also included. Almost all these units are using leg movement of 12 movement points (MPs), though the tank is over 20 due to using tracked movement. There are also two exceptions, the HQ has quite a lot of movement available, and the southernmost British rifle is also using wheeled movement, which will let me blitz around at will, particularly on both primary (black) and secondary (brown) roads.
On the top left I have brought up the info panel on our divisional HQ to check our statistics. Our leadership rating is not spectacular, but it isnít terrible either. One thing I should point out is that all British units have a quality rating of 60%, with the Americans only 50%, and our Axis opponents generally around 70%. This could end up being a bit of a problem, particularly when the strength of the German units tends to also be higher than what we currently have to work with.
Over to the far east is some town called ĎGrich el Ouedí. Well, Iím not sure what that means, but weíll take it first anyway to start climbing our way up to the victory level. Iím not SURE if there is any nasty surprises hiding in there or not, but since I canít remember ever hearing of this ĎGrich el Ouedí town in any war history annuals, I guess that is a good sign (for now).
It is time to head eastward...
06:00 (Day), 23 Dec 1942
Ahh, daylight rolled in at 6 am. Things were much brighter, despite the bad weather.
Unfortunately, I ended up losing initiative starting this turn. Once you lose it, things can become problematic to re-achieve it, but I was not exactly TOO worried about that for the moment.
In the current screenshot I had already moved all my other counters into place except for my ĎB 5/Northamptonsí unit. You may have noticed the digits on the bottom of the counters have changed to color coded letters now. I did this by pressing the tab key to check certain stats quickly. The red N signifies units that are out-of-command (OOC).
I had no divisions that were OOC last turn, so what happened here? Simply, me and my genius of an idea to move my HQ halfway around the map instead of sitting down somewhere and digging in has increased the chances for me to fail my command checks. The probability for this is a bit more complex to get into details here, but basically, itís my fault.
Besides combat penalties, these OOC units also have their movement halved, which means I canít use this unit to follow up in a manner which I had been planning to last turn. However, weíll have chances to linkup these OOC units next turn during the command phase.
If I had the full movement left, I would have combined this with the others in order to help push weight against that German infantry sitting in the mountains on a victory objective. Oh well, I get what I deserve I suppose. When will I ever learn?
My plans for this turn were to trap that German infantry unit in my Zone-of-Control (ZoC) with my other units while I dug in and then gave him some peppering during the direct-fire phase to soften him up, before a full assault the next turn. I also would have the option to exploit my off-board artillery strikes as well in a bombardment.
When looking farther east at the river town of ĎHalte díel Herií my plan was to also pepper spray him this turn, but to not engage in any full assaults for the moment. Hopefully our artillery barrages would also be able to force him into quality checks (QCs). If we could disrupt him like that, it would make our future planned assault much easier.
Other than getting a number of my units out-of-command, I also suffered a few disruptions after rolling bad QCs. These happened when moving into the minefields near River Town. My problem is I just did not want to burn off too much time looping around those hexes, and this was compounded by one of the mine-hexes being invisible until I actually passed through it, catching me by surprise.
The final worry here though, was what was coming my way in those two German Fog stacks. The limited visibility this weather was giving did not make my judgements easy, but once we engage I should be able to get at least some limited intelligence as to what I am up against there. Or, the weather could change and be nice to me for once to me. Oh sure ... keep dreaming.
08:00 (Day), 23 Dec 1942
The weather was still poor during the 8-oíclock turn, but since we skirmished each other during the direct-fire phases, I was able to gather both some limited intel, and absolute intel from the enemy counters.
My favourite insight came from those poor bastards who had dug in atop that mountain peak. It seems he received not one, but two direct hits somewhere in between my bombardment, and small arms/HE fire. I suppose, there also may have been a chance he injured himself trying to escape and failing a good withdraw roll, but I doubt it.
What mattered now, was me most likely going to break that unit completely during this turnís assault phase. With that axis company down to just one platoon worth, I hardly think I could go wrong here, and quite rightfully so. I had each surrounding unit then set on attack posture. Without any intervention, that crippled defender would become completely smashed.
Over by River Town we had a different situation. I had decided to keep my units in defend posture in order to try and pepper spray the nearby hostiles once again. It also seemed the mechanized infantry unit which moved adjacently north of my US tank received a little disruption. IIRC his defence should have been a total strength of 15, but I cut him down to 12 when I forced him into a small disruption with my opportunity fire.
On the other side of things, I did another silly genius move and paid the price. My British wheeled infantry which I had on the other side of the river ... I decided to move it closer to help see what was going on with Jerry, and to possibly aid in some actions. I knew there was a risk in wandering him around in travel posture, but I didnít want to keep any units sitting idle. I feel units sitting idle too often equate to lost manpower.
Of course, a stack of nearby German infantry popped up on the horizon, and BOOM, I lost a platoon worth in that company from reaction fire. Oh well, you have to take some and give some in war.
Oh yes, and I almost forgot to mention something. Since I did not show the scenario data in the first turn, here is that data now. I am given a total of two off-board artillery missions a turn, with a total strength of 42. While weather does correlate somewhat to the effectiveness of bombardments, I have used a few tricks in order to maximize my bombardment chart.
10:00 (Day), 23 Dec 1942
Attacker Assault Phase
Weather is Clear
Boy, what a difference clear weather makes during the day. Now we can finally get some good solid statistics on our opponents which are up close and adjacent to us. It looks like our situation with the German mechanized infantry which was trapped by our E-ZoC has not changed. As long as I hold him within E-ZoC, he canít shake off disruption levels. Of course, thatís a two-way street, unless one of us goes a level too far down, which causes zone control to fail altogether.
In any case, I had decided to pounce upon that friendly neighbour who was unfortunate enough to be forced to make a stand in the clear and open terrain.
It is very unfortunate that my U.S. tank company was not able to make contact with my HQ, and would be OOC for this turn. This would prevent me from getting a special column-shift on the combat table (tank bonus) for attacking a lone infantry out in open terrain like this without any armoured defence in there. Oh well, many battles are full of missed opportunities like that.
One problem I had to think long and hard on here, was if I wanted to add the northernmost British infantry unit into the assault or not. I was definitely not happy to see a stack of two German Fog units just three hexes away from one of the victory points. That would be all I needed this game, was to watch a stack of strong Axis units cross the 1.5 Km distance and start to dig in on that mountain tile, forcing me to burn off time and God knows what else in an attempt to dislodge them off the victory hex again.
I decided to err on the side of safety and dug in my unit on that mountain tile. The French infantry, despite being a little weak, would still be strong enough to hold the other victory location behind the former (well I assumed).
So despite I wasnít able to assault the target with EVERYTHING that I wanted, (including the kitchen sink) I believed I was still in great shape. Actually, I knew I was in great shape to hit it. Sure, things could go wrong but from my looks at the Ground Assault combat table, the worst that could happen to me is that I go through disruption checks, while the worst that could happen to our opponent is he suffers at least two hits, and also has to go through a nasty QC on top of that .
Ok .., Ok ... the worst that could happen to me was not just a quality check, but me being forced to retreat, which would cause more quality checks and then ... well, in any case, I was also going to add in our off-board artillery as well, just to be sure. Since this piece will not be doing a regular indirect fire operation, but instead participate in the actual assault, it would suffer no table-shift penalties. The way the differing strengths and a hundred other factors are laid out in this table, a roll from 1-to-3 with my artillery should at least score a single hit on the defender. Since weíre using a 10-sided die here, thatís 30% for a positive result, and Iíd like to sit here all day and roll at those odds.
I decided not to dare attack the city behind the minefields though. Not on this turn at least. I would use my remaining artillery support to hopefully soften it up a little bit further. I knew from cycling units in that axis stack that at least one of the counters in there had disruption from either an arty hit, or was it my direct-fire Small Arms/HE? Regardless, if things went really well for me, I could maybe try to push into River Town hard during my next turn and pry those units out of there.
Speaking of things going well, my poor infantry far to the east /south was sitting there quite useless again. It was forced to withdraw during the AIís direct-fire phase, and I decided to switch it into tactical reserve posture in order to shake off its disruptions quicker.
Now, all I have to do is hit End Phase and we would see how we did this turn. And then ... and then ... and then...
Well, weíll just have to end the story here, after all, I canít afford to give away all my secrets. Otherwise I wouldnít be able to keep my PBEM win ratio above 50%. Ermm, wait, thatís 90%, no really! (wink)
AAR written by: "Obsolete", Contributor | <urn:uuid:6341f24e-ccc0-4b5e-9d92-0f360e76fe3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wargamer.com/article/2996/combat-command-aar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979018 | 3,015 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Filed under: Capitalism, Conservatism, Economy, Heartwarming, Politics | Tags: Governor Nikki Haley, Representative Tim Scott, South Carolina
A number of media sources are reporting that South a Governor Nikki Haley will name Representative Tim Scott to be the next senator from South Carolina. Scott will serve for two years, and then presumably run in a special election in 2014. If reelected, he would then serve an additional two years — the remaining two years of the six-year term Jim DeMint was elected to in 2010—then Scott would presumably run for a full six-year term in 2016. He will be the lone African-American Republican in Congress. He will be a great addition to the Senate.
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Leave a comment | <urn:uuid:a0e3ae95-f11f-4d5d-a087-92aae6a461e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/nikki-haley-picks-tim-scott-for-the-senate/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=97b02126ca | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951278 | 154 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The severity of not reporting child abuse in the state of Georgia has become a little stricter, or will so, as of Sunday, July 1.
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said that Georgians who perform volunteer work with children will be required by law to report any suspected child abuse.
This new law provision is part of Georgia House Bill 1176, which is a reform criminal justice bill that was signed by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal May 2 of this year.
HB 1176 will change the definition of “child service organization personnel” to include volunteers, who will be required to report suspected child abuse.
According to the press release, the new law defines child service organization personnel as: “Child service organization personnel” means persons employed by or volunteering at a business or an organization, whether public, private, for profit, not for profit, or voluntary, that provides care, treatment, education, training, supervision, coaching, counseling, recreational programs, or shelter to children.
“From an ethical and moral standpoint, volunteers who work with children already have an obligation to report suspected child abuse,” said Olens. “HB 1176 simply makes this obligation a requirement by law.”
Carol Vedrody, director of Prevent Child Abuse Gordon County, said that the law will hold more people accountable when it comes to looking after the children in the area.
“It’s really going to increase the number of people who are mandated to report because it’s everybody just about,” said Vedrody. “Altogether, everywhere, if you work with children or come in contact with children, you are required to report it.”
Now, that the law is enforcing stern requirements, it is Gordon County’s task to get more information out into the community.
“We need to get information out there that will let people know what and when to report,” said Vedrody. “We tell people that if you see something you feel is wrong, or see marks on a child and there is no reasonable explanation, or a child tells you something, it’s your duty to report it. It’s not your duty to investigate it; that’s DFCS job, not yours.”
For more information on HB 1176, visit www.legis.ga.gov. | <urn:uuid:ffb739a4-274d-40d2-a0e3-5ffc6364e370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calhountimes.com/pages/full_story/push?article-New+Child+Abuse+reporting+law+effective+July+1%20&id=18924078&instance=secondary_stories_left_column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948618 | 494 | 1.75 | 2 |
Does a store layout actually affect the way a woodworker works in a workshop? Will it really affect work performance and increase productivity? Apparently, a good store layout can actually make woodworking a pleasant experience along with being quick and comfortable. That means when you are working, you should be able to find nearly everything you need by just reaching out your hand.
How to set up a store layout?
To make sure that you are going to be using up the space in your basement or the selected area, we suggest you take a look at online store layouts. Measure the store and then plan the store layout on a piece of paper. Several sketch store layout patterns are available online. All you have to do is measure the online plan and then draw out your personalized plan. Most of the online plans will have electrical plans, cabinets and equipment. Depending on the layout, size and pattern, you can pick and choose the best pattern for your needs. We suggest you choose an online store layout but incorporate features that will make your design unique. For example:
A sensible store layout and background is necessary to ensure that appliances, goods and tools are visible, easy to access and coordinated by size, background, border, tables, heights, color and brand.
The space in between the worktables and the appliances should be enough for two people to pass through or it will result in injuries.
Ensure that the most expensive and dangerous tools are locked away. If your workroom is used only by you, this is not a problem. But there are chances of other adults, pets and children wandering into the room. Dangerous tools like glue guns and nails guns should be locked up to discourage theft. It also ensures that everyone knows that these tools are dangerous and not to be used.
Most workers recommend that you break up the store layout into two separate sections. One store layout section should be reserved for cutting and designing of the wood to make the pattern. The other section should be reserved for building the furniture, polishing it and finishing it. This division of the workspace results in a much better workplace that is cleaner and easier to work in.
Your store layout should include wall cabinets that will have ample space for the tools and equipment. If you do not have children and pets, you can consider having open cabinets and stands that are easy to access. However, it’s just as easy to have the paint cans and nails located in cabinets and pull out drawers.
Reserve the central section or the shop width of your workshop as your work area as it will be the largest area available. Ensure that your store layout also has clean up areas like basins and ventilation units to remove glue fumes.
If you have liked working with wood, you should consider setting up a hobby room with special woodworking shop lighting for it. Woodworking is a precise art and hobbyists have to learn how to handle woodworking equipment, different types of wood and wood making techniques before they can make their own furniture and wooden items. Woodworking shop lighting is also important as you have to be able to see the finer details in the wood before you can shape it into beautiful furniture. Here are a few things to keep in mind while choosing woodworking shop lighting:
You will need a lot of space to set up the woodworking equipment and most people usually set up their hobby room in the basement or the garage. As a result, proper woodworking shop lighting is required to ensure that these dark areas are lit up brightly and effectively. We suggest you use track lighting or T8 lamps that are energy efficient but very bright. Fluorescent woodworking shop lighting is also easy to install and very cost-effective.
For finer wood carving, you might need special task woodworking shop lighting. These lights are based on your work table and are usually placed in between your head and the table. These woodworking shop lighting fixtures will focus the light on to your task and prevent extra light from entering into your eyes. You can also hang spot lights or accent woodworking shop lighting about 8 feet above special equipment like lathes and carvers to ensure that you are getting a direct shadow-less bean of light.
You may have to use can or spot woodworking shop lighting that will be shifted around to add or reduce light on different parts of the project that you are working on. You can also use clip-on lights or portable lights that work just as well to create special nooks or brightly lit areas of woodworking shop lighting for you to work on.
Make sure that you paint your woodworking area a semi gloss white color. This will brighten up your room and ensure that it appears larger but woodworking shop lighting will reflect off the white gloss paint making your room easier to work in. To ensure that your room looks larger, you can also install white panels on the ceiling. This will reflect the woodworking shop lighting making your area appear larger and brighter.
Make sure that you do calculate the exact lumens that are required for your room. For example, a 10 feet by 11.5 feet room will require about 172.5 watts.
These simple tips for woodworking shop lighting should be followed to make sure that you can work effectively in your room. Make sure that you find woodworking shop lighting that are uniformly bright and without shadows so that you can work better. | <urn:uuid:cab49b49-56fe-4ade-bf3e-9250b1cd66f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://garage-lights.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957001 | 1,083 | 1.75 | 2 |
The flagship campus of the University of Maryland – including Byrd Stadium, Comcast Center and Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center – is in College Park. In fact, many of College Park’s residents are students, faculty and staff at the university.
The College Park Aviation Museum, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, is located at the world's oldest continuously operating airport. Wilbur Wright offered flight instruction to military aviators here when the airport opened in 1909. Nearby, is the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
Visit the College Park city web site | <urn:uuid:7f94a1bb-9e72-40a8-bcb8-dc12caa1191d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitmaryland.org/Capital/pages/collegepark.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944302 | 116 | 1.523438 | 2 |
For 37 years I have maintained a close relationship with Whitman's tennis players, and it pleases my soul to say that I have rarely seen bad or even poor sportsmanship. Thus the following remarks are general, totally lacking of any personal reference.
To me, the tennis court is not simply a place for an athletic event. It is a stage on which a large part of what is to be the theme of one's life is acted out. It is almost certain that what you are on the tennis court is what you will be as a friend, as a husband or wife, and in your professional life.
It is on the tennis court that one creates or exhibits a response to danger and defeat, to tiredness, to surprise or bad luck, and also to bad behavior as one confronts it in a cantankerous opponent. All of these experiences have their precise parallels in ordinary life. One is similarly tested as to his or her capacity to care for the welfare of the team instead of being absorbed in one's private progress. The care and self-discipline that one employs in preparation for the tennis match is likely to be the same that will be used in getting ready to face life's larger roles.
To be specific, it is my hope that anyone whom you play against would finish the match having enjoyed playing with you (regardless of the outcome), because of the way you treated him or her. There are some people whom you will not like to play against, but that feeling never relates to the score but to the manner in which the opponent is or is not sensitive to your feelings. The relational component of the match can often get a good start at the time you are introduced to your opponent, when you could take a few moments to learn about him or her (hometown, year in college, major, perhaps a little about the family). It also helps to build a relationship to be able to compliment the opponent on an exceptionally good shot with a racket clap or a quiet "Good shot." All human encounters are opportunites for relationship. One is never good with the big ones unless he or she is good with the little ones.
Obviously, there is an assumption here: that you create and are created by and for relationships. Some will disagree, but I think it is true. Your life will largely be defined by the nature and quality of the relationships you are part of and to which you contribute.
When you are on the court it is always your character that is being created and tested. If the opponent is nasty, it is wise not to get angry in return. Rather, feel sorry for that person for that person is bound to have an unhappy time with the other relationships which will constitute his or her life. If you let yourself get angry, you hand the opponent a kind of psychological victory. The victory you can win over yourself in this respect is far more important than any victory represented in the score.
I do indeed look forward to your season this year with almost unmanagable expectations which relate to considerably more than the score. But I am also capable of elation, of singing and dancing (at least internally) when the score itself comes out in your favor. | <urn:uuid:efbaa342-0869-4154-84bd-303b62bbf0c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitman.edu/athletics/Flashback/1997-98/sport_pages/gball.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981725 | 646 | 1.523438 | 2 |
English, 18th century
Dinner plate, 1792
3 x 24.5 cm
Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery
One of Worcester’s leading potteries, the Flight (or Davis & Flight) factory rebounded from challenging beginnings to considerable success by 1789 when it was granted the Royal Warrant, thus allowing it to refer to itself as the Worcester Royal Porcelain Manufactory and to serve as official manufacturers for the British Royal Family. This plate belongs to the famed Hope Service, commissioned by the Duke of Clarence, who was later crowned William IV (1765–1837). The extensive service took a year to complete and solidified the reputation of the Flight factory. Painted en grisaille (tones of grey) by John Pennington, each component piece of the service features a different scene of the allegorical figure of Hope along with an anchor, an early Christian symbol for steadfastness, piety, and hope. Pennington came to Flight in 1789, soon becoming one of the pottery’s finest artists. From a family of Liverpool porcelain makers, he was key to Flight’s success and the Hope Service is considered his greatest work.
Tuesday through Sunday 11am - 5pm
Friday 11am - 9pm
Closed Easter Monday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day | <urn:uuid:f45d1583-c37d-46b4-a180-c836e82c16be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wag.ca/art/collections/decorative-arts/display,ceramic/45846 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937292 | 273 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Josh Lehner and Bill McBride note that the manufacturing slowdown does not necessarily indicate recession, something I noted as well. Another version of that story is seen by comparing the ISM headline number with the new orders data:
Again, manufacturing slowdowns in 1995 and 1998 did not presage recessions (albeit possibly due to offsetting monetary policy). McBride reiterates that housing is a better leading indicator than manufacturing, and Lehner discusses a “tradeoff” from manufacturing to housing.
For my part, I am wondering what people expect when they talk about a housing recovery. I tend to break the housing story into two parts. One is the residential construction story, the activity that amounts to screwing sticks of wood onto slabs of concrete. The related contribution to GDP growth since 1985:
During the 2002-2005 period, arguably the height of the housing bubble, residential construction contributed an average of 0.4 percentage points to GDP growth each quarter. In the first quarter of this year, the contribution was 0.42 percentage points. So, barring the occasional pop in the data, housing is already contributing to GDP growth about what we would expect.
Presumably, we would be hoping that as the housing rebound deepens, there will be secondary impacts. For this reason I am hesitant to embrace the “tradeoff” terminology. Certainly we can envision accelerated home building triggering an increase in both manufacturing (capital equipment) and consumer (job/income growth) activity as well; these tend to be interconnected activities. So maybe the overall impact is a bit higher.
That said, there is another element to the housing story – the household balance sheet issue. Arguably, as Karl Smith has said, the housing bubble was less about a construction bubble (again, note the relatively limited contribution to GDP growth; we didn’t necessarily build too many units, especially given the subsequent construction drought), and more about a price bubble. And that price bubble fueled spending activity via mortgage equity withdrawal. The chart via Bill McBride:
Of course, equity withdrawal has collapsed because equity as collapsed:
So here is the question: What was more important in holding the economy close to potential output, residential construction itself, or the housing price bubble? I tend to believe the price-driven balance sheet effects were driving dynamics over this past business cycle. Absent a healing of household balance sheets (or, relatedly, monetary policy that supported such healing via somewhat higher inflation expectations to reduce debt in real terms), I would expect overall growth to remain subdued, despite a rebound in residential construction. The latter is helpful and important, but not by itself a magic bullet. | <urn:uuid:263e7631-82ec-48c2-83fd-32a877953420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wallstreetpit.com/93486-what-are-we-expecting-from-housing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953735 | 539 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Military officers need more ethics training
Pentagon report follows recent scandals
The Pentagon has sent President Barack Obama the initial findings of a review of ethics standards for officers, a Pentagon spokesman said.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conducted the review after recent scandals and ethical misconduct involving high-ranking military officers.
The review has found the current level of ethics training to be "appropriate," but training should start earlier and continue to be reinforced more frequently throughout officer's careers, Little said. Currently, ethics training, which is conducted in "ethics modules," varies by service. This training is usually led by the Pentagon's legal counsel.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who ordered the review, discussed these preliminary findings with Obama during a regularly scheduled meeting earlier this week.
"There have been limited instances where general and flag officers have fallen short," spokesman George Little said Friday.
The most prominent instances include the recent scandal involving retired four-star Gen. David Petraeus, whose extramarital affair led to his resignation from his post as director of the CIA and an investigation into whether classified material was improperly shared with his paramour who was also his biographer.
That situation led to a separate investigation of the outgoing commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, for allegedly exchanging inappropriate e-mails with a Florida woman.
Gen. William "Kip" Ward, the former commander of Africa Command, was demoted over more than $80,000 in unauthorized travel expenses.
The initial findings also recommend that the level and type of support given to flag officers should be examined to ensure they are "necessary, sensible, and efficient."
"For example, generals in command have an 'aide-de-camp' which is one level of support. They often have additional staff to help with more routine activities," Little said. The review will examine whether the use of these additional aides could contribute to commanders abusing some of their authority.
Before the most recent instances, Dempsey called for "a rededication to the profession of arms" in a February 2012 white paper. "Renewing our commitment to the profession of arms is essential to ensure we maintain the best led and best trained force in the world," he wrote. "Leadership is the foundation of our profession."
Details of the review process remain limited because deliberations are conducted privately with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The privacy is meant to encourage candor, Little said.
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:e7be167e-95c4-4260-aeb4-d18e049b8127> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksat.com/news/Military-officers-need-more-ethics-training/-/478452/17698996/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/rg925d/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969948 | 532 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Fake celebrity death reports are nothing new to the Internet—a quick search shows that in just the last few years, there have been rumors spread about the death of Britney Spears, Michael Jackson (uh, before he actually died), Justin Timberlake, Will Farrel, Sean Connery, and more. But with the proliferation of malware, celebrity death rumors can take on new life if spammers pick up on the trend. That's what happened overnight—a fake report about the death of Kanye West, originating as a prank, got co-opted by those looking to exploit your computer.
The original rumor is being widely attributed to the denizens of 4chan, which turned into one of those e-mail forwards that you have learned to automatically delete. The e-mail claims that West was involved in a car crash in Los Angeles—the details aren't all that interesting, but in case you're curious, there was allegedly a crash between a Porche and a Ferrari and three other people (who all lived) were involved. Needless to say, the crash did not happen and Kanye is still alive.
Some Internet users were savvy enough to try and search for information about Kanye's death before spreading the word, and that's when the search trend got picked up by malware makers. As noted by security research firm Sophos, "hackers" have exploited search engine optimization techniques to get their pages to the top of the search results when people look for the news. Clicking the links will take users to pages that push scareware and malware, which can then take over your machine and try to coerce you out of cash for a "fix."
Celebrity-based exploits have become unfortunately commonplace. Over the last couple of years, there have been numerous reports of fake websites popping up to exploit celebrity searches. The most recent report on this came from McAfee in August, which warned that Seventh Heaven star Jessica Biel was the riskiest celebrity to search for, with users having a one-in-five chance of ending up at a site that hosts spyware, malware, viruses, adware, spam, or phishing scams.
The only thing different about the Kanye story, it seems, is that it originated as a nonmalicious hoax that quickly turned into a security risk. (We bet those at 4chan are silently chuckling to themselves over the unexpected success of that one.) The wise thing to do to protect yourself is, of course, to keep your machine up-to-date with antivirus software, and avoid clicking on unfamiliar websites to get your daily dose of celebrity gossip. Trust us: if Kanye dies, you'll hear about it on so many major news sites, you'll wish you had never searched for it in the first place. | <urn:uuid:e1e04863-84d0-42fc-afe9-10ca6a03975f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/security/2009/10/4chan-hoax-morphs-into-malware-attack-in-kanye-death-hoax/ | 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 | 0.965168 | 560 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Re: "Sunshine scorches commuters as they wait for rerouted buses; Canal Street strip lacks shelter, shade," Page B1, June 17.
We commend The Times-Picayune and WBOK for questioning why the RTA failed to provide benches and shelters for transit riders when they moved a busy downtown transfer point from Loyola Avenue to Canal Street. The transfer point serves 16 bus routes and the Canal streetcar.
Because of your article, the RTA quickly responded and five new bus shelters now provide more than 14,000 daily riders with relief from rain, wind and the searing sun.
However, transit riders have even greater needs at the Lakeview end of the Canal streetcar.
Currently riders from across the region risk their safety crossing the dangerous intersection of Canal Boulevard, City Park Avenue and Canal Street to transfer between seven RTA and JeT routes.
A proposed RTA project would extend the Canal streetcar creating a much safer connection at a new transfer station on Canal Boulevard.
Neighborhood opposition threatens the Lakeview transfer station and has already led the RTA to cut planned restrooms and vending machines from the project.
These basic accommodations would support transit commuters who face long wait times.
This project will support regional connections, improve access to jobs and most importantly, treat transit riders humanely.
Transport for NOLA | <urn:uuid:63504874-f59c-4eec-a216-6a3ce902b9a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/transit_riders_wait_for_help_i.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931264 | 277 | 1.515625 | 2 |
This New York Times article
analyzes the Bush administration's approach towards regulation. What irritated me was this mention of the number of pages in the Federal Register:
"As far as I can tell, he has not uttered the word `deregulation' since 2001," said James L. Gattuso, a research fellow in regulatory policy at the Heritage Foundation, who recently completed a study of regulation in the Bush era. "This stuff about the antiregulation president is a Howard Dean myth," he argued.
* * *
Indeed, Mr. Gattusso sees no decline in overall government regulation in the Bush years — he counts 75,000 pages of the Federal Register filled with new rules this year. It is the kind of statistic Mr. Bush liked to cite in less than complementary terms in the last presidential election.
Of all the ways to estimate the scope and effect of federal regulations, a page count from the Federal Register has to be one of the least
helpful, although it is apparently quite common among anti-regulatory folks. First, most of the pages of the Federal Register do not contain final regulations at all. Rather, agencies are constantly issuing "Notices of Proposed Rulemaking," which often take up 50 to 100 pages, in which they ask for comments on a proposal to change an existing regulation or add a new one. In fact, out of 75,000 pages in the 2002 Federal Register, only about 19,000 were devoted to final rules. (See page 9 of this Cato report
Still, that's 19,000 pages, one might say. It does sound like a lot of regulation. But the page-count metric is still grossly misleading. First, final "rules" are almost always accompanied by a lot of extra verbiage, in which the agencies explain in exhaustive detail how they arrived at the final rule, what they thought of the comments submitted, and why they didn't choose a different rule.
Second, many final rules do not
create brand new regulations in areas where no regulation existed before. Many, if not most, final rules simply replace a pre-existing rule
by modifying it in light of changed circumstances or new research. To take an area with which I'm deeply familiar, the FCC issued an new telecommunications rule in August called the Triennial Review. It was massive. But all that the Triennial Review did was tweak telecom regulations that already existed, and which themselves already took up several hundred pages (including accompanying explanations) in the Federal Register from previous years. In fact, the effect of the Triennial Review was to loosen
, if only slightly, those pre-existing regulations.
Imagine this hypothetical: The Federal Fruit Commission issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2004 asking for comments on whether it should ban the sale of green bananas. This takes up 50 pages in the Federal Register. In 2005, the FFC issues a final rule banning the sale of bananas that are more than 75% green. The rule itself is two lines long, but is accompanied by 100 pages of explanation. In 2006, the FFC has realized that the grocery industry hates the rule. It issues another NPRM of 50 pages asking whether it should change the rule to apply to 50% green bananas. In 2007, the FFC issues another two line rule, with 100 pages of explanation, changing the previous rule to read "50%." In 2008, the FFC realizes that people are still unhappy, and that the rule doesn't really accomplish any public good. It issues another 50-page NPRM asking if the rule should be eliminated. Then, in 2009, the FFC finally gets rid of the green banana rule, along with 100 pages of explanation.
If you looked at pages in the Federal Register, you might say, "Oh my goodness, the FFC has produced 450 pages in the past 6 years just on green bananas. Regulation is out of control!" But nowhere are there "450 pages of rules" that apply to green bananas. In fact, at that point, the green banana rule would no longer exist, and the regulatory burden would be zero
. Of course, the 450-page number might be useful if you want to approximate the societal effort spent on dealing with federal agencies
-- i.e., monitoring rulemakings, writing comments, etc. But "450 pages" would not in any sense represent the actual regulatory burden | <urn:uuid:97193671-2d97-4007-adc0-88e4ec4b053f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955902 | 898 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Judging The Health Care Law
Mon March 26, 2012
Supreme Court Word Search: Health Care
When the U.S. Supreme Court hears challenges to the Obama administration's health care law this week, the arguments will be complex, with questions about states' rights, mandatory insurance, and Medicaid.
To introduce those concepts — and to give the rest of us something to do while the court hears six hours of arguments — we offer a word search game. The grid below features many words you'll likely hear this week, as NPR's Nina Totenberg reports from the court.
Just as the court will try to navigate the case with an eye on the Constitution, you'll need to look for words spelled horizontally, diagonally, and vertically — but not backwards. The list of words ranges from the expected, like "Scalia," to the more unusual, like "jabot" — a lace collar favored by some female judges. You can print the puzzle by clicking on the PDF link below: | <urn:uuid:fff93264-1a35-4e94-a084-63925454bbcc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wmra.org/post/supreme-court-word-search-health-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934135 | 204 | 1.835938 | 2 |
101 interchange plan
I am concerned about the plans for the Highway 101 redesign between Corte Madera Creek and Wornum Drive. This section will be widened, leaving us with another 1950s-style freeway.
Freeway design 50 years ago focused on the needs of drivers, while everyone else got short shrift. Community fabrics were torn and more car dependency was created.
The Highway 101 plans abolish the pedestrian overcrossing in Corte Madera. People who can't drive, or prefer not to — including the elderly, children, the disabled — will be forced to detour through the Wornum undercrossing, intersected by new freeway onramps and offramps. The design resembles the Bellam Boulevard undercrossing. Is this what we want?
Once in place, the concrete will be there for many decades. Any changes will be disruptive and costly. Yet this area will demand change, with higher-density development under construction now and similar new developments under discussion.
Done right, higher density can be attractive and produce good tax revenues.
However, in a constrained geographical area it works only with convenient, safe multimodal transportation. There won't be space for everyone to drive everywhere. But with a widened freeway beckoning, we'll get induced demand and probable gridlock during peak usage.
We need to ask, too, what young adults want. I believe they're relatively uninterested in their
We need to make plans that look forward. Please, let's move beyond 1950s business as usual.
Cindy Winter, Greenbrae | <urn:uuid:565b6a13-7722-4df9-be44-74423a1ad330> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinij.com/letters/ci_22255325 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941956 | 322 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Rebuilding Haiti must start from the ground up, with agricultural education
Richard Higgins has not received any gifts yet
Hi Mike, Love the web site. It is so clear. We will be manufacturing the new style Hot Boxes in Kampala around Christmas time. These vermin proof boxes offer a complete waste management and sanitation system of the low tech variety. They will render waste "safe" (ie., from Cholera etc.,) in a 90 day period. They will help farmers and growers to be self sufficinet in fertilizer. They should be made at a very reasonable price in Africa and should be available for export.
Posted on October 26, 2011 at 3:00pm — 2 Comments
The Professor you refer to in your text on how to maintain soil fertility should read the works of Sir Albert Howard, who improved tropical agriculture probably the most of any single person.
This professor is missing out on a wealth of knowledge from one of the worlds most revered and classic authors of our time.
Until there is funding to return to Haiti I cannot advise other than to read 'The Lost Science of Organic Cultivation' which we have available here in the UK.…Continue
Posted on April 6, 2011 at 2:48am
Posted on September 29, 2010 at 2:30am
Posted on September 29, 2010 at 1:30am — 1 Comment | <urn:uuid:e55a7083-abc8-4b37-992d-a296bfe33ef7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/profile/RichardHiggins | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94437 | 279 | 1.578125 | 2 |
From Nascar to Nuts: Why Congress Needs to Stop Micro-Managing Cost Recovery
Recently, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced bills that would discourage private investment in toll roads through public-private partnerships (so-called P3s). Notable examples of this type of investment include the long-term concessions for the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road that were granted to private toll road operator-investors.
The Transportation Access for All Americans Act (S. 885) would curtail tax benefits for “applicable leased highway property” by extending the depreciation period from 15 years to 45 years. In addition, the amortization period for intangibles (such as goodwill or franchise rights) would be increased from 15 years to the entire term of the lease. These provisions would dramatically lower the after-tax returns on investment relative to other types of road, such as logging roads or private rights of way, and similar investment activity. The bill also would deny private activity bond financing to any projects. A companion bill, the Transportation Equity for All Americans Act (S. 844), would create significant disincentives for States to enter into private investment arrangements by curbing the use of federal highway funds for these roads.
Putting aside the merits of P3 deals, the proposals by Senators Bingaman and Grassley represent a disturbing trend of Congress micro-managing the cost recovery system. Increasingly, lawmakers are using depreciation schedules to reward activities they like and punish those they don’t. This sort of tinkering adds complexity to the code and drags the cost recovery system further away from any connection to economic useful life—which, after all, was supposed to be the point.
Under current law, taxpayers may take depreciation deductions for new investments under the modified accelerated cost recovery system (MACRS). Each asset is assigned a recovery period (the number of years over which depreciation allowances are spread), a recovery method (how depreciation allowances are allocated over the recovery period), and a convention to determine when the asset was placed in service. The recovery period is based upon the class life of the property as originally established by the IRS in 1962. Remarkably, recovery periods have remained largely unchanged since 1986 and most class lives date back to 1962 or earlier.
In 1988, Congress revoked the IRS’s authority to assign class lives. Since then, entire new technologies have been created, such as mobile phones, automated manufacturing systems, and laser printers. Based in part on concerns that the depreciation system was in need of reform, Congress directed Treasury to study the system in 2000. The report concluded that the system was dated and included an evaluation of options for either overhauling or modifying the system. Instead moving ahead with reform or even restoring IRS authority to update class life assignments, Congress has instead chosen to micro-manage the system. Here are just a few examples:
The new focus on legislating individual cost recovery periods results in class lives with ambiguous meaning and leads to administrative problems and taxpayer controversies. Congressional meddling increases economic distortions and moves us further from a system that rationally adds new assets and updates existing categories of investments. These problems will multiply if the trend continues. President Bush’s tax reform panel proposed overhauling and simplifying the current depreciation system. Let’s hope the Volker panel will look at depreciation reform as well. Cost recovery isn’t very sexy, but no tax reform effort should ignore it. | <urn:uuid:9e925981-3e5b-46e2-9238-2dcf3e44dbe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2009/05/08/from-nascar-to-nuts-why-congress-needs-to-stop-micro-managing-cost-recovery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94706 | 710 | 1.5625 | 2 |
RIVER CLUB — A smile spread across Dehlia Garrity’s face as she flitted down the hallway of Braden River Elementary School.
Besides walking her two sons down these hallways many years ago, the first-grade teacher has spent almost her entire teaching career here. Fellow teachers Charlotte Gillott, Sue Tschappat, Donna Hart and Stephanie Lloyd have been at Braden River since the day it opened more than 20 years ago.
And on May 21, they and other educators gathered in the school’s media center for an informal 20th anniversary celebration.
“It was so exciting,” said Gillott of the school’s opening. “I had to drive out here to see the construction from the day I knew I was going to be here. I still have pictures of it in my album.”
The school opened in August 1988 under the direction of Principal Dote Shields, who handpicked Braden River’s first staff.
“I didn’t realize how lucky I was to be here until I found out there was a 12-page list of teachers who wanted to be there,” Gillott said.
But the camaraderie experienced among new staff members was instantaneous. Teachers pulled together, eagerly picking out equipment and supplies in preparation for the arrival of students who were redistricted from Oneco, Bashaw and Daughtrey elementary schools.
“It was the most special time to be able to open a new school,” Tschappat said. “Mr. Shields just had this ability to pull us together and make us feel like a family.
“We were getting kids from several different schools and that’s difficult sometimes,” she said. “The children felt part of that family atmosphere, too.”
A dedication ceremony was held on Feb. 12, 1989.
The feeling of being the Braden River Wranglers family has stayed strong throughout the years, regardless of who has been at the school’s helm. Teachers said they lend each other their support, sharing lesson plans for classes or helping one another when a need arises. They also have walked together through more personal issues such as births and weddings and divorces and deaths.
“We’ve all got each other’s backs,” Lloyd said.
Over the years as the East County has grown, Braden River’s student population has reflected that growth — first ballooning to overcrowded status and then finding relief when neighboring schools such as McNeal opened. At its peak, the school had more than 1,200 students.
As current and former educators flipped through scrapbooks of photos at the anniversary celebration, they made sure to point out each other’s children or old friends while swapping stories of the last 20 years at the school.
“It’s hard to believe (it’s been so long),” said substitute teacher Leah McElroy, who was the school’s first guidance counselor. “It went so fast.”
Contact Pam McTeer at email@example.com.
BY THE NUMBERS
576 — number of students currently enrolled
264 — number of students enrolled on Aug. 22, 1988
13 — highest number of portables ever on campus at one time
4 — number of principals
1 — number of teachers who have been in the same classroom teaching the same grade since school started
Currently 0 Responses
26 Tribute to Heroes Parade - Main St LWR
5:00 pm - 9:00 pm
28 Braden River Soccer Club Try-outs
29 LWRBA May Membership Lunch
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
31 May YLA Breakfast "Legendary Leaders"
7:30 am - 9:00 am
Gullett student wins speech contest
Gullett Elementary School student Hailey Wahlers took home top honors May 11, after placing first in the Tropicana District Speech Contest.
Girl Scouts give cookies a new cause
Local Daisy Scouts from Troop 180 are helping Feeding Empty Little Tummies feed homeless school children in the area.
Dancing group to host fundraiser
Members of KC and the Sunshine Dancers, a group of Manatee County dancers ages 8 to 20, will show off their dancing skills in jazz, hip-hop and contemporary dance from 7 to 9 p.m. May 28, as the group holds a show titled "Breaking Ground." | <urn:uuid:e120f0f3-a5b3-4ad8-a7a3-6029fee8544d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourobserver.com/news/east-county/Front-Page/05272009666/BRE-celebrates-20-years?page=451 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963999 | 940 | 1.546875 | 2 |
As the political ramifications of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death remained uncertain, his followers demonstrated Wednesday in plazas nationwide to show they support a continuation of his policies.
"Take my life, Lord, but don't take that of the president!" wailed an older woman who was among a group of mourners in Bolivar Square in Sabaneta in Barinas State, Chavez's birthplace in the country's northwest. "Without him, we are left with nothing. He's the only president who has helped us."
"I'm the beneficiary of education, I'm the beneficiary of an honorable, beautiful house, I'm the beneficiary of an honorable job," said a woman in her 20s. "President, wherever you are, we are going to miss you forever."
"I hope we will continue down the path that he showed us," said one man. "Let's continue with socialism, because that is the only path. Commandant Chavez lives and will live in our hearts."
Thousands of Venezuelans lined the streets of the capital, Caracas, Wednesday morning as Chavez's remains were taken from the military hospital where he died to the Fuerte Tiuna Military Academy.
Soldiers held Chavez's simple wooden casket, which was draped with the national flag, as a priest recited a prayer and blessing over it. The casket was placed atop a hearse, which was festooned with flowers and wreaths and driven slowly toward the military academy.
The streets transformed into a sea of green and red, as soldiers and red-clad supporters followed the procession.
Some wept as the casket passed in front of them, while others stretched out their arms to take pictures with their phones.
"Chavez to the pantheon! Chavez to the pantheon!" the crowd chanted, referring to the country's National Pantheon, which houses the remains of Chavez's hero, South American liberator Simon Bolivar, and other Venezuelan luminaries.
The body's arrival at the academy, where it is to lie in state until Friday morning's state funeral, was broadcast live on state television.
A number of presidents -- including Uruguay's Jose Mujica, Argentina's Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Bolivia's Evo Morales -- have already arrived in the country for the funeral.
The country has declared seven days of mourning, closed schools for the rest of the week and deployed armed forces to "guarantee peace."
For its part, Venezuela's Interior Ministry sought to guarantee sobriety. It said in a statement that it had banned the sale, distribution and consumption of alcohol through March 12 "to guarantee the physical integrity of individuals with the intention to maintain internal order and normal development of the country's actions."
The Chavez faithful were most visible Wednesday, but a sizable and strong opposition to the ruling party remains.
One 27-year-old man said in a CNN iReport that he fled Venezuela a decade ago because he believed there was no future there under Chavez.
"I left Venezuela because my brother got kidnapped, our house got burglarized, cars stolen," Carlos Quijada said. "My parents had an import business and the currency controls made it impossible for them to import anything anymore."
Quijada said he hoped that things would improve with Chavez's death.
"My life was completely altered because of that man," he said. "And I will not hide the fact that I am happy that he is no longer alive."
A new election will be held within 30 days, possibly signaling a new path for the oil-rich nation.
Opposition politicians have not said who will represent them in the election. But as speculation mounted about Chavez's health in recent weeks, many turned to Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in October's presidential contest.
On Tuesday, Capriles called for a national dialogue including all Venezuelans, not just Chavez's supporters.
"Today there are thousands, maybe millions, of Venezuelans who are asking themselves what will happen, who feel anxiety, and including those who feel afraid," Capriles said.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro, the interim president, has made no mention in public of running for election, but he is widely expected to be the United Socialist Party of Venezuela's candidate for the job.
During the three months that Chavez was undergoing treatment and absent from the political stage, Maduro has been highly visible. His addresses to political rallies and updates about the president on national television have drawn support from Chavez loyalists.
Opposition critics said he was campaigning for office, a claim the government denied. Even as it was announced that Maduro would temporarily assume the presidency, some questioned whether that was constitutional because Chavez missed his inauguration while being treated in Cuba for cancer and was never officially sworn in. | <urn:uuid:c50dfe64-9635-4f30-819f-4f72fc952fb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.local10.com/news/Venezuelans-turn-out-for-Chavez-procession/-/1717324/19202702/-/item/0/-/10v24p1/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976209 | 981 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The banner, hoisted across a main square in the upper middle class Roxy district only a few metres away from the Quba presidential palace, is testament to the growing confidence of the outlawed, but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood organisation.
As 5310 contenders prepare to contest 444 seats in Egypt's parliamentary elections on 9 November, the case of the Brotherhood and its 150 candidates has overshadowed the nation's legislative elections.
For the first time in its 77-year history, the group is openly propagating its agenda, actively promoting its candidates and putting up its slogans, logos and banners just about everywhere.
Noticeably absent was police intervention which over the past decades applied a tough uncompromising strategy with the "illegal" but powerful outfit.
"[Throughout our history] we were repressed, tortured in horrific ways, imprisoned and hanged. [Ours] is an experience that is stained with blood," Mohammed Habib, deputy supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, told Aljazeera.net.
Habib says the climate has so changed that his group is fielding 150 candidates and expects to win at least 50 seats in parliament.
In the 2000 elections, the Brotherhood fielded 75 candidates and won 17 seats.
Show of strength
For more than a week now, Muslim Brotherhood candidates have been organising public rallies across Cairo and filling the streets with massive election marches in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and south Egypt's Minya.
With the exception of candidates in Alexandria's Al-Raml constituency - whose campaign rally on Monday was attacked by a "thug" allegedly hired by the ruling National Democratic Party's (NDP) candidate - the group's election activities have generally been peaceful.
Aware of the growing need for public access to the media, the group set up websites and two online radio stations.
There have been large protests
calling for reforms in Egypt
This is in sharp contrast to the 2000 and 1995 parliamentary elections when even alluding to the Brotherhood was taboo.
Approximately 6000 of its members, including candidates, were detained ahead of the 2000 poll and 20 group leaders were referred to military courts.
The situation was far worse in 1995 when the Islamist organisation suffered a major security crackdown against its members.
More than 100 Brotherhood members were put on three separate military trials, with dozens receiving jail terms ranging between three and five years.
The Brotherhood has come a long way in the past 50 years.
Under late president Gamal Abd al-Nasser, tens of thousands of its members were detained between 1954 and 1964 and six including the group's leader, Sayid Qutb, were executed for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government.
But the Brotherhood's recent rehabilitation in Egyptian politics extends beyond boisterous electioneering.
And pundits say it will not likely end with this month's polls.
In the run up to the first multi-candidate presidential elections in September, the outfit's headquarters was an important destination for the main contenders running against President Hosni Mubarak, namely Al-Wafd party's Noaman Gomaa and Ayman Nour of Al-Ghad party.
The Brotherhood is expecting to
win at least 50 seats at the polls
When Nour clinched second position, Al-Wafd, the NDP and many observers attributed the surprise result to the Brotherhood electoral bank.
Similarly, when the press syndicate chairmanship elections were held in September, three of its top candidates - Galal Aref, Osama El-Ghazali Harb and Mustafa Bakri - openly sought the Brotherhood's support.
The group's massive Ramadan iftar (the meal that breaks the daily fast) at a five star hotel attended by approximately 1500 from all shades of the political spectrum, public figures, intellectuals and media representatives further emphasised the paradox.
As one journalist at the iftar put it, Egypt's political forces were indeed in the "outlawed group's hospitality".
Recognition of the Brotherhood's influence took a surprising turn when prominent members of the Copt community in Alexandria sought the group's intervention to restore calm in the coastal city following recent sectarian violence.
But more significant were the unprecedented statements last week by the NDP's Kamal El-Shazli, State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who said: "Muslim Brotherhood is a political force that cannot be ignored and enjoys a street presence that should be respected."
But, in statements made to the London-based Al Hayat newspaper, El-Shazli warned that the Brotherhood would not be recognised as a political party.
Mubarak's reforms this year gave
the Brotherhood momentum
The state-run media has in the meanwhile stopped referring to the Brotherhood as an outlawed group.
Furthermore, in his column in the official Al-Ahram newspaper on Friday, prominent journalist Salama Ahmed Salama openly urged the authorities to integrate the Brotherhood in the political process and grant them legal status.
It is the first time a state-owned newspaper published a view openly supporting the group's right for legitimacy.
"This is definitely the Brotherhood's moment," Diaa Rashwan, a political expert at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told Aljazeera.net.
"For the first time since 1954, the Brotherhood is undoubtedly betting on getting recognition; de facto or de jure, it doesn't matter for them," he said.
Rashwan believes Mubarak's decision to amend article 76 of the constitution to allow for multi-candidate presidential elections helped in the Brotherhood's emergence.
"Regardless of the way it was done, the constitutional amendment did open the door to interactions that didn't exist before."
Changing political climate
The constitutional amendment created a "different" political climate and helped an opposition grouping such as the Brotherhood to thrive, Rafik Habib, a Coptic Evangelical social scientist and prominent intellectual, said.
"Any organised force with a popular base, like the Brotherhood, will ultimately benefit from the changing political climate despite the security siege imposed on the group over the past 13 years," Habib told Aljazaeera.net.
But opinion about the organisation's future is divided.
"I think the political establishment is applying this new strategy with the Brotherhood to test their real power and popular base," said Rashwan.
He explained that the government was seeking to assess the Brotherhood's influence in the Egyptian political sphere by monitoring how many parliamentary seats they win.
"Once the Brotherhood wins a number of seats through its independent candidates, it will no longer be able to claim police harassment or government repression," he said.
Government loses control?
Rafik Habib, however, believes the government may be unable to reverse the Brotherhood's gains in both popularity and legitimacy with the electorate after the elections.
"If the Brotherhood's role will continue to be rejected by the authorities here or the US or even Egypt's elite, democratic transformation will not happen"
"The political momentum pushing the Brotherhood will be too much for the government to handle, and they will likely lose control," he said.
But Washington, an influential player in Egyptian domestic politics, is unlikely to accept a future political role for the Brotherhood beyond their influence in parliament.
According to Amr Hamazawy, a senior Egyptian associate at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment, the US would likely be unwilling to recognise the Brotherhood and its Islamist platform despite elections gains.
This would be a mistake, Habib warns. He believes Egypt's democratic reforms hinge upon recognising the Brotherhood as an organised political force.
"If the Brotherhood's role will continue to be rejected by the authorities here or the US or even Egypt's elite, democratic transformation will not happen." | <urn:uuid:ca0903d5-c12f-4ce9-8c77-2f2c88a2d2aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2005/11/2008410141859847221.html | 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 | 0.958095 | 1,567 | 1.53125 | 2 |
May 21, 2012 / Sabine Kurjo McNeill
Nigerian Bishop Gloria Musa and her husband Joseph Chiwar Musa were found guilty of having drugged their then youngest child in a secret Family Court hearing on 28th November 2011. Gloria overheard the President of the Family Division say to the Officer of Haringey Police “they must not get bail”. Two bail applications have been refused, since they were imprisoned at the Family Court. Their first five children were taken by eight Haringey Police officers in April 2010, without any legal paperwork. ... In fact, three hours after the birth of the sixth child, nine police officers showed up in hospital, strangled the mother, pulled her arms and legs, took the baby and left her unconscious, with permanent injuries on her leg. Since the baby ‘failed to thrive in care’, she was returned. A specially ordered vaccination seems to have caused the temperature that made the parents take her to hospital. There she was administered ketamine, a drug that shows up as opiates in the blood. Sir Nicholas Wall, the President of the Family Division, said “professionals don’t lie” and came to the conclusion that, “on the balance of probabilities”, the parents must have drugged the baby. Since then, Prof. Ireland published her widely published report about the lack of qualification of ‘expert witnesses’.... ... The seventh child was born in prison and immediately taken off the mother, thus violating the baby’s human rights as well as the mother’s... http://publicityonline.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/haringey-council-wo...
... In criminal courts, evidence has to be provided “beyond a reasonable doubt”, whereas secret family courts get away with “the balance of probabilities”.
On this level of scrutiny, Sir Nicholas Wall found a Nigerian couple[v] guilty of having drugged their baby, based on statements and reports from ‘expert witnesses’ and his claim that “professionals don’t lie”. Since then, the damning report about expert witnesses used in secret family courts was published by Prof. Jane Ireland[vi] of Lancashire University, resulting in Channel 4 News[vii] and reports in The Telegraph[viii] and the Daily Mail[ix].
This now criminal and thus not secret family court[x] case takes place also in Wood Green Crown Court where it is scheduled to last for another five weeks, examining the allegations of child abuse by the parents. The parents have suffered not only the loss of their children, but also going to many contact sessions in vain and the most violent attack 3 hours after birth of the sixth child in hospital.
The mother, an ordained Bishop[xi], was left unconscious, after nine Haringey Police officers strangled her and pulled her arms and legs such that she has been limping in pain ever since. Her seventh child was taken from her in prison, thus depriving her of her right to breastfeed[xii] and the baby of its human rights[xiii].
Haringey Council have made life incredibly miserable for the family, ever since they kidnapped their then five children without any legal documentation in April 2010. Yesterday one of the children said via videolink that they were told it was going to be an adventure!
The Telegraph published in December 2010[xiv] what a whistleblower had said: “it was vital that the council should continue to justify its actions, because of the very damaging publicity which might follow, if the unhappy children were reunited with their parents.”
Supporters know that this is the worst of all known child snatching[xv] cases, where Punishment without Crime[xvi] is delivered. They fear that the kids will have been badly brainwashed by Social Workers and foster carers. The parents have not seen their children for months, the oldest daughter not since August 2010, when she reported having been molested by the son of her foster carer.
The couple was imprisoned on 28th November 2011, after Sir Nicholas Wall found them guilty of drugging their sixth child, as “professionals don’t lie”. Despite religiously attending to police stations and collecting the evidence, the couple was charged with breaking bail conditions, due to forged police documentation. Haringey Police have also conveniently ‘lost’ the letter[xvii] that was produced as justification ten days after the children were taken. The oldest daughter is supposed to have written and thrown it out of the window.
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EuroBasket Women 2011
|Iva Perovanovic is the EuroBasket Women's leading scorer with 17.4 points per game, while also averaging 7.7 rebounds per contest|
As a small child in what was then Yugoslavia, Iva Perovanovic grew up watching the Olympics, like most children, through wide eyes.
The country's basketballing greats were among those who captured her imagination. Their legend remains alive 20 years later.
On Saturday, the 27-year-old can take one step closer to realising an ambition that has burned for so long. If Montenegro defeat Croatia in the fifth place play-off at EuroBasket Women, they can look forward to next summer's qualification tournament for London 2012. "Every athlete's dream is to participate in the Olympic Games," she reveals. "That's something I'd love to do."
It would mean a little more to wear the Montenegrin colours on sport's biggest stage, she admits. In their first European championship, they have done more than enough to suggest they would not be out of place. Seven wins. Just one defeat.
The disappointment was huge when her side lost to Turkey in the quarter-finals. In front of their prime minister, and a group of supporters who had sat for 26 hours on a bus just to be here in Lodz, they fell short.
The fans kept chanting, even in defeat. "It is definitely an honour to play here for Montenegro," Perovanovic proclaims. "I played for Serbia in 2005 in Turkey but this is something completely different. It's a different feeling. It's a big honour to have achieved these results so far in this tournament."
Born in Podgorica, the imposing 1.88m giant followed in the steps of her elder sister when she took up the game. She also played professionally, reveals Iva. "But she quit quite young."
It wasn't easy to pursue the sport, she recalls. It can still be difficult. While leading male players like Minnesota Timberwolves centre Nikola Pekovic are icons, their sisters must fight hard for their share.
"Basketball has been followed by a wide audience in the country obviously but it's mainly been the men who people watched rather than the women," Perovanovic states. "We only have 34 registered female players in Montenegro so we're hoping that, if we have success here, we can increase that."
|Jelena Dubljevic and Iva Perovanovic have been a fantastic inside-outside duo for Montenegro|
Plus, she smiles, there is a private challenge to be set for their male counterparts in Lithuania next month. "We'd like to send a message to the guys from us saying: ‘c'mon, you need to do as well as us.'"
Miodrag Baletic's side has set a lofty target with its performances in Poland. Perovanovic, individually, has stood out and is likely to end up as the tournament's leading scorer after averaging 17.4 points per game, flourishing with the trust of her coach and her team-mates.
"Iva is like one of those players who feels the basketball in an amazing way," observes Jelena
Dubljevic. "Four or five of us have known each other a long time. We know how to help get her in the best position. We can give her the space and freedom because we have so much belief in her.
"She's done great here, right from the first game. She's just had one bad day here. But she's one of the best players in Europe and she's shown that."
For one more game, they will count on Perovanovic to shine. Montenegro beat Croatia 81-60 in the second round with their star scoring 25 points. A repeat would leave her satisfied. "I don't want to go home with nothing," she said.
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Cabin security remains a hot topic within the summer homes. The question is always, “What can I do to make our cabin safe?” Here are some suggestions, but they don’t come with a guarantee that you will be safe.
Know your Neighbors
As in any good crime prevention program the number one issue is to get to know your neighbors and be aware of your surroundings. In our situation where most people only use their cabins an average of 60 days a year this might not be much help. But neighbors looking out for neighbors can sure go a long way.
Some people have installed gates on the driveways. This can be a deterrent since most bad guys tend to be lazy and would not carry items around a gate. The down side to gates is that a locked gate tells people that no one is around. If you are interested in a gate, there is a source for installing a “Forest Service” approved gate. Jim Whalon charges $500.00 for a 12 foot gate constructed of pressure treated wood. If you are interested, give him a call at 503/622-3560. This information was updated 12/5/11
A few cabins have installed security systems and have them monitored. This can be set up to emit loud obnoxious sounds within the cabins and also flashing lights to hopefully drive off an intruder. There are many systems available and at a reasonable cost. One such system is by American Security Alarms, 503/231-0303. For an installed cost of $395.00, this includes 1 motion sensor and 2 door sensors. Monitoring cost $19.95 a month. The down side of this set-up is that Clackamas County Deputies are not always in the area and response time can be slow. The main advantage is that it can make noise and hopefully push an intruder out of the cabin and you would know immediately when there is a problem.
Mt. Hood Patrol
Another option is provided by the Mt. Hood Patrol 503/622-3950.
If you have a monitored security alarm and you have a contract with Mt Hood Patrol, they should be listed as the first one to be notified in the event your alarm goes off.
If you have been a victim of a burglary, report it to the Clackamas County Sheriffs office. We would appreciate it if you would inform MHFHA by email. The Forest Service has asked that we serve as a data collection point to try to figure out the best way to proceed in arriving at an optimal deterrent.
MHFHA is not endorsing any of these options or businesses but felt this was relevant enough to pass onto our members to make their own decision on how to proceed. | <urn:uuid:ce05e016-03fa-4ef7-90cf-7d8ce601c34e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mhfha.com/?page_id=77 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96332 | 559 | 1.523438 | 2 |
UK's top web retailers failing the disabled
Accessibility report slaps wrist of online shops
The UK's top 30 shopping websites exclude disabled users, new research has found.
Usability agency Nomensa tested the retail websites and found that none fulfilled the most basic accessibility guidelines.
Websites from retailers including Ryanair, British Airways, Currys, Apple Computer, and Amazon.co.uk all failed the test. Though John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and Tesco also failed, they were commended by Nomensa for showing particular consideration of accessibility.
"These research findings show that anyone with serious physical impairments, the visually impaired or even just people wearing glasses to read would encounter difficulties and in many cases would give up trying," said Simon Norris, managing director of Nomensa.
"There are over 10m disabled people in the UK and I believe that each one of those has a right to be able to buy a Christmas present online for a friend or loved one this year."
One of the cornerstones of accessibility is the provision of text descriptions for all images so that those using site-reading software know what is in a picture. Only two of the top 30 sites, those of Apple and John Lewis, provided that text for all images.
"With the online retail market apparently so flush with success, it is hard to believe that every single online retailer evaluated during this research is actively throwing money away," said the report. "There is only one conclusion that can be drawn from the results of this report. Almost without exception, online retailers are not taking web accessibility, customer experience or profitability seriously."
Nomensa has calculated that if the same proportion of disabled people shopped online as the general population, then £376m could be spent over this Christmas period by disabled online shoppers.
The company tested the home page and the terms and conditions page of each of the sites using some automated and some manual tests. They tested the sites against the industry standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 1.0.
Those guidelines rate pages as single, double or triple A rated for accessibility, or as failed. Only three pages tested received a single A rating, and all the others failed. There was no site where both tested pages received an A rating.
"Many of the corporations audited invest millions each year in their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes," said Norris. "I am calling on the boardrooms of these retailers to really start to take their online responsibility just as seriously."
Copyright © 2006, OUT-LAW.com
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As my conversation with Laina Dawes, author of What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal, continued, I grew more curious not only about Dawes’s experiences in the black community, but also those of the people she spoke to while writing the book.
“They all had the same story,” she said of the dozens of people (mostly women) she interviewed. “Everybody has had the same story of feeling like an outsider.”
Naturally, the people she interviewed were among the most gung ho about metal. People who go to shows, who follow their favorite bands around the world, who build up vast collections of music. “These are people for whom metal is very important, so for them to be rejected by their black peers from an early age was devastating.”
Her interviewees shared a feeling of alienation from the black community as a result of their musical preference, a feeling I know all too well and a feeling that Dawes understands as well. “In some ways, the black identity has been ripped from people,” she explains. “That identity is so emotional to a lot of our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents, so they’re saying ‘We fought so hard to be ourselves, who the hell do you think you are, thinking that you’re better?’ implying that to ‘act white’ is to think you’re better, when that’s not the case at all.”
I recalled my own grade school experiences of being made to feel like a traitor, even before I became a metalhead (I had a lengthy pop punk phase for which I wholly blame the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games).
“Oh yeah! Yes, definitely,” she piped up, almost before I could get the word “traitor” out of my mouth. I sensed the T-word was one with which she was very familiar.
Dawes told me about her search for an oasis of sorts, a place to belong, a place to escape the ignorance she had to deal with in her hometown. “When I was 18, I moved to Toronto, and I just thought that it was going to be wonderful here,” she said wistfully. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to meet black people just like me!’”
Despite the more diverse urban environment, Dawes was disappointed that race relations in Toronto hardly differed from that of her birthplace. “To be in your late teens and early 20s and STILL be labeled a traitor is hard, especially since I really thought that I had gotten away from that,” she lamented.
We commiserated over the ease with which people, those outside as well as within the black community, have stereotyped us and people like us. “Not black enough,” whether or not in those exact words, are words that have haunted black people who wind up outside of the box in one way or another, black people like myself and Laina Dawes. We discussed blackness, and her ideas about how the concept of blackness has shaped our respective relationships with our peers. “There’s a vested interest, I think, not only in black communities but also in black urban publications like Vibe or Essence or Ebony, in defining ‘blackness,’ and if you fall outside of the definition of ‘blackness,’ people don’t understand you and they don’t want to.”
“People are lazy regardless of race, and they don’t want to get to know who you really are,” she continued. “If you’re going to shows and you’re the only black person there, it’s the same thing — that’s why they say ‘Why are you really here?’” | <urn:uuid:ddd31366-821c-43d6-835f-ce8fc63c38b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hearevil.com/laina-dawes-interview-part-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981097 | 837 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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Taxi's television history is filled with contradictions. Produced by some of television comedy's most well-regarded talent, the show was canceled by two different networks. Despite winning fourteen Emmy Awards in only five seasons, the program's ratings were rock-bottom for its final seasons. Although it thrives in syndication and is still well-loved by many viewers, Taxi will be best remembered as the ancestral bridge between two of the most successful sit-coms of all time: The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers.
In the mid-1970s, MTM Productions had achieved huge success with both popularity and critical appraisal. So it was an unexpected move when four of the company's finest writers and producers, James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed. Weinberger, jumped off the stable ship of MTM in 1978 to form their own production company, John Charles Walters Company. To launch their new venture, they looked back to an idea that Brooks and Davis had previously considered with MTM: the daily life of a New York City taxi company. From MTM head Grant Tinker they purchased the rights to the newspaper article that had initiated the concept and began producing this new show at Paramount for ABC. They brought a few other MTM veterans along for the ride, including director James Burrows and writer/producers Glen and Les Charles.
Although Taxi certainly bore many of the trademark signs of "quality television" as exemplified by MTM, other changes in style and focus distinguished this from an MTM product. After working on the middle-class female-centered worlds of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, and Phyllis for years, the group at John Charles Walters wanted to create a program focusing on blue-collar male experience. MTM programs all had clearly defined settings, but Taxi's creators wanted a show that was firmly rooted in a city's identity--Taxi's situations and mood were distinctly New York. Despite MTM Productions innovations in creating ensemble character comedy, there was always one central star around which the ensemble revolved. In Taxi Judd Hirsch's Alex Reiger was a main character, but his importance seemed secondary to the centrality of the ensemble and the Sunshine Cab Company itself. While The Mary Tyler Moore Show proudly proclaimed that "you're going to make it on your own," the destitute drivers of Taxi were doomed to perpetual failure; the closest any of them came to happiness was Reiger's content acceptance of his lot in life--to be a cabby.
Taxi debuted on 12 September 1978, amidst a strong ABC Tuesday night line-up. It followed Three's Company, a wildly-successful example of the type of show MTM "quality" sit-coms reacted against. Taxi used this strong position to end the season ninth in the ratings and garner its first of three straight Emmys for Outstanding Comedy Series. The show's success was due to its excellent writing, Burrows's award-winning directing using his innovative four-camera technique, and its largely unknown but talented cast. Danny DeVito's Louie DePalma soon became one of the most despised men on television--possibly the most unredeemable and worthless louse of a character ever to reside on the small screen. Andy Kaufman's foreign mechanic Latka Gravas provided over-the-top comedy within an ensemble emphasizing subtle character humor. But Kaufman sometimes also brought a demonic edge to the character, an echo of his infamous appearances on Saturday Night Live as a macho wrestler of women and Mighty Mouse lip-syncher. In the second season Christopher Lloyd's Reverend Jim Ignatowski was added to the group as television's first drugged-out '60s burn-out character. But Lloyd's Emmy-winning performance created in Jim more than just a storehouse of fried brain cells; he established a deep, complex humanity that moved far beyond mere caricature. The program launched successful movie careers for DeVito and Lloyd, as well as the fairly-notable television careers of Tony Danza and Marilu Henner; Kaufman's controversial career would certainly have continued had he not died of cancer in 1984.
In its third season ABC moved Taxi from beneath Three's Company's protective wing to a more competitive Wednesday night slot; the ratings plummeted and Taxi finished the next two years in 53rd place. ABC canceled the show in early 1982 as part of a larger network push away from "quality" and toward the Aaron Spelling-produced popular fare of Dynasty and The Love Boat. HBO bid for the show, looking for it to become the first ongoing sitcom for the pay channel, but lost out to NBC, which scheduled the series for the 1982-83 season. Ironically, this reunited the show's executive producers with their former boss Tinker, who had taken over NBC. Tinker's reign at NBC was focused, not surprisingly, on "quality" programming which he hoped would attract viewers to the perennially last-place network. Taxi was partnered with a very compatible show on Thursday night--Cheers, created by Taxi veterans Charles, Burrows, and Charles. Although this line-up featured some of the great programs in television history--the comedies were sandwiched by dramas Fame and Hill St. Blues--the ratings were dreadful and Taxi finished the season in 73rd place. NBC was willing to stick by Cheers for another chance, but felt Taxi had run its course and canceled it at the end of the season. Had Taxi been given another year or two, it would have been part of one of the most successful nights on television, featuring The Cosby Show (co-created by Taxi creator Weinberger), Family Ties, Hill St. Blues, L.A. Law, and eventual powerhouse Cheers.
Taxi lives on in syndication, but its most significant place in television history is as the middle generation between The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers. It served as a transition between the star-driven middle-class character comedy of MTM programs and the location-centered ensemble comedy inhabited by the losers of Cheers and Taxi. Considered one of the great sit-coms of its era, Taxi stands as a prime example of the constant tension in television programming between standards of "quality" and reliance on high ratings to determine success.
The Museum of Broadcast Communications… Expand
- Genre(s): Comedy
- Show Type: Ended
- Season 6 premiere date: Sep 12, 1978
- Episode Length: 30
- Air Time: 09:30 PM
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Thanks to magical thinking, Lioz always believes she can -- even when it's time to get a parking space. "I really do envision my spots and get them 90 percent of the time," said Lioz. "I have no idea how it works. But again, I don't care. It just does. I believe in vibes -- [if] you're putting out that positive vibe, the rest of your world is going to meet you at that vibe."
So what should people who study "The Secret" know about magical thinking? "Having a positive outlook -- being an optimist, feeling a sense of control in your life -- is a good thing, and is associated with positive outcomes for mental health, physical health, your work life," Pronin said. "But I think it's also important to recognize that visualizing getting a parking space is unlikely to get you a parking space. It's better to just show up a half an hour early for your job interview, so that you leave that half hour to get the space, than to think you can just get there and visualize."
Nick Barber would be the first to agree that in life, wishing won't make it so -- not all by itself. "No -- God, no," he said. "It's the day-to-day actions that are going to make the difference: the self-discipline, the passion, the 12-hour days. This was a lot of hard work." | <urn:uuid:9a140794-0ba3-46a5-813c-f70852e31eb8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3160862&page=2 | 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 | 0.982853 | 302 | 1.570313 | 2 |
WACO (December 09, 2012)- President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met for the first time in weeks at the White House Sunday to discuss the upcoming fiscal cliff deadline.
Economists agree "the cliff" could throw us back into a recession if a resolution on the budget isn't met by President Obama and members of the U.S. Congress by December 31st.
The fiscal cliff has dominated discussions on Capitol Hill since election day. When the clock hits midnight on December 31st, the Bush Administration tax cuts on income and investments will expire. An end to the payroll tax holiday will come as well.
What begins from there are massive spending cuts for over 1,000 U.S. Government programs. Also, taxes related to President Obama's health care law will begin.
Confused yet? Here's where taxpayers come in. Economists say if the U.S. goes over the fiscal cliff, taxpayers could owe an average of $3,500 more per household.
Waco financial consultant, Kendall Lovett, says he's been gearing up clients for "the cliff" for weeks.
"Taxes could rise across the board, and the U.S. Government pulling out on programs could cause major job loss," Lovett said.
"It's not good for the market and it's not good for the economy."
The tips, Lovett says, to survive pending tax hikes are simple.
"Reduce your debt as much as possible, stay away from credit cards as much as possible, and pay cash for things because it makes you aware of how much money you're spending," Lovett said.
"Also, if there are any retirement programs you can take advantage of, it would be in anyone's best interest to do that."
The fiscal cliff could potentially lower the U.S. debt by billions, but many members of Congress are worried about long term effects.
A solution is expected to be made on Capitol Hill between President Obama and members of Congress, but time is running out. Until a resolution is met, America will wait to learn her future. | <urn:uuid:4353e2f5-1d98-4d38-a379-10e6d5857b7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/As-Fiscal-Cliff-Deadline-Draws-Near-Central-Texans-Brace-For-Financial-Impacts-182768251.html?site=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972679 | 430 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Need to talk? Call us now: (314) 494-7890
A big applaud to CPSC for their letter on safety to the Department of Defense warning military housing partners of the dangers of corded window coverings.
CPSC has record of at least 10 or more deaths and injuries over the past few decades on military housing facilities and rented homes. PFWBS wrote letters along with families who had lost their children asking for something to be done on military bases. Articles were written about our concern with military housing authorities unsafe environments for our soldiers. http://news.consumerreports.org/safety/2010/12/safety-crusader-linda-kaiser-fights-to-prevent-window-blind-strangulation.html
Typically soldiers who live on post are not allowed to modify their blinds or they face fines. They must keep a uniform appearance in housing which means they can’t remove their hazardous blinds. See this link below as to how blinds are to be kept and cleaned for inspections.
Brandyn lost his life Sept 11 2009.
Connor lost his life in 2005 on an AirForce Base.
Ashley will never walk, talk or play like she used to.
We at Parents for Window Blind Safety would like to see the Department of Defense NOT ONLY “WARN” parents of the dangers but REMOVE the dangerous window coverings from base housing and rental homes. No parent can keep an eye on their children every hour of every day. We sleep, we cook, we use the restroom, we bathe. Please help us keep our soldiers homes safe by sharing this post and contacting your local military post asking for dangerous window coverings to be removed.
15 Nov / 10 Years of Advocacy
Ten Years ago Parents for Window Blind Safety was established in November 2002 by my husband and I, after losing our precious daughter, Cheyenne Rose to child strangulation.
You might wonder, why did we do this? What is our purpose? This was a preventable death. If my husband and I would have been educated about the inner cord dangers of window covering products it would have never happened. I would never have had to read on my daughter’s death certificate that she would never be married. If I would have known how dangerous cords on window covering products could be and how many children had died or were going to die I never would have had them in my home. In 2002 inner cord dangers was almost unheard of because the recall about the hazard was not publicized very well.
Click to read the history of window covering recalls.
No one I knew understood exactly how my daughter accessed the cords. I had to have a dear friend of mine explain to ME how she got a hold of a cord when I had tied up the draw cords out of her reach.
I will never forget how unfair I felt it was that I had no idea about this hidden danger. If you don’t know something is dangerous, how do you protect your children? Even today, when I talk to well-educated people they tell me they had no idea that the cord which runs up and down horizontal blinds could be pulled out by a 12 month old child and kill her. We knew early on we had to centralize all the window covering safety information we were receiving and make it available to the public so that the message would be clear on safety.
Sadly PFWBS support groups grew large very quickly. The year my daughter died we had tracked 21 strangulations in the USA in 2002 alone. As the investigation reports came in we learned different scenarios of how children accessed the cords, what type of safety tips parents followed, what type of products the child strangled on and whether or not the product was compliant with the current safety standard.
Click below to read how detailed IDI reports are.
It became clear the safety messages for window coverings varied from manufacture to manufacture, from the government and from child advocacy groups. None of these groups had the same message and they still don’t! Some were telling consumers to tie cords together, use cleats, use safety kits, go cordless etc. As the years went by, we realized that the industry and the government were not disclosing to the public that the “safety kits” they recommended were also failing. Tie down devices, tassels, inner cord stoppers, wind up products etc. have all been involved in accidental strangulation and consumers have no idea.
In 10 years PFWBS has tracked two hundred and four strangulation accidents in the United States.
Few children have lived through the accident, and a handful are so severely injured they will never walk, talk or play again. This is such a preventable accident. How do we get such preventable accidents to stop? When looking at all of the data it’s obvious that the safety message must be the same from the industry, from the government, and from the advocacy groups. Until the message is universal, the public will continue to be confused on what products are safe and the death rate will remain the same. It is our goal to press the US CPSC and the window covering industry to stop promoting safety kits and products that can strangle children. The message to the public should be the factual. Any window-covering product with a cord CAN kill or injure a child.
The universal message should be, Cords Kill Kids…. Always Use Cordless Products! Help us by passing on the message. Like our Facebook page, follow us on twitter, YouTube, and our blog. Help us prevent child strangulation.
The most recent story in the news today is about a little girl named Isabella.
This month is window covering safety month. PFWBS recommends cordless or cord-free window coverings in homes with children 8 years and younger. According to CPSC data children 8 years and younger have died or been injured on ANSI compliant window coverings that include safety devices such as “safety tassels”, “Break away tassels”, “cord joiners”, cords tied up in cleats, and faulty tie down devices. Children have accessed cords tied up high as far as 6 feet off the floor well beyond their reach by using other objects in the home.
Many parents have lost their children after following inaccurate safety tips on products that were considered safe by the industry. PFWBS recommends that all parents remove products in their homes that have operational cords. Changing one corded window covering a month would help parents on a budget create a safer environment for their children. Below is a list of budget friendly cordless or cord-free alternatives on the market today.
Blackout Redishades mixed with drapes can create the perfect dark room for any family on a budget.
Panels and Drapes are perfect for any budget!
Todays Roller Shades with Vinyl or Fabric roll up easier with new technology.
There are tons of DIY window covering tutorials online some of which are No Sew!
Don’t let the price of custom window coverings make you feel that you can’t afford safe alternatives for your home. PFWBS is happy to answer any questions on how to make your home safer. Send us an email. www.info (AT)pfwbs.org.
19 Jul / Product Safety Testing
We want to introduce to you one of our product safety testing engineers, John Williamson. John has been with PFWBS for about 6 years now helping with testing in Australia and also in the United States.
John has found a tie down device in Australia that does not meet the Australian safety standards. Keep reading for his findings and also click the YouTube video below to watch him test the product and see why it doesn’t pass the test.
UPDATE ON PFWBS AUSTRALIA
2012 has been a big year for PFWBS in Australia. In March we took out the Western Australian governments Department of Commerce Kidsafe award. This was followed a month later by relocating from Karratha in the north west of West Australia to Clarkson, a northern suburb of Perth, the capital city of the state.
After arriving in Perth I was alarmed to see just how bad the corded window covering issue was in the city.
After visiting a hardware store which was just one of a national chain of super stores, I found that a product identical to the one that was involved in the death of my granddaughter Meesha in 2006 was on sale. This was in a bin marked as a safety device for children.
After seeing this I asked to speak to the centre manager. On raising the issue with her and demonstrating the problem she immediately withdrew all of that stock from sale. She then agreed to raise this with her companies head office in Melbourne. A few days later I was contacted and advised that their product safety person was looking seriously into the matter. The following Friday I was again contacted and told that the companies supplier had been spoken to and they maintained that the product met with the mandatory standards introduced into Australia in July 2011, but that the stores supply would remain off the shelves pending further investigation. Knowing that I had not only tested a number of these devices and not one met the regulated standard, I had videotaped the testing. As such I dropped a copy of that testing onto a thumb drive and took it to the store. Unfortunately as it was late on the Friday afternoon the manager had left for the week end, however I was permitted to leave it on her desk. The following Wednesday the manager again contacted me and told me that on receipt of the copy of the testing, the company had immediately ordered withdrawal from sale of this product nationally. They also again contacted their supplier who admitted that they had only ever tested one device, but maintained that that one passed the test. The supplier was advised to conduct proper testing and to furnish their results to the company. Until they can prove that their product can meet the standard it will remain off the shelves. Following all of my testing I am confident that it will not pass and this will be followed by a national recall in the coming months.
I can say that I am impressed how serious the company, Bunnings took very quick action on this matter. I have been trying to get this product banned through regulatory bodies since 2006. Although each individual spoken to agreed there was a problem, as a body nothing was done.
The item in question I believe is supplied around the world. It is intended to safely restrain looped cords and beaded chains and stop these being a danger to children. It is a small D shaped item that is made up of three parts. A base plate that has 4 screw holes to affix it to the wall, a small cord holding device which slides down a series of teeth intended to tension the cord and a top cover which just clips over the top. The problem with this device is that little fingers can easily remove the top cover to expose the cord and it does not take much effort from a child to dislodge the centre cord tensioning device. This raises two serious issues, once dislodged, the dangerous looped cord is again presented and the dislodged part presents a choking hazard to small children.
From experience it is often sold in the same bin a an almost identical device that is far safer and the cord holding device is moulded into the base plate, as such it cannot be dislodged, further to this, the top plate has either one or two screw holes to ensure that the cover cannot be removed by little fingers. The box / bin this is sold in bears a picture of the safer device which has the screw holes, as such this also could present issues of false and or misleading advertising.
I will advise of the outcome when I receive the word.
12 Jun / 10 Years ago today….
10 years ago today I put my twins to bed and started working on the dishes and turning in for the night. My oldest daughter and my husband always made it an event to check on the twins on our way to bed. So I went in first and saw my daughter in the corner of her crib sitting. I ran to her and saw that a cord was around her neck. My entire life fell apart that day. The EMT came, police came took my baby away and made me stay in my home until they felt they had questioned me enough. They allowed me then to go to the hospital but then pulled my husband and I apart after we learned that my daughter had died and interrogated us. I was allowed to hold my baby for the last time 10 years ago Tuesday. I remember that day just like the day we remember when we first laid eyes on our babies. She was perfect. Even with the death laid upon her, she was perfect. I didn’t want to let go of her. I didn’t want some stranger who never knew her to take her from me but I had to let her go. So…I did.
I went home in a police car and they asked me to go over what had happened because I guess they could not figure out what really happened either. I didn’t understand how a cord got in her crib. It was not until the next week when a friend of mine showed me that even though I had placed the pull cords of my window blind on TOP of the valance, my daughter was able to grab the cord that ran in between the slats and create a loop. I had no idea. I thought that her crib being three feet away from the pull cords was safe enough. Having two cribs in a small room leaves no option to move the crib away from the window. I checked all my doctor check up papers, nothing on window covering safety. How did I fail to protect my daughter? I felt utterly alone. I was alone really. People don’t know what to say to some who have lost their child is such a tragic way.
A few weeks went by and I learned of another mother who lost her child the exact same way two weeks before my baby died. Well, I thought i was the only one! Was I ever wrong. Not to long after I knew a handful of parents who had lost their child the same way my daughter died. I received a phone call from a retired NY firefighter that had been working on a way to make kids safer a few months later. He told me that my daughter was not the first and would not be the last. In fact, he informed me that children strangle every TWO weeks on cords from window coverings. One child dies per month and the other is either minor injury or severe injury where the child can no longer walk, talk, play, or take care of them selves. I could not live with myself knowing what I knew another day unless I did something. How could I know something so preventable and do NOTHING??? Parents for Window Blind Safety was founded in November 2002, six months after my daughter died.
I learned after reading over 300 In Depth Investigation reports from the Consumer Product Safety Commission that there were 8 ways children were dying on a typical window blind, roman shade, cellular shade, etc. It didn’t matter what mom was doing at the time. Reports of mom putting a child to bed, cooking dinner, aiding another sick child, vacuuming, four days after giving birth on the couch sleeping, taking a nap with their child all of these things are what mom’s were doing when their children were dying. Lower class, upper class, middle class, it didn’t matter what the mother did or how educated she was. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, typical housewives all lost their children because they had no idea how hazardous these window coverings with cords could be. They were told to use “safety kits or safety tassels.” They were told to “tie their cords out of reach, as I did myself.” They were told that tie down devices were safe but didn’t realize that they could break or become weak in the wall after a year of use. Many of these parents followed child proofing safety guidelines given on the product instructions, found on a website, in a doctors office or read a magazine article. The problem remains today, misinformation, inaccuracy in details of child proofing. Confident large manufactures promising that their window coverings are “safer” because they are newer.
Is this a vicious vendetta against the makers of window coverings? No. In fact we are supporting many manufactures who have decided to take the safety plunge and develop products that are truly child safe! PFWBS is spreading truth about how to keep children safe. This is about saving the lives of future children whose parents are misguided and uninformed. Are corded window coverings SAFE? No they are not, especially if you have one of those rambunctious kids who love to climb on things. They are not safe because we don’t know what our children are capable of. We don’t know until it is too late.
Maybe you are wondering why after 10 years we are still pressing on. Maybe I have not gotten “over” my daughters death. Maybe I am the type that needs to cling to the grief card so I can win as much sympathy from the public or my friends that I can. Maybe I just can’t live with the guilt. None of these are true. The truth is God has given me the healing and the peace I need to make it through this life without my Cheyenne Rose. God has given me the grace I need to talk to other parents who have recently lost their children so that they know they are not alone and they too can make it through life without their child. God has given me the strength I need to keep pressing on so that I can give my surviving children the best part of me that I can.
Why then am I writing this? This is for those who either have heard about the dangers of window cords but don’t believe it would happen to them and to those who have no idea how dangerous cords can be to children in the home. I am asking, as a mother, an advocate, and a friend please, replace your window coverings in your home with panels, curtains, roller shade, cordless window covering such as a blind, roman shade, etc. Start with your child’s bedroom and work outward from there. I am asking that you forward our website information on to your family, friends, loved ones.
This November PFWBS wants to see 10,000 likes on its Facebook page to represent those who have been properly educated on the facts of window covering safety. Please, go to our Facebook page and support us.
Mother of Cheyenne Rose
Founder of Parents for Window Blind Safety
The Real Myths and Facts about Window Covering Safety
Myth: A standard cannot be developed to eliminate the strangulation risk posed by window coverings.
Fact: It is entirely possible for a standard to be developed that eliminates the strangulation hazards posed by window coverings. This is evidenced by the fact that manufacturers have been selling products for several years that eliminate the strangulation hazard. Clearly, the technology already exists to address the hazard.
Myth: There is no universal technologic fix for all window coverings so strangulation issues cannot be addressed by the voluntary standard.
Fact: Different solutions can be applied to different products. As noted above, the technology to eliminate cords on window coverings already exists. Fixes for stock products exist and custom products are being sold in large retail stores today and several manufacturers offer cordless window coverings.
The real culprit is money. Manufactures don’t want significant changes to the voluntary standard because that would eliminate some (not all) of their product lines, thereby affecting their bottom line.
Myth: There is nothing more WCMA could do to eliminate the strangulation risk window coverings pose to children.
Fact: All WCMA has to do to eliminate or significantly reduce the risk of strangulation is to develop a standard that does not allow accessible, long cords. In other words, they simply need to develop a standard that keeps up with the products in the marketplace. However, as their latest draft of the voluntary standard demonstrates, the WCMA standard allows proliferation of the least safe products on the market instead of drafting the standard to the safest products currently feasible and available.
Myth: It is not true that 497 children have been killed or seriously injured by accessible cords on window coverings since 1983. The rate of injuries and deaths has been reduced since 1983.
Facts: Sadly, it is true that 497 children have been killed or injured by window coverings. While WCMA only acknowledges the 250 deaths from 1990 to 2010, the fatality data dates back to 1983 and since that time, there has been a total 497 deaths and injuries.
Also, while WCMA claims that from 2007-2010 the average accident rate had dropped to 8 incidents a year. According to CPSC data, from 2004-2010, there have been 147 incidents. This averages 21 incidents per year.
Myth: It is not true that one child per month is killed by a corded window blind.
Fact: In fact, it is true that on average, one child has died every month for the last 27 years as a result of being strangled by a corded window blind. Using the same database that WCMA relies upon, 250 divided by 20 years is 12.5 per year. Thus, the average death rate of 12 per year is proven by data that even WCMA relies upon from CPSC.
Myth: Educational campaigns are the answer to hazards posed by window coverings and window coverings are perfectly safe when used as directed.
Fact: Educational campaigns attempt to spread the word about dangerous corded window coverings; however, some people miss the message. In other words, educational campaigns are a “safety net,” but a net has holes. Educational campaigns do not capture consumers who do not read magazine ads and those who do not happen to be listening to the news during the 1-2 minute segment when window blind strangulation is discussed.
Furthermore, WCMA’s educational campaign fails to tell consumers that corded window coverings cannot be installed and safely used in homes with children since even blinds that meet their standard – in particular, those with long cords – can and have killed children. The core message – corded blinds are not safe for homes with children – is not found on product packaging which is the place a consumer may look for information at the time of purchase.
The fact that children continue to die at the same rate they died 20 years ago proves that these educational campaigns are not working effectively.
Myth: The WCMA Standard is the most stringent in the world and the latest proposed revision to those standards goes even further in minimizing potential risk.
Fact: Boasting that safety standards are the most stringent in the world does not mean that the standard effectively addresses the strangulation hazard, does not make window coverings in the United States safe, nor does it mean that the standard cannot be strengthened. WCMA’s “revised” standard makes only nominal changes (i.e., to warning labels and a durability test for tension devices) but products designed to meet this standard – and similar, past versions of the standard – have killed children and will certainly continue to do so.
Any significant changes that would actually lessen the risk of strangulation are omitted. Most notably, the revised WCMA standard permits long cords that can wrap around a child’s neck. Long cords can and have caused strangulation. In fact, 98 out of 125 incidents in the last 5 years were on long cords.
Thus, window coverings that comply with WCMA’s “most stringent standard in the world” can strangle children. This fact alone nullifies the notion that the revised standard has any practical significance in terms of potentially reducing the strangulation risk.
Myth: 80 percent of reported fatalities on window coverings involve older products that do not meet current safety standards.
Fact: CPSC data does not support this statement. While CPSC data shows that at least 1 child continues to strangle each month as a result of corded window blinds, WCMA does not use all of the CPSC data in their own accounting which explains why they state that the number of strangulation events is decreasing and that strangulations occur on older products.
In fact, WCMA only counts fatal strangulations; they discount strangulation incidents that were not fatal, including those that left children with permanent brain injuries. Additionally, their data set does not include CPSC In-Depth Investigation (IDI) reports that do not include pictures. Furthermore, fatality reports that are entered into CPSC’s data system after December of a given year are not counted and included in WCMA’s data set.
Myth: The voluntary standard process was fully open to consumer group participation and was transparent.
Fact: Consumer groups were allowed only limited involvement in the voluntary standards process. They were not permitted to participate in technical committees; technical committees are entirely comprised of industry members.
Consumer groups were allowed to serve on a “steering committee”. However, concerns and comments raised in “steering committee” meetings were ignored and suggestions made by Consumer group members were not incorporated into any aspect of the voluntary standard. Recognizing that their limited participation was for show, consumer groups withdrew from the process rather than continue to lend legitimacy to a highly flawed process.
As for transparency of the voluntary standard process, this was also lacking. WCMA withheld test data from the steering committee; WCMA removed a performance requirement for operational cords from a draft version of the standard; and consumer and industry members wanting to serve on technical committees and steering committees were denied inclusion by WCMA.
Deaths and injuries have been carefully compiled by PFWBS
Available on the web at http://parentsforwindowblindsafety.org/pdf/accidents2004-2010.pdf.
The government of Western Australia has awarded PFWBS AU the Western Australian Consumer Protection 2012 Award for educating the public about window covering dangers and establishing safer standard in the Industry.
PFWBS applauds John Williamson for his tireless efforts in Australia. John has been involved with PFWBS since 2006 when we wrote a comment on a article that was written about his granddaughter, Meesha, who was killed by a window blind cord that was improperly installed.
John Williamson, middle, accepting award.
Good Job John!!!
03 Mar / CPSC Chairman’s speech
Last week was the first week CPSC has said anything about the WCMA/ANSI standard that is under the canvass process as I am writing this. I wanted to share this with the world since I don’t think this will hit the papers.
14 Feb / Consumer Confusion
Every once in a while we will take a trip to the store and walk through the window covering section to see if things have changed on boxed window coverings. Today we walked through Kmart and found Nein Made window blinds in boxes of all sizes. All of the window blinds had the same packaging. On the front of the boxes it reads, “child safety wand enclosed” making it seem that there are no cords on the product. As we took a closer look at the product we found this on the back.
PFWBS objected to the 2011 ANSI standard written by the WCMA yesterday. There are numerous reasons why PFWBS rejected the standard.
The rest of the Industry has been kept in the dark about the facts by manufactures who stand to profit.
There are several news articles and emails going around with false information in them. Let me start with the WSJ article called A rule of Blind Injustice.
“The problem with blinds, according to safety advocates, is that the cords can be a temptation to young children, ensnaring or strangling them if they become entangled. While the industry has adopted voluntary standards for reducing the risk to children, the agency says that improving safety and reducing the hazard isn’t enough. It wants zero risk.”
April 8th will be a day I will never forget. As I was giving birth to my precious baby, a precious little boy named Gavin was passing away from the cords on a window covering. Gavin was almost 5 years old.
Consumer Groups Walk Out of Failed Window Covering Standards Process
Flawed Year –Long Process Has Not Eliminated Strangulation Risk
29 Nov / CPSC database approved last week.
Kudos to the CPSC!
Last week after a 3-2 vote, the CPSC approved a database required by the CPSC Safety Improvement act of 2008.
15 Nov / WCMA Stakeholder Meeting
This past week I attended the WCMA stakeholder meeting at the Consumer Product Safety Commission headquarters in Bethesda Maryland. During the meeting the Industry promised to “reduce or minimize” the hazards associated with window covering products. We believe that they can eliminate ALL hazards and so does Inez Tennenbaum.
CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum insisted consumer advocates be included on the committee updating the standard. But the advocates — including representatives of Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America and Parents for Window Blind Safety — say the rule was already written by the time they got involved and their votes to reject the rule had no effect. “It was window dressing to allow us to participate in the process,” says Carol Pollack-Nelson, a psychologist and consumer advocate.
Today I was at Big Lots looking around and found this roll up window blind.
20 Jun / Press release from CPSC meeting
Consumer Advocates Applaud Tri-Lateral Announcement to Eliminate Hazards Posed by Window Blinds: Urge Action Steps to Ensure Success | <urn:uuid:5ef4ad42-286d-4fca-b8a8-61c94562caf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parentsforwindowblindsafety.org/posts/safety-standards/ | 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 | 0.976118 | 6,159 | 1.625 | 2 |
JACKSON, MS (WLBT) - Wednesday wasn't just any day at the office for Jesse Thompson.
"Take 5 minutes, come back, and make a lot of people smile," said Thompson.
Every year, on the first Wednesday in September, the director of environmental assistance at the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality passes out roses to co-workers like Karen Stephens.
"It's extra special when it comes from good friends you've worked with over the years," said Stephens.
And Thompson's not the only one; he's one of millions worldwide who celebrate "Good Neighbor Day."
It all started back in 1994 at Greenbrook Flowers in Jackson, which gives away free roses by the dozen every year to mark the day. The idea is that you keep one, and give 11 to friends and neighbors.
"My dad started it, Brook Jacobs," said Gwen Colella, manager of Greenbrook Flowers. "He passed away two years ago, so we're keeping up the tradition."
It's a tradition, that's now celebrated throughout the U.S. and in six different countries.
"This really is a testament to the spirit, if you will, of our city," said Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson.
Every year, people line up outside Greenbrook before the doors open, waiting to receive roses so they can spread joy in the community. Pasty Johnson was first in line.
"There's so much love behind a rose. I always say, give me my flowers now, while I'm alive," said Johnson.
"It's symbolic. And it's very important for someone to come by and take the time to say, here is something, I appreciate you," said Thompson.
Greenbrook expects to give away 30,000 roses throughout the day. All are free, but Greenbrook is accepting donations for Blair E Batson Children's Hospital.
Last year, 20 million free roses were given out worldwide during the event. If 30 million are given out, the event will rival Valentine's Day.
©2010 WLBT. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:3d0f123a-1ef9-4069-9470-a9746990e754> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/13082633/folks-line-up-for-free-roses-on-good-neighbor-day | 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 | 0.966813 | 442 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Refugees and immigrants living in Clarkston are considered easy prey by criminals, said the city’s police chief during a recent meeting about crime prevention.
“All of our violent crimes that we’ve dealt with in the past five years have been [by people] from southwest and southeast Atlanta,” said Clarkston Police Chief Tony Scipio to a group of apartment managers, refugees and community leaders who want to reduce the crimes against refugees and immigrants.
“What we’re finding out from interviewing these suspects and perpetrators is that all eyes are on Clarkston because of the large influx of refugees and immigrants,” Scipio said. “They are easily preyed [upon].”
Scipio said that 69 percent of the crimes within the city limits are committed by nonresidents, many of whom live in the city of Atlanta.
Many criminals “plan their crime; they look at the area, they watch what you do every day,” Scipio said. “If you are not aware of your surroundings and your environment, and if you are not taking the necessary precautions, then eventually you’re going to become a victim, especially late at night.”
Scipio said many of the victims in Clarkston during the past three months were out late at night, small in stature and carrying large sums of money.
Scipio’s comments were part of a meeting during which Clarkston community leaders met with Clarkston and DeKalb law enforcement officials to discuss crime prevention in the city.
“Each of you represents a key piece in trying to solve the crime and safety issues that we’re all facing,” Susan Pavlin, director of policy for Refugee Family Services, told the group.
Officer K.C. Payton said that when residents do not care about their communities, “criminals will recognize that and they will move in and set up shop.”
“If you see any litterers, call 911,” Payton said. “If you see anybody that doesn’t belong in the community, call 911. If you have abandoned houses or abandoned cars, call code enforcement.”
Payton said criminals use tall hedges around houses to their advantage.
“Criminals can conceal themselves and actually work on your doors and go inside and go shopping, come out and nobody’s seen anything,” Payton said. “Don’t give a way for criminals to conceal themselves and thrive in your communities.”
Tonaya Moss, a public education specialist with the DeKalb Police Department, said communication is a key to preventing crimes.
“Communicate with the police,” Moss said. “If they don’t know what’s going on in your community they’re not going to show up. The communication starts with the residents.”
Because most neighborhoods do not have police officers living in them, residents must take on the responsibility of monitoring their own communities, Moss said.
“The residents see the incidents first,” Moss said. “They hear it. They see it. But the next step is to call 911.”
October is Crime Prevention Month in DeKalb County and Moss encouraged the group to set up neighborhood watch programs.
“You need a team of people to be nosy neighbors with you,” Moss said. “We know there’s crime. Without your help it’s not going away.” | <urn:uuid:9a845edf-10d3-434d-9d98-73d6f3fe86f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.championnewspaper.com/news/articles/1131clarkston-leaders-focus-on-preventing-crimes-against-refugees-1131.html?comment_id=3892 | 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 | 0.968377 | 745 | 1.84375 | 2 |
An artist friend's advice to me on statements once was "Write it as if you were telling a good friend about the work for the first time"
From an article by Dan Fox titled "Serious Business: What does it mean to be a professional artist" over at Frieze:
Working for a contemporary art magazine, I get sent a vast amount of press material each day, almost all of which employs a strikingly similar tone of voice. Most common is the one of academic solemnity infused with a barely veiled aggression, as though art were engaged in some cultural ‘war on terror’. Words such as ‘forcing’, ‘interrogating’ or ‘subverting’ occur with incredible frequency. Boundaries are ‘broken down’ and ‘preconceptions challenged’ so often as to make subversion and radicality seem like a mandatory daily chore rather than a blow to the status quo. They perpetuate old-fashioned notions, such as that of the artist visionary liberating the masses from mental enslavement by bourgeois values. Overuse has made these words sound strangely toothless, for what’s at stake in the art is often less important (but not necessarily without value) than the language suggests.
This may seem like nit-picking when global capital is collapsing around our ears. Sure, the follies of art-speak are easy to laugh at, but often criticism of it begins and ends with a dismissive chuckle – which ignores profounder problems. Why should academic terminology be the default vehicle for discussing art? Why is there such an emphasis on newness, schism and radicality? Even when the art itself may be enjoyably throwaway, language pins it to deathlessly auratic registers of exchange. This suggests a subliminal fear that, if the subject in question is not talked up as Big and Culturally Significant, then the point of fussing over it in the first place might be called into question, bringing the whole house of cards tumbling down.
Read the whole piece here. | <urn:uuid:32627a27-60f5-4ef3-9116-afed53f07b03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wecanshoottoo.blogspot.com/2009/03/artspeak-statements.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963506 | 418 | 1.804688 | 2 |
3000 West Cement Plant Road
Clarkdale, AZ 86324
The Clarkdale Plant was established in 1959 under the ownership of American Cement Corporation and was acquired by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in 1987. The original purpose for the plant was to supply cement for the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam in
In 1997 efforts began on a renovation of the existing plant. By the end of 2002 the renovation was complete and a new kiln, preheater, clinker cooler, coal mill, raw mill, and finish mill were commissioned into service. The single preheater kiln line replaced three outdated old kiln lines and reduced energy requirements by almost 50%. The new mills are all vertical roller mills which operate at 40% less power consumption than the old mill systems. This translates to running at 44% less fuel energy/ton of clinker. These modifications produced a more energy efficient plant with reduced air emissions and water usage.
The Clarkdale Plant earned the ENERGY STAR plant certification for the first time in 2007. | <urn:uuid:01577a9b-4033-417d-9e22-a2d658c78f9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=labeled_buildings.showPlantProfile&S_CODE=ALL&PROFILES=0&ALSO_SEARCH_ID=NONE&VIEW=&STR=&PAGE=1&OWNER_ID=&BUILDING_TYPE_ID=ALL%20PLANTS&MINI=&CITY=&STARTNUM=1&YEAR=&ZIP=&FILTER_B_ID=p_57&plantprofile_id=p_57 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950178 | 215 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently released recommendations against the use of hormone replacement therapy in menopausal women for the prevention of chronic disease. The May recommendation, released to help guide clinicians and their patients, was an update to previously released recommendations on the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
New recommendations for HRT create additional patient confusion
It is hard to imagine that June—and with it, the annual ASMBS (American Society of Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery) conference—is upon us again. The conference is taking place during an exciting time for the bariatric industry, which is anxiously awaiting a new set of bariatric Center of Excellence (CoE) recommendations next year. The last few months alone have seen a number of developments in bariatrics—most notably the merger of the ASMBS and ACS (American College of Surgeons) bariatric surgery accrediting bodies. Suffice to say, our team is eager for a chance to hear first-hand from clinicians and other national champions at the meeting this week.
Here, we have outlined what we are most looking forward to.
Preview to ASMBS 2012 - key topics to watch for in bariatric surgery | <urn:uuid:5d499cbb-e391-4516-91ab-76b48c27a452> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advisory.com/Research/Technology-Insights/The-Pipeline?filterTopicID=%7BC072620C-6A90-441B-BBB4-EDEF67DDB81D%7D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943454 | 250 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Most Americans support the right to use deadly force to protect themselves -- even in public places -- and have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association, the main gun-lobby group, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
However, there was also strong support from respondents for background checks as well as limiting the sale of automatic weapons and keeping guns out of churches, stores and workplaces.
The online survey showed that 68 percent, or two out of three respondents, had a favorable opinion of the NRA, which starts its annual convention in St. Louis, Missouri, on Friday.
Eighty-two percent of Republicans saw the gun lobbying group in a positive light as well as 55 percent of Democrats, findings that run counter to the perception of Democrats as anti-NRA.
Most of the 1,922 people surveyed nationwide from April Monday through Thursday said they supported laws that allow Americans to use deadly force to protect themselves from danger in their own home or in a public place.
"Americans do hold to this idea that people should be allowed to defend themselves and using deadly force is fine, in those circumstances," said pollster Chris Jackson. "In the theoretical ... there's a certain tolerance of vigilantism."
The poll was conducted amid a nationwide debate over gun rights and race after the Florida shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood crime watch volunteer who is white and Hispanic.
The poll results were welcomed by the NRA, which is one of the most powerful lobby groups in the country and regularly clashes with anti-gun groups and often with Democrats as it seeks to protect and expand gun rights across the United States.
"Regardless of how others try to distort our position, the general public knows where we stand," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. "It shows the failure of the continuing efforts of many to try and discredit the National Rifle Association."
Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, spoke to the convention on Friday, vowing to reverse what he calls the restrictive gun policies of President Barack Obama's administration.
"We need a president who will stand up for the rights of hunters, sportsmen, and those seeking to protect their homes and their families," he said. "President Obama has not. I will."
Eighty-seven percent of respondents -- with high numbers among both Republicans and Democrats -- supported the use of deadly force to protect themselves from danger in their home.
Two-thirds said they backed laws permitting the use of deadly force to protect themselves in public.
Gun restrictions needed, most say
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, nearly 100,000 people are shot every year in the United States in murders, suicides, accidents or police intervention.
Government statistics show 31,347 people died in the United States in 2009 from gunshots, including 11,493 in homicides.
Ninety-one percent of those who responded to the survey agreed on the need for background checks before a firearm can be sold. Only 6 percent said they thought gun ownership should require no, or very few restrictions.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they supported limiting the sale of automatic weapons, and 62 percent oppose bringing firearms into churches, workplaces or stores.
"A fairly large number of Americans support strong regulation, or at least moderate regulation of gun ownership," said Jackson. "Which is sort of counter to the narrative you often hear that legislators can't touch our guns or you'll have to pay."
Nearly half of those surveyed felt crime rates were rising where they lived - even though FBI statistics show that violent crime has declined for the past 4 1/2 years.
NYTimes: NRA gathers amid growing storm over gun laws
"People's perception of crime always over-represents reality," said Jackson. "I think that indicates the mind frame that the American public is in - there's always a constant low-level worrying about street crime."
As a result, 85 percent of those polled said they did not believe police could stop all crime and 77 percent felt regular people had to "step up" to help prevent crime from happening.
The survey included 650 Republicans, 752 Democrats and 520 independents. The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online poll is measured using a credibility interval and this poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for all respondents.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Zimmerman to seek bond in Trayvon Martin case
- Newark Mayor Corey Booker saves neighbor from fire
- 3 killed at Ohio Cracker Barrel
- 4 feet of hail in Texas? Photos, reports cause quite a storm | <urn:uuid:5616b6d4-672a-43f0-bd7a-a166954b3a81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/13/11187222-poll-most-amercians-support-nra-right-to-protect-self-but-also-a-few-gun-limits?threadId=3394210&commentId=64620373 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962834 | 946 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Zareinu is a Jewish Day School and Treatment Centre, which provides special education and individualized therapies to children with a wide range of physical and developmental challenges.
We believe that "special" children are valuable members of the community and have the right to receive an adapted education, opportunities for improving life skills, communication strategies, and respect for their individual strengths. We believe the family is an integral part of our efforts and their input is treated with respect. We encourage parental participation in planning individual programs. We believe that every child has potential. We believe in a coordinated, cooperative effort to develop and provide therapies and learning strategies that will improve the quality of life for each child and family.
We strive to battle prejudice and encourage inclusion through opportunities for supported integration whenever possible.
We advocate for acceptance of children with special needs in the community.
A setting rich in Jewish tradition and teachings
On-site therapy and education
Programs that meet the unique needs of children from birth to 21 years of age
A model teaching center for Universities and Community Colleges
Offers the most up-to-date therapeutic techniques as well as creates new and innovative strategies | <urn:uuid:7df0dabd-b96c-47b2-a853-cdba37658675> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.charitybids.com/upcoming.php?stage=view_item&ID=11622&pnm=16&SortBy=&Location=&Celebrity=&Category=&keywords=&CharityID=&rcount= | 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 | 0.936214 | 232 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The previous sections have included descriptions of the University’s main efforts to hear from students and alumni about their impressions of the impact of a University of Michigan education on them and on their lives, including the University’s 2008 survey of graduating seniors, our 2009 survey of alumni, and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). To speak to the usefulness of the University’s curricula, in this section we will highlight the feedback we’ve received from students and alumni about the overall quality of the educational experience. We will also touch on their responses to items specific to their ability to live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society. In addition to data from the surveys mentioned above, we will draw upon information from instruments not yet mentioned in the report, such as the “Survey of Doctoral Recipients” and the University Career Center’s First Destination Survey. In addition, we will touch on institutional rankings, school and college advisory boards, and some of the important feedback we received from alumni and donors who participated in a series of focus groups as part of the University’s preparations for the reaccreditation review.
Graduating Senior Survey
The survey of graduating seniors that the University conducted in the spring of 2008 was described in the section on Future (see summary report and full report). Of the 4,950 seniors the University invited to participate, 1,673 of them chose to respond, for a 34% response rate. The survey posed questions about students’ career and graduate school plans; acquired skills; debt and costs; and research, international, and community service experiences.
With respect to their educational experiences, most respondents (87%) reported having gained research experience through their coursework, lab work, or participation in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. About 70% of the respondents studied a foreign language for more than three terms, 75% had enrolled in a class with an intentional focus, and just over 50% traveled abroad as undergraduates. The vast majority (83%) of respondents also participated in some kind of community service or outreach activity.
With respect to their immediate and future plans, of the 60% of respondents who said they planned to work right after graduation, half of them (or 30% of the total) had secured a job by the time they completed the survey. Compared to the 89% who expressed plans to get an additional degree at some point, another 33% of respondents were headed to graduate or professional school right away.
With regard to respondents’ perceptions about how well their University experiences had prepared them for life after graduation, there were several key findings (see figure below). The respondents said the University helped them, in particular, to improve their intellectual skills, particularly critical thinking, and their ability to apply knowledge from their majors, acquire new skills on their own, and to judge the value of information. Responding seniors were also very positive about their ability to work in teams, and their ability to get along with people from all backgrounds. The respondents also indicated that the University prepared them live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society.
College Senior Survey
As mentioned earlier in this report, in the spring of 2008 the Division of Student Affairs conducted the College Senior Survey for the second year in a row, with plans to administer it annually. This survey is a complement to the First Year Student Survey the University has administered for many years through the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). The College Senior Survey asks students about their college experiences, including whether they feel prepared to live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society.
With respect to survey items related to students’ ability to live and work in a diverse society, results of the University’s 2008 survey of graduating seniors show that the majority of graduating students socialized with someone of a different racial or ethnic group (55.7%), took an ethnic studies course (58.3%), or had a roommate of a different race or ethnicity (58.9%). In addition, some respondents participated in a racial or ethnic student organization (24.1%). With regard to the students’ satisfaction with their University experience, most respondents were also satisfied with leadership opportunities (72.2%), the relevance of their coursework to their future career plans (62.6%) and career counseling (50.5%), and 43.5% were satisfied with the University’s job placement services for students. With regard to the degree to which the respondents felt they had acquired knowledge and skills since high school, substantial portions of the respondents reported “much stronger” skills in the areas of critical thinking (49.8%), preparedness for graduate education (42.2%) or employment (36.7%), knowledge of people of difference races or cultures (34.6%), and understanding of global issues (29.4%). In addition, some said that their professors frequently provided them with opportunities to apply their classroom learning to “real-life” issues (20%). Overall, over 90% of the respondents said that if they could make their college choice over again, they would enroll at the University of Michigan.
National Survey of Student Engagement
The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) is administered periodically by the Office of Budget and Planning to freshmen and seniors in an effort to gauge students’ experiences in college, inside and outside the classroom. In 2003, approximately 750 University freshmen and seniors participated in the survey. Overall, the respondents were quite satisfied with their educational experiences. Compared to the survey averages at similar research universities and all participating institutions, University of Michigan students gave significantly higher ratings to their experience. Specifically, 51% seniors and 43% of freshmen reported that they had an “excellent” educational experience at the University. An additional 47% of freshmen and 39% of seniors had a “good” education experience. More than 85% of seniors and freshmen stated that they would “definitely” or “probably” enroll at the University of Michigan if they were to start over again.
University Alumni Survey
In spring of 2009, the University conducted a survey of six cohorts of undergraduate alumni: The classes of 2004, 2005, and 2006, representing a 3-5 year timeframe since graduation, and the classes of 1998, 1999, and 2000, representing a 9-11 year timeframe. Just over 3,000 alumni chose to participate, who appear representative in their distribution across the schools and colleges from which they graduated (see 2009 Alumni report). After 9-11 years out, 86% of the University of Michigan alumni respondents were employed. Of this group, over half of them worked in private industry (56%), about 19% worked in the public sector, and 17% worked for private non-profit organizations. Another four percent were self-employed or working in their own businesses.
When asked to assess how well the University prepared them for their chosen career, respondents reported positively, with 85% saying “very well” or “generally well” (see below). This positive assessment was true among both groups of alumni, those who graduated more recently as well as those who had been out about a decade.
Similarly, when alumni who had continued with further study were asked about the preparation provided by the University, 87% reported that they were well prepared for graduate or professional school (below).
Focus Groups with Alumni, Parents, and Donors
Out of a commitment to hear from the University’s constituencies as part of its preparations for the reaccreditation review, the Accreditation Team convened multiple discussion groups of University parents, alumni, and donors. Discussion topics included internationalization; outreach and service; research, professional, and creative activities; and student learning. People in these discussion groups responded to questions about the involvement of undergraduate students in research and creative activities, ways the University should prepare its student to become global citizens, and how best to integrate international and intercultural dimensions into the curriculum.
Among other items, the parents commented positively on the University’s effect on their children’s ability to choose a career direction, be global citizens, develop social skills, engage in leadership, receive both a practical and broad education, and experience the rewards of being involved directly in research. The alumni discussion group on research, professional, and creative activities commented on the importance of students being constructively engaged, having their viewpoints challenged and exploring new ones, learning through hands-on activities, being informed about faculty members’ activities outside the classroom, making professional connections with faculty members, and benefitting from the overall package of what students learn during their time at the University. In discussions with donors on the same topic, discussion participants commented enthusiastically on the research experiences their children had as University undergraduates. A number of them offered specific examples of the benefits their children received, including winning an award, how committed the faculty members were, the interdisciplinary nature of the work, the opportunity to interact with faculty, and the ways in which the students’ involvement in research grounded them for the entire University experience. Other benefits mentioned were the chance to connect with prestigious professors, the effect of research opportunities on the University’s ability to recruit high quality undergraduates, and the ways in which such involvement transforms students’ perceptions and their career plans.
Survey of Doctoral Recipients
Each year the Rackham Graduate School solicits the views of its students who are completing their doctorates to learn about the quality of their academic and student life during their time at the University. Rackham then groups their responses into multi-year cohorts by the four divisions: Biological and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, Social Sciences, and Humanities and the Arts. For the cohort of doctoral graduates who completed their degrees between August 2003 and April 2008 (the 2004-2008 cohort), the overall response rate was 61% (from a total of 3,642 doctoral recipients during this time period).
Responses of the cohort to the question, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your experience in graduate school at U-M?”, show that a strong majority of doctoral recipients (80%) expressed satisfaction with their experience, and only a very small percentage (4%) said they were dissatisfied. Below is a table that shows responses from this cohort to the same question by division, which reveals only minor differences.
These results show strong levels of overall satisfaction among recent doctoral recipients. Comparisons with the 1999-2003 cohort show slightly higher levels of overall satisfaction among doctoral recipients in the 2004-2008 cohort (e.g., 76% satisfied and 6% dissatisfied in the 1999-2003 cohort).
First Destination Survey
Each year, six to nine months after commencement, the University Career Center administers its First Destination Survey to recent graduates from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and to the Schools of Education, Music, Theatre & Dance, Nursing, and Social Work. These schools participate in this survey because they do not conduct a first destination survey of their own. The survey, which elicits on average about a 35% response rate, helps the University to better understand what students have chosen to do following graduation. The survey questions address issues such as each respondent’s chosen field, geographic location, career potential and continuing education. The resultant data is shared with individual departments, employers, students, and the media.
Central administrative offices and the schools and colleges have various advisory boards to communicate with and hear from current students, and from employers and people who have a vested interest in the nature and quality of the education that our students are receiving to prepare them for future employment and life activities. A few examples of advisory groups that provide students with an important voice in working to continually improve the University’s education and experience for students are below.
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
The college provides students in the LSA Student Government with the opportunity to help enhance the undergraduate experience through housing the organization in a new, permanent office in the college’s largest classroom complex, and through active collaboration with several LSA Student Government groups, including those below.
Ross School of Business
The Ross School of Business has numerous advisory groups that help to connect students, faculty, and staff so they can work together in the interest of students. Two examples are:
College of Engineering
The College of Engineering has several advisory groups that include or are made up of students, a few of which are described below:
Other Advisory Groups
In addition to advisory groups established by the schools and colleges, advisory groups also exist at the central administration level (provost and other executive officers), often with a more outward focus on societal needs.
The University of Michigan receives high marks from publications and organizations that have methodologies in place to rank universities, as shown by the example rankings below:
The Office of Budget and Planning provides a summary of the University’s institutional rankings for the University overall and for its departments. Most of this information is from sources that use the results of surveys of university administrators and/or the faculty as the basis for rankings of academic reputation of institutions and programs. This indicator of academic quality is commonly used by publishers of college rankings.
The section on Mission described many policies that also apply to matters of intellectual integrity addressed in this section of the report. Below we will highlight key University policies that are related to the University’s expectations for its faculty and students to act with academic integrity; we will also describe the general process by which the University identities and resolves questionable actions, instances of noncompliance, and policy violations. We end this section with a focus on resources for educating, resolving, monitoring and, where necessary, disciplining members of the community in such situations.
Policy Statement on the Integrity of Scholarship
Integrity in scholarship and teaching is a fundamental value upon which the University is founded. The Policy Statement on the Integrity of Scholarship describes the principles underlying the University’s commitment to integrity in scholarship. It emphasizes the responsibilities of faculty, staff, students, and administration in this regard, and describes major offenses in misconduct. It also includes the companion “Procedures for Investigating Allegations of Misconduct in the Pursuit of Scholarship and Research.”
As stated in the policy, it is a fundamental responsibility of members of the University community to maintain the trust of the public, to effectively address cases of academic misconduct, and to preserve the University’s high standards of scholarly integrity, and, in this way, its reputation. Misconduct in the pursuit of scholarship and research includes the fabrication of data, plagiarism, abuse of confidentiality, falsification in research, dishonesty in publication, deliberate violation of regulations, property violations, failure to report observed major offenses, or taking punitive action against an individual for having reported alleged major offenses. The procedures document provides the steps that the University takes when an alleged case of misconduct surfaces.
Academic and Professional Integrity
The Rackham Graduate School’s Academic and Professional Integrity Policy applies to all Rackham students, who make up half of all graduate and professional students at the University. This policy articulates the key principle that a clear sense of academic honesty and responsibility is fundamental to the University’s scholarly community and that, to this end, the University expects its students to demonstrate honesty and integrity in all their academic activities. Students do so by maintaining high standards of conduct while engaged in course work, research, dissertation or thesis preparation, and other activities related to academics and their profession.
The policy also describes some of the key roles that graduate students hold: scholar/researcher, teacher, supervisor of employees, representative to the public (of the University, the discipline, and/or the profession), professional colleague, and provider of client services. Because students take on multiple roles in multiple settings, some types of conduct are both academic and professional in nature--hence, the inclusive nature of the policy. The policy also emphasizes the responsibilities that faculty members and administrators have for holding students accountable for the high standards of integrity the policy articulates, and for serving as role models in this regard. This expectation applies in courses and in all research settings.
Offenses against the standards of academic integrity include cheating; plagiarism; falsification or improper representation of data; dishonesty in publication; abuse of confidentiality; misuse of academic records, computer facilities, human subjects, or vertebrate animals; illegally or carelessly obtaining, using, or providing dangerous substances; obstruction of academic activities; attempting, aiding, or abetting academic misconduct; and other forms of academic misconduct that are commonly accepted within the scientific community. Finally, the policy states that violations of these important standards may result in serious consequences for students, including immediate disciplinary action and future professional disrepute.
The policy refers to the companion “Procedures for Reporting and Investigating Allegations of Academic and Professional Misconduct by Graduate Students.”
Other Honor Codes or Academic Integrity Policies
All schools and colleges have honor codes and/or integrity policies in place that are available online; a summary list is maintained on a website managed by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.
To ensure that the University’s faculty, staff, and students act with integrity and responsibly, a multi-layered system is in place for identifying and responding to questionable activities, alleged instances of non-compliance, or alleged violations of policy. There are five basic stages in this process:
The resources the University provides to educate faculty, staff, and students were described in detail in the section on Mission, so only a list of these activities is provided here. | <urn:uuid:4a8af427-0eaf-4daf-9544-8c2346d29342> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://accreditation.umich.edu/know/index4.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966007 | 3,603 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Tawra’s Debt Reduction Story, Part 2 – "The Rest of the Story"
(written in 2005)
Most people know our story about paying off $20,000 in 5 years on an average $22,000 annual income. If you haven’t read it, read it here.
Since then we have had more debt and paid it off/are still paying it off. Here is the rest of our story: When we lived in Idaho, Mike ended up working a job 100 miles from home. Because his new job was so far from home, we decided to sell our house intending to move closer to his job. We had the house on the market for 3 1/2 years while living in Idaho (from September 1996-January 2000). Mike got laid off from his job in October 1999. In December 1999, despite the layoff, we paid off our debt, the last of the original $20,000 .
Mike looked for a job until April 2000. He couldn’t find one in the area and we couldn’t sell our house. We finally decided to leave the Pacific Northwest and move to Manhattan, Kansas to be closer to my brother. He and his family lived 2 ½ hours away in Wichita and needed help remodeling their home. We had to leave the house in Idaho vacant and hope that it would sell eventually. (Mom was still living in Idaho and she was also trying to sell her house to move back to the Midwest.) Until it sold we had to pay $400 a month for the house, even though we didn’t live in it.
The rental market was not good in the small Idaho town and renting the house would not have come close to paying the mortgage and expenses. We paid for our moving expenses from Idaho which came to $2,500 and included deposits for our rental house in Kansas and other related expenses.
At that time, we had two kids, one and two years old. For a while, we were stuck with two house payments: $400 per month for our house in Idaho and $500 monthly rent in Kansas. Mike worked a job making $9.00 an hour so, of the $1500 we earned each month, almost three quarters went to making house payments. We had $600 left for everything else.
Mike’s county government job didn’t have health insurance benefits. We did get some WIC for 9 months and put the kids on state medical for a few months but we didn’t get any other assistance. Our house finally sold in 2000. We sold it for $12,000 less than we paid for it because we realized that it would probably cost less to take the loss at that time than to keep paying the mortgage and getting further into debt. We had to write a check to the buyers for $8,000. To say it made us sick to our stomachs is an understatement!
When mom sold her house, she lost $25,000, so our loss wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We survived for a year on $1500 a month and then $1700 a month until Mike got a better paying job in April 2001 at a TV station in Wichita, Kansas. He was getting $28,000 per year then. We were praying very hard that we would be able to find a house to buy so we wouldn’t have to rent again.
The two rental houses that we had from April 2000-April 2001 were horrid, but with two house payments, we could not afford better. It was so incredibly stressful living in houses that the landlords didn’t want to maintain. Our family was also very sick much of that time. Not long before moving out of the first rental, we discovered mold growing around a pool of water in the crawl space under the house. In the second house, a six inch baseboard fell off the living room wall one day and the back side was covered edge to edge with black mold. God was so good. When Mike got his job in Wichita, we found a 1600 square foot two bedroom house in Wichita that had been recently remodeled. It was even the exact colors that I wanted on the outside!! It’s funny because God really does give us the desires of our hearts!
We didn’t have a down payment and we had $10,500 in debt so we had no clue how we were going to buy it. We soon found out that there was a new program that helped people get home loans for 0% down and roll closing costs into the loan, so we bought the house. We were so excited to have our own place again! Our moving expenses from Manhattan to Wichita were $1,000.
Over the next two years, we had several other large expenses that we couldn’t afford. Mike’s job was not working out well and he was frustrated that he wasn’t earning as much money as we needed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in the video business anymore because the financial outlook for video producers in Kansas wasn’t great. He opted for career counseling which cost us $1,200. Our washing machine and refrigerator both died shortly after we bought the house. Total cost $1,000. Both of the cars needed major repair work in one year, which cost $2,500 more than we had.
When baby #3 was coming along, we bought another house with more bedrooms for about the same price. Almost immediately, the refrigerator died in it, costing us $900.00. We got all that paid off ($17,000) in August of 2003 and again had no debt except out mortgage.
Then in December 2003, one of our cars needed a repair that would have cost more than buying another car. We bought a used Taurus station wagon on Ebay for $6,000, financing it on a credit card at zero percent interest. After our 3rd child was born in 2003, we incurred major medical bills because he had food allergies that went undiagnosed for a year. We spent $3,000 while we were trying to figure out what was wrong with him. We also had to pay cash for all our prescriptions (Thank the Good Lord for Canadian drugs because our insurance didn’t have prescription coverage.We were paying about $300 a month cash for prescriptions. If it wasn’t for Canadian pharmacies, we would have had to pay over $800 for the drugs here!
We are currently working on getting the car and medical expenses paid off. We concluded that our problem hasn’t been overspending; it has been lack of income. There is a point where you can’t "cut back" any more and you just have to make more money. Our family has been "under – resourced” as one of our readers put it. We are working on that part so that we can include unexpected costs in the budget. So here is a summary of the rest of the story: $17,000 paid off between 2000-2003 $8,000-Loss on house sold in Idaho $1,200- Mike career counseling $2,500- Moving expenses to Manhattan, KS $1,000- More moving expenses to Wichita, KS $1,900- Washing machine and two refrigerators $2,500- Car Repairs We paid off this $17,000 on an average $28,000 income from 2000 to 2003. Gross Income 2000-2003
Average 2000-2003 annual income: $28,500
We didn’t pay off the debt as fast the second time for several reasons: Our medical expenses did go up around $500-$1500 depending on the year. We also had the baby on special formula that cost over $200 a month for one year, because of his food allergies. When we moved from Idaho to Kansas our:
Utilities went from $75 to $200 – up $1500 a year
House payment went from $625 per month in Idaho to $800-$900 per month in Kansas – up $2100-$3300 a year, both because of a stronger house market in Kansas and because our family was larger in Kansas Food went from $125 to $250 – up $1500 a year We also have purchased more convenience items than during the first big debt payoff because I have been sicker than usual for the last several years. We didn’t buy a lot of convenience stuff, but we did buy more $5 dinner take out from the grocery store and a few things for the house to “make life easier”. These costs did not add to the debt, but they did make the debt payoff take longer than before.
Our debt as of Summer 2005: This is what we still have to pay off: $6,000- Most recent car replacement $3,000-Extra medical bills (June 03-Jan. 05) By the way, in case you’re wondering why we haven’t received much income from the book business, it is largely because I am only able to work a few hours a week on it because I am chronically ill and, unfortunately, books don’t sell themselves. We are making changes to the publishing business and hopefully we will be able to make more income from it. Anyway, that is the rest of the story. Tawra
Update 2010- at this point we are completely out of debt except our house, which we are working to rapidly pay off in 3-5 years. Mike is currently working full time for Living On A Dime. It is doing better, but he still works 2 other part-time jobs to bring more income. Tawra
From: Dig Out Of Debt
photo by: Alan Cleaver | <urn:uuid:c0096da5-99a5-4555-99b6-8c94b11fcf42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingonadime.com/tawras-debt-reduction-story-part-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987168 | 2,008 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Dr. Ken Fujise shares secrets to longevity, plus latest advances in stem cell research. Early to bed, early to rise — everyone knows that old adage. Not many of us take it to heart. Japanese-born Fujise does. He spent his childhood in Yamagata with his grandfather, who was in the Japanese Navy. “He always taught me that to be healthy, you have to get up early and go to bed early,” recalls Fujise. “He said it’s best way to be productive. I did not forget that lesson.” Fujise, who came to Galveston five years ago and is director of the division of cardiology at UTMB, is well known by his colleagues as a man who lives an extremely disciplined, yet amazingly healthy and energetic life. His patients benefit most from his philosophy of life and medicine. | <urn:uuid:e35ed6b7-2240-40f2-b698-bade052b4168> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/newsroom/article8296.aspx | 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 | 0.985738 | 179 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Facebook engineering bootcamp is a unique new joiner initiation program that the company is very proud about, and well know for. The latest video from Facebook gives more insight into the program shedding light on what it is like to join the company as a new engineer.
A selection of former bootcampers discuss the program, which is a mandatory six week intensive course taken by each and every single new engineer – whether they are a fresh college graduate or director – to bring them up to speed with the company, its code-base, culture and people.
It’s particularly interesting to hear from those that ‘hit the ground running’ and found themselves working to fix problems that affected the social network’s 750 million users right from the get-go.
More details of Facebook’s Engineering Bootcamp can be found on the Facebook page. | <urn:uuid:72df3c7a-e4ce-4374-8a5c-3d448e7abfa3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techdiem.com/2011/10/10/revealed-details-of-bootcamp-all-new-facebook-engineers-complete-video/ | 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 | 0.959068 | 175 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Current Temp 73.0 °F
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Gold Star Mothers honored in the Mohawk Valley
WHITESBORO, N.Y. (WKTV) - We all know Mother's Day is celebrated in May, but this SUnday is set aside every year for Gold Star Mothers.
Gold Star Mothers are moms who have lost a son or a daughter in war.
A wreath laying ceremony was held Sunday at the Pitcher Street Post Office in Utica.
Afterward, the 11 moms being honored gathered for a dinner at Hart's Hill Inn in Whitesboro.
President Thomas Buono of the VVA Chapter 944 said, "We want to make sure everyone remembers the sacrifices that their sons have given so that we enjoy the freedoms that we have today in this country."
The Gold Star Mothers were invited to speak at the dinner.
Members of the Rome High School Choir performed a special version of the Pledge of Allegiance. | <urn:uuid:8439fe72-cb50-4dee-b5a1-229dc157259a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wktv.com/community/news/Gold-Star-Mothers-honored-in-the-Mohawk-Valley-172015891.html | 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 | 0.936777 | 225 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Growing up in an immigrant family meant constant saving, eating everything on your plate, and being grateful for everything you had. My parents had fled massive deprivation, arriving in this country undernourished and fearful. They arrived with a few possessions which were divided into “everyday” and “for good,”–to be used only on special occasions. Over time, we had “good” dishes, silverware, and table linens as well as the everyday stainless steel and wash-and-use tablecloths.
Birthdays and celebrations weren’t “good” enough for the special dishes. Most of the use came at serious achievements or life milestones. So rare were these occasions that I my eyes would tear up when I saw the “good dishes” being washed because I was certain someone had died and we were using the dishes for a memorial service.
When I was 6 years old, my mother set me on the path of making “good” items for a hope chest. A hope chest was a cedar chest, purchased for a young girl and filled with items to be used when she got married. Many parents purchased items for their daughters’ hope chest; I hand made all of mine. In those days you could buy towel linen, which you then stamped with a pattern and embroidered. I didn’t like the tiny, detailed flowers that required small, delicate stitches, so I often drew my own, simple patterns.
I learned to embroider and crochet, make tatted lace and do hemstitching. I was not clever at this, and many tears went into the projects. Often I pulled out what had taken hours to complete. Of course, the thread had to be used again. My mother supervised my work with a stern look toward the future–embroidered pillowcases and towels would save whatever disasters I got into.
The hope chest was full when I left my parents’ house, and I never used the towels. They were heavy linen, needed to be ironed, and I cringed when I looked at them.
Yesterday I found the towels in the bottom of the hope chest. It’s been many years since I made them and I’ve decided to use them now. Often. Every day. I don’t want them displayed at my funeral. I want them worn down with loving use. I won’t iron them, simply wash, dry and use them. If you save them for good, they will never get the use they were meant to take.
I no longer have “good” dishes. I use what I have every day. My embroidered tablecloths have stains and small burns from blown-out candles. Birthday, anniversary, holidays. My tablecloths, and now my towels, will be used for good–everyday good. Because when I put them on the table, it becomes a good day.
–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at RawArtJournaling.com | <urn:uuid:6107a92c-f517-46f2-a012-0cac0a148234> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quinncreative.wordpress.com/tag/hope-chest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979356 | 631 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I could just take one of the bullet points by itself, but I feel that the real secret that I identify with is hidden among several of these statements. Let me first list them.
"Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re
not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make
them a better stove instead.)"
"Listen to the right people. "
by observing the environment, infrastructure, culture and lives of people by being there."
Along with these truths, let me also state the truth I discovered while working on my missions, that the personal connection is more powerful than a symbolic gesture.
The wh*** point of the EVOKE network is that together we can solve problems that one person cannot even begin to solve. For a long time now I have believed that great things do happen by the sum of thousands of small actions. That is how economies act, how history is made. Of late, much has been made of trying to spark these small actions that add up to big things. Viral videos, crowdsourcing, and even slacktivism. Charities and commercial ventures know their power.
These are powerful, but somewhere along the way, it became acceptable for the average person to just share soundbites, clips, and links. Passing on information, wearing a ribbon, or posting a message in your forum signature. Awareness is important. Awareness can spark compassion. But awareness without true knowledge is weak, and knowing that people are "starving in Africa" as every American mom used to say a generation or two ago does not help put food in their mouths. It is true that a bunch of small donations can add up to a lot, but in an economic crisis, the average person does not feel secure spending much.
Most of my life, I've been a water droplet, trying to swim in a useful direction and convincing my neighbors to do the same, hoping to form a wave. I've been spreading awareness and donating when I felt I could. But doing these missions has shown me that hoping that the whim of the crowd follows the right direction is good, but not enough. I don't have as much money as I would like, but I have time and I have skills. What needs to be done is to identify tasks and then to identify people to help accomplish those tasks to form teams.
I've never been a leader, and I always thought only leaders could be social activists, and followers could only be donors. But every leader needs a team. I have yet not found my one call. I'll work on that in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, if there is a team who finds my skills worthwhile, please call on me. Let's take advantage of the burst of inspiration and the ease of communication, and let's make it sustain past the first spark.
I do not yet know how to succinctly describe my inspiring truth. For now, I will go with this: crowdsourcing is good, and an organized, communicating crowd is better. | <urn:uuid:8d6a3433-ba8e-45e6-a64e-e2836fb99deb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/the-secret-that-inspires | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970491 | 631 | 1.578125 | 2 |
"The saving grace for Kurri and hopefully the people who lost their jobs is the $1.7 billion dollar Hunter Expressway that is well under construction."
Kurri Kurri can survive the closure of its aluminium smelting plant: Jo Chivers
The recent news that the aluminium smelt is closing in Kurri Kurri, a town in the Hunter region of NSW, is very sad.
My thoughts go out to the 350 or so workers who will be looking for new jobs or being forced to retire over the next three months as the business winds down. The plant is blaming a lethal combination of prolonged record high trading of the Australian dollar and low metal prices. Ironically, the announcement coincides with the Australian dollar slump to a six-month low off the back of the situation in Europe, but the slump has come too late to help this business.
So how is this going to impact the local property market? More importantly, will this impact the property market at all? Of course it will, I hear them saying – but let’s take a closer look at this town and the underlying fundamentals.
Kurri is a small town with a population of just 14,000 at the last census. However, its close proximity to much larger towns has made it a popular place to live for those who like the peacefulness of a small town. It’s only 14 kilometres away from Cessnock, a major tourist and retail hub with a population of 46,000 and 13 kilometres away from Maitland– the fastest-growing inland town of NSW with a population of 63,000.
Kurri is certainly not located in the “middle of nowhere”.
So the big question is how many of the 350 people who lost their jobs actually live in Kurri? I’m going to ask the local property managers this question to establish the possible impact on the vacancy rates. But will they need to vacate at all?
Can people still continue to live in Kurri and work elsewhere? The answer is yes.
The saving grace for Kurri and hopefully the people who lost their jobs is the $1.7 billion dollar Hunter Expressway that is well under construction, currently employing about 800 staff directly on the project and more than 400 subcontractors.
This massive, four-lane freeway will have an interchange at Kurri. This means that the expressway will cut driving time considerably from Kurri to the mining towns on New England Highway and also to Newcastle and the F3. So people can still live in Kurri and work in the coal mines of Singleton – only an estimated 30-minute drive once the Hunter Expressway is completed – or even Muswellbrook, a further 40 minutes or so. A short 20-minute drive will bring them to Newcastle. Kurri is a more affordable rental market than Singleton, Maitland and Newcastle. Having the interchange makes Kurri a very central place to live.
Then there is the undersupply of workers in the Hunter resource industries. A quick look on one recruitment website reveals that there are 1,118 jobs available right now in the Hunter. There has been an acute skills shortage for years with many businesses complaining that as soon as they train up an apprentice they are lured into the mines by well-paid jobs. The Hunter Valley Research Foundation has reported that the region’s workforce grew by more than 8,000 in the March quarter.
The Hunter is a diverse area with thriving industries including tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, coal and mining, power generation and winemaking.
When one door closes, another door opens, so here’s to a bright future for the people of Kurri.
Jo Chivers is director of Property Bloom, which manages property development. | <urn:uuid:6c9d28b5-5db1-4135-8a00-9bb7433d5d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/economy/kurri-kurri-can-survive-the-closure-of-its-aluminium-smelting-plant-jo-chivers/2012052354809 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955145 | 772 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Li Keqiang confirmed as China’s new prime minister
Li Keqiang has been named as China’s new prime minister, placing him at the helm of the world’s second-largest economy.
Li Keqiang, who already holds the number two spot in the Communist Party, takes over from Wen Jiabao.
He was elected for a five-year term but, like his predecessor, would be expected to spend a decade in office.
Li Keqiang’s widely-signalled elevation was confirmed by 3,000 legislators at the National People’s Congress, the annual parliament session, in Beijing. He received 2,940 votes to three, with six abstentions.
As premier, Li Keqiang will oversee a large portfolio of domestic affairs, managing economic challenges, environmental woes and China’s urbanization drive.
The appointments seal the shift from one generation of leaders to the next. A raft of vice-premiers and state councillors will be named on Saturday, before the NPC closes on Sunday.
Li Keqiang, 57, who is seen as close to outgoing leader Hu Jintao, speaks fluent English and has a PhD in economics.He has called for a more streamlined government, eliminating some ministries while boosting the size of others.
The son of a local official in Anhui province, Li Keqiang became China’s youngest provincial governor when he was tasked to run Henan.
But his time there was marked by a scandal involving the spread of HIV through contaminated blood.
Li Keqiang is expected to end the NPC with a press conference on Sunday, given by Wen Jiabao in the past.
On Thursday, Xi Jinping’s move was approved by 2,952 votes to one, with three abstentions.
Hours later, President Barack Obama called both to congratulate him and raise concerns over ongoing issues, including cyber hacking and North Korea.
“Both leaders agreed on the value of regular high-level engagement to expand co-operation and co-ordination,” a White House statement said.
Barack Obama is sending both Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Secretary of State John Kerry to Beijing in coming days, in an apparent bid to reach out to the new administration.
In an editorial, state-run Global Times said Xi Jinping and his colleagues needed to show powerful leadership to unite society.
“China cannot stop developing or fighting corruption. Social unity is the key to how China can stand against complex international affairs,” it said.
Meanwhile, prominent dissident Hu Jia said he was detained and beaten by police on Thursday after he criticized the election of Xi Jinping as fake.
The well-known AIDS activist said police also refused him treatment for injuries to his head and ribs.
He said authorities were also angry because he had arranged meetings with Liu Xia, wife of jailed Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who is under house arrest.
- Seen as one of the more reform-minded members of the new leadership
- Started out as a manual laborer on a rural commune
- Studied law at Peking University, where he became involved in student politics
- Widely speculated that Li Keqiang was former President Hu Jintao’s preferred successor, but lost the top job to Xi Jinping
Short URL: http://www.bellenews.com/?p=31344 | <urn:uuid:be109940-f15f-473a-8d4f-ebf0df8c0e80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bellenews.com/2013/03/15/world/asia-news/li-keqiang-confirmed-as-chinas-new-prime-minister/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972653 | 709 | 1.5625 | 2 |
"Spanish, ESL and English Tutoring"
...If a student does not understand a concept the first time I explain it, I will explain it in different ways until it is understood, and always with a smile so the student won't get nervous and give up. I have presented several workshops at the NJEA Teacher's Convention in Atlantic City and at the Foreign Language
Educators of NJ Spring Conference...
10 subjects, including ESL/ESOL, Portuguese and Spanish | <urn:uuid:460459c4-7c31-4def-99c3-565fba6b71aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyzant.com/tutorsearchnew.aspx?d=40&z=80001&kw=Language&sort=GeoArea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960474 | 95 | 1.679688 | 2 |
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The long-awaited video game, Captain Novolin, is now available to the public, and in time for the holidays. Test markets have shown Captain Novolin to be a hit with children who have diabetes, and their friends and family enjoy it also.
Captain Novolin is the first superhero to have diabetes. The goal of the game is to help him stop the alien invaders and stay healthy by taking insulin, eating properly, and exercising. Jumpin' Jelly John, Fizzy Floyd, Larry Licorice, and Blubberman are just a few of the aliens Captain Novolin fends off during his journey to rescue Mayor Gooden, who has been kidnapped by them. Kids gain a fundamental understanding of diabetes and management while having fun playing the game.
Raya Systems, in conjunction with Novo Nordisk sponsorship, developed Captain Novolin to help children with diabetes, their friends and families learn and communicate about diabetes. Captain Novolin is available only for Super Nintendo and sells for $59.95. For ordering and information call Raya Systems at 415-949-3933.
Diabetes Health is the essential resource for people living with diabetes- both newly diagnosed and experienced as well as the professionals who care for them. We provide balanced expert news and information on living healthfully with diabetes. Each issue includes cutting-edge editorial coverage of new products, research, treatment options, and meaningful lifestyle issues. | <urn:uuid:dac7b830-d440-483e-9a25-c9f4e3e4175e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diabeteshealth.com/read/1992/12/01/42/captain-novolin/?isComment=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944592 | 349 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Connect to Compete (C2C), Inc. and the Ad Council today announced a national three-year public service campaign to promote digital literacy and motivate individuals and families to access free community resources and training. Beginning in January 2013, the campaign will focus on reaching the estimated one fifth of American adults who have yet to adopt the Internet and broadband communications for work, healthcare, education, civic participation and socialization. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), digital literacy is one of the top three reasons Americans don’t use computers and the Internet, with 46% of non-users reporting that they lack the necessary skills. A third of the country still does not subscribe to broadband at home.
C2C is a private, nonprofit corporation created to harness the power of the Internet to improve the lives of low income Americans and their ability to thrive in the global economy.
The Ad Council is a private, nonprofit organization that uses volunteer talent from the advertising and communications industries, the facilities of the media, and the resources of the business and nonprofit communities to deliver critical messages to the American public.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the campaign during the National Cable & Telecommunications Association Cable Show in Boston. ”Neither the public sector, private sector, nor the nonprofit sector alone can tackle the broadband adoption gap and unleash the benefits of high-speed Internet for the 66 million Americans who don’t have the basic digital literacy skills to find a job online or access educational content,” Genachowski said in a statement. “Partnerships across sectors are an important part of the solution. This campaign will help connect millions more Americans to broadband, and empower them to reap the benefits of the 21st century digital economy.”
It’s a start. The glaring irony surrounding the majority of digital literacy resources in this country is that they are promoted mostly online. The situation is comparable to giving a non-reader a pamphlet listing resources for learning to read. What has been missing is a strong marketing message using old media to promote the importance of learning new media.
The disconnect is no doubt driven by the fact that most of the government and private money — and there is not much of either — goes into creating digital literacy learning programs, not digital literacy advertising, marketing and promotion. As a result there is no buzz among non-users, no urgent sense that digital literacy is not an option anymore.
Public service announcements have been successful at promoting public safety messages such as earthquake, flood, fire and tornado preparedness, but they have never been applied with the necessary scale and professionalism to the approaching digital illiteracy disaster.
Many other nations in Europe, Asia and the Mideast are far out in front of the U.S. in efforts to spread digital literacy throughout their populations. Governments and private organizations have gotten the word out about the benefits of digital literacy as well as the dangers of standing on the outside of the Digital Age looking in.
The Ad Council has access to people and organizations that can sell just about anything to anyone. They are masters of the science of designing, targeting and delivering messages. If the campaign is robust and A-level, it could generate the type of awareness that convinced a lot of people to wear seat belts when they didn’t think they really needed them. A savvy old media campaign could motivate the millions of people who are afraid, complacent or in denial about the vital importance of digital literacy.
But, it must be understood by the Ad Council, C2C and others that the target population is a lot bigger than the percentage of adults who don’t have broadband or don’t use the Internet. Hopefully, the announced public service campaign will reach beyond the obvious non-adopters to the staggering number of people, mostly over the age of 30, who use the Internet and other digital tools, but are functionally illiterate in the full-spectrum of application.
The vast majority of Americans are digital citizens by default and remain unaware that literacy 2.0 is fundamental. | <urn:uuid:81dc4a25-e260-47e6-8bbe-f5160414b84f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techwire.net/literacy-2-0-psa-campaign-takes-on-digital-literacy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940917 | 824 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Answer: Of himself.Well, so I will talk about myself.
I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you careto hear it or not, why I could not even become aninsect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many timestried to become an insect. But I was not equal evento that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too consciousis an illness--a real thorough-going illness. For man's everyday needs, it would have been quiteenough to have the ordinary human consciousness,that is, half or a quarter of the amount which falls tothe lot of a cultivated man of our unhappynineteenth century, especially one who has the fatalill-luck to inhabit Petersburg, the most theoreticaland intentional town on the whole terrestrial globe.(There are intentional and unintentional towns.) Itwould have been quite enough, for instance, to havethe consciousness by which all so-called direct persons and men of action live. I bet you think I amwriting all this from affectation, to be witty at theexpense of men of action; and what is more, thatfrom ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword likemy officer. But, gentlemen, whoever can pridehimself on his diseases and even swagger over them?Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone. We will not dispute it; mycontention was absurd. But yet I am firmly persuaded that a great deal of consciousness, everysort of consciousness, in fact, is a disease. I stick tothat. Let us leave that, too, for a minute. Tell methis: why does it happen that at the very, yes, at thevery moments when I am most capable of feelingevery refinement of all that is "sublime and beautiful," as they used to say at one time, it would,as though of design, happen to me not only to feel but to do such ugly things, such that ... Well, inshort, actions that all, perhaps, commit; but which,as though purposely, occurred to me at the verytime when I was most conscious that they ought notto be committed. The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was "sublime and beautiful," the more deeply I sank into my mire andthe more ready I was to sink in it altogether. But thechief point was that all this was, as it were, notaccidental in me, but as though it were bound to beso. It was as though it were my most normalcondition, and not in the least disease or depravity,so that at last all desire in me to struggle against thisdepravity passed. It ended by my almost believing(perhaps actually believing) that this was perhapsmy normal condition. But at first, in the beginning,what agonies I endured in that struggle! I did not believe it was the same with other people, and allmy life I hid this fact about myself as a secret. I wasashamed (even now, perhaps, I am ashamed): I gotto the point of feeling a sort of secret abnormal,despicable enjoyment in returning home to mycorner on some disgusting Petersburg night, acutelyconscious that that day I had committed a loathsomeaction again, that what was done could never beundone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing atmyself for it, tearing and consuming myself till atlast the bitterness turned into a sort of shamefulaccursed sweetness, and at last--into positive realenjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! Iinsist upon that. I have spoken of this because Ikeep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; theenjoyment was just from the too intenseconsciousness of one's own degradation; it wasfrom feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not beotherwise; that there was no escape for you; that | <urn:uuid:c3b1a778-c7f1-4606-bb2a-472a747ab8b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scribd.com/doc/61647117/32/All-sat-down-I-did-the-same-It-was-a-round-table | 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 | 0.979456 | 838 | 1.546875 | 2 |
NATO has begun to deploy Patriot missiles to Turkey to help Turkish troops repel attacks by missiles or aircraft from neighbouring Syria, BBC reported.
The US European Command said its troops and equipment had started arriving in southern Turkey, and more would arrive in the coming days.
Germany and the Netherlands are preparing to ship their Patriot batteries early next week.
The six battery units are scheduled to be operational by the end of January.
NATO approved the deployment of the surface-to-air missiles early last month, after a request from Turkey, amid "grave concerns" that Syria could use chemical weapons.
Syria has said it would never use such weapons against its own people.
But new launches of "Scud-type missiles" against rebel fighters were being detected in Syria, Nato said in mid-December.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described it as "an act of a desperate regime approaching collapse" and said it emphasised "the need for effective defence and protection of our ally Turkey".
The US, Germany and the Netherlands have agreed to deploy two batteries of Patriot missiles each to be placed under the command of NATO along the Turkish-Syria border.
US personnel and equipment had begun arriving at Turkey's southern Incirlik Air Base and a further 400 personnel and equipment would be airlifted there in the coming days, the US command in Europe, Eucom, said. More equipment would reach Turkey by sea later in January, Eucom was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
The Dutch Patriot batteries will depart for Turkey on Monday and are expected to arrive by 22 January along with nearly 300 troops, the country's daily De Telegraaf newspaper reports. Germany is expected to follow a similar schedule.
"The forces will augment Turkey's air defence capabilities and contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along the Alliance's border," Eucom said in a statement.
"The deployment will be defensive only and will not support a no-fly zone or any offensive operation," it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 44,000 people have been killed since the uprising began nearly two years ago, including nearly 31,000 civilians
The UN believes up to four million people inside Syria are soon going to need humanitarian aid, up from 2.5 million. Another 500,000 Syrians have also fled to neighbouring countries. | <urn:uuid:2a250020-ebd1-45ad-a6f2-7944ff153209> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.trend.az/regions/met/turkey/2105332.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973953 | 485 | 1.75 | 2 |
I know a lot of people will find this question strange but I've been wondering .. I know that the Bible says our body is the temple of The Lord, and therefore we should treat it as such. If we ''condemn'' or frown upon acts like smoking (lung cancer) or drinking (liver failure) ..and call it a sin, how about those who have certain eating habits that causes them to grow bigger and bigger. In the long run, that would affect your health, there are numerous negative consequences that can result from that actually .. and people in this condition know this for a fact and some just keep doing what they do...
So back to my question, if smoking, drinking, using drugs is frowned upon, by both man and God, shouldnt overweight, or unhealthy weight gain be as well?
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT do drugs or drink or smoke, and I never will, I have just had this question in mind for a while.
PLEASE NOTE: I think I might have put the question out in a wrong way, I know there are different medical conditions that may results in one getting fat, and many other things..but I'm referring to those who DO NOT have any of those conditions and are fat because of what they INTENTIONALLY eat. (except for children) is that a sin then? | <urn:uuid:ef3098c2-3385-48e6-b5cf-63a0a19d450c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/6463/is-it-a-sin-to-allow-oneself-to-become-fat-in-the-absence-of-medical-conditions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97356 | 275 | 1.546875 | 2 |
DIY External Battery
Guys, I've looked around some, but can't find the information I need for this project. I've come into posession of a friend's Nexus 7 8GB that's cracked, as I have two projects in mind for it. The first is making my own external battery pack with the battery from the tablet.
I know the battery is rated for 3.7V at 4325mAh. A standard USB input is powered with 4.5-5.5V. I'm somewhat electrically knowledgeable, but I'm stumped on how to make sure I don't fry my phone or my Nexus 7 by plugging this battery into the USB port. My other dilemma is charging the battery back up, I'm assuming that this will take a small circuit to do. | <urn:uuid:e2d7f398-18c8-400a-9c6d-8c160af73353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.androidcentral.com/general-help-how/260144-diy-external-battery-print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972604 | 163 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
In Japanese, "sorosoro" means it's about time I...
for example, if you are out and you need to start heading home, a signal is to say "sorosoro"...and the rest is implied (i.e., that it's time to go and you don't need to give any reasons, just by that word it's understood by the context). So that word comes to mind for me now, as it's September already, and if I'm going to post any photos from the summer, then 'sorosoro', it's about time I...do it!
So many highlights, the summer was like a full circle, travelling to US with the full moon out the window of the plane, reflected on the wing, to meeting the deer, to going to NY, visiting with friends and family, visiting some museums, to meeting Natsumi, spending time at the beach...to going to a dance workshop at Kripalu, to meeting the deer again,
to flying back to Japan with the new moon...
a yellow cab, taken by Yasu
Next: two views of Bryant Park, also taken by Yasu:
Since I am posting so far 'after the fact', the mood of today is reflected in which images I choose...
- ► 2012 (62)
- ► 2011 (108)
- ▼ September (8)
- ► 2009 (247)
- ► 2008 (194) | <urn:uuid:c1e2b6a7-3648-4176-a1ba-239336a8168d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aikawarazulifeinjapan.blogspot.com/2010/09/sorosoro.html?showComment=1283931284860 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949052 | 306 | 1.664063 | 2 |
When it comes to “selling” women’s soccer, the tough job really isn’t in the United States, where girls and women play by the millions and no one finds it unusual. The much more difficult task is in countries where big-money men’s pro soccer leagues dominate the sports environment, and the idea of women playing the game for real is still somehow a bit … odd.
Take England, cradle of football, wellspring of footy culture and the nation that gave us “Bend It Like Beckham.”
If you think women’s soccer is pretty big there like it is in Germany, where the women’s cup final is played on the same day and in the same stadium as the men’s final and the national federation puts together promotional videos like this, you’d be mistaken.
Rather, England’s women footballers must make do with this somewhat homemade effort called “Girls Are Football Crazy Too,” by comedian Clare Challoner, which aptly replicates the shadows in which the women’s game dwells on the shores of Albion. It’s a nice video really, but that it’s practically the only thing out there in support of the England team reflects the general atmosphere of condescension toward women’s footy in the UK. Even in the pages of the Guardian, a politically forward-thinking newspaper whose soccer coverage is generally unparalleled, you can find surprising expressions of that condescension in passages like this: “The traditional male sneer is to compare women’s football to monkeys playing tennis, but this is wrong and unfair. These days it’s more like watching weak men playing football; or men who aren’t very good at football playing football.”
Then there’s the name for the team the Sun came up with, En-girl-land, which actually isn’t bad. And in fact, in the classic mode of the oppressed empowering themselves by appropriating the language of the oppressors, “En-girl-and” has been adopted by many fans of the women’s team, at least that’s what the cellphone companies are saying.
It’s not that the women’s game there goes entirely unnoticed. The Guardian reported that the telecast of the England-Japan match drew a fairly impressive 11 percent share (though Germany-Argentina drew a 20 percent share in Germany, roughly equivalent to an important men’s Champions League match.) Nevertheless, there are signs that with this World Cup, women’s football is finding more acceptance in the UK.
We’ll have more on women’s soccer in England in coming posts. But for now, if you’re a fan of the US women’s team, spare a thought for the side the Americans will be playing on Saturday. Close your eyes, and think of En-girl-and. | <urn:uuid:166444ed-fb7b-4bf9-8cae-6d27ea09c1ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/the-yanks-next-foe-en-girl-and/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953975 | 618 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Gamaliel was a wise Jewish
teacher around the time of Christ
. He was the wisest teacher in the land and mentor to Saul
, who later became the Apostle Paul
Acts 5:17-42 (NIV)
The Apostles Persecuted
17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20 "Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life."
21 At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin--the full assembly of the elders of Israel--and sent to the jail for the apostles. 22 But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, 23 "We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside." 24 On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.
25 Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people." 26 At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.
27 Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead--whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. 32 We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34 But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35 Then he addressed them: "Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. 36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all come to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."
40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering discrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. | <urn:uuid:769b19b2-3965-4522-9844-548eb7cebc55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://everything2.com/title/Gamaliel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986775 | 813 | 1.796875 | 2 |
News Guggenheim Fellowship Awarded to Marlboro College Mathematics Professor
Marlboro, VT- Marlboro College mathematics professor Joe Mazur has been granted a Guggenheim Fellowship, a coveted honor accorded bi-annually to scholars, artists and writers. Fellowships were bestowed on 187 applicants out of some 3,000 in the United States and Canada this year. Mazur will use the financial award to carry out research for a mathematical memoir. Mazur’s past work has also received acclaim: he was a finalist in 2005 for a PEN literary award for his book, Euclid in the Rainforest : Discovering Universal Truth in Logic and Math. That book was also selected as an Outstanding Academic Title of the Year 2005 by the library journal Choice, which described how Mazur’s narrative “weaves elementary explanations of a wide range of essential mathematical ideas into narratives of his far-ranging travels."
The Guggenheim Fellowship “is a great honor, but one that could not have happened without my 33 years of teaching and learning from so many bright students and encouraging faculty at Marlboro College,” said Mazur.
Mazur is among Guggenheim Fellowship recipients in 78 different professional fields. Scholars, scientists and artists are considered for the honor, which comes with a monetary award and international recognition for their “distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment,” as stated by the Foundation, which continues: “What distinguishes the Guggenheim Fellowship program from all others is the wide range in interest, age, geography, and institution of those it selects…In a time of decreased funding for individuals in the arts, humanities, and sciences, the Guggenheim Fellowship program has assumed a greatly increased importance, and the Foundation is successfully raising funds to enable the appointment of a larger number of Fellows each year. Scores of Nobel, Pulitzer and other prize winners appear on the roll of Fellows.”
Founded in 1946, Marlboro College offers undergraduate education in the liberal arts and, since 1997, graduate study focused on Internet technologies. Its 330 undergraduate students enjoy an 8:1 student-faculty ratio, a voice in governing the community and individualized courses of study on a 350-acre campus in the hills of southern Vermont. Marlboro has been selected as one of 40 Colleges that Change Lives. (/news/promotional/change_lives). | <urn:uuid:2dd17c7a-b6bf-42a4-8792-3eb92b973e16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marlboro.edu/news/pr/2006/5/2/guggenheim_mazur | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959707 | 507 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Tue Aug 07, 2012 (21:00)
Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the most spectacular show in the world, enjoyed by an international television audience of 100 million. There is, however, no substitute for being there in person as part of the 217,000-strong audience over its three-week season on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle who dont simply watch the show but become a part of it.
Sell Edinburgh Military Tattoo Tickets
Sell Edinburgh Military Tattoo Edinburgh Castle Tickets
Edinburgh Castle is a castle fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle here since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until the Union of the Crowns in 1603. As one of the most important fortresses in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle has been involved in many historical conflicts, from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, up to the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and has been besieged, both successfully and unsuccessfully, on several occasions. From the later 17th century, the castle became a military base, with a large garrison. Its importance as a historic monument was recognised from the 19th century, and various restoration programmes have been carried out since.
Copyright © 2010 www.ticket4tattoo.com. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:9e327507-f936-4765-8822-e79597924e44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ticket4tattoo.com/edinburgh-military-tattoo-tickets/98/edinburgh-military-tattoo-edinburgh-castle-edinburgh-tuesday-august-07-2012-tickets.htm | 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 | 0.969658 | 332 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Generals: Cut Pentagon spending
A strong U.S. military is indispensable to our national security. As retired military officers, we have dedicated our careers, on active duty and retired, to that end. We have been involved in crafting and teaching national security strategy, of which military strategy and use of military force are vital components.
In the debate over the Pentagon budget and with threats of deeper cuts coming, the president, Congress, governors and the entire defense community are rightly concerned about sequestration, which cuts both domestic and defense spending indiscriminately. It is agreed that overall spending reductions are necessary, but the "fiscal cliff" crisis reflects a lack of political will, not rational planning.
Too often, the Pentagon spending debate is ensnared in the outmoded ideology of past wars and driven by legions of lobbyists for parochial interests in the military-industrial complex.
America's power is more than a massive force structure and numbers of ships, tanks and planes. A national security strategy must be based on current and future threats, not past war doctrines.
In 2008, a National Intelligence Estimate declared the economic crisis, not terrorism, as the greatest threat to national security. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullin, along with other senior military leaders, endorsed that assessment.
It is doubtful that future threats will call for many of the expensive weapon systems advocated by parochial interests and some political leaders -- a system such as the F-35 joint strike fighter. Developing this plane has cost more than was spent on veterans in the last 20 years.
Today, the use of manned aircraft is more and more limited. Our leaders must have a serious debate about priorities: America needs political resolve to kill unnecessary and expensive projects.
Our nuclear weapons policy is based on Cold War conditions that no longer exist. The Pentagon is expected to spend more than $700 billion on nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, for little added security. The former U.S. Strategic Command Chief Gen. James Cartwright has called for a drastic cut in nuclear weapons, saying the U.S. has a stockpile "beyond our needs. What is it we're really trying to deter? Our current arsenal does not address the threats of the 21st century." The program is based more on ideology than security.
Sadly, defense spending is driven by political interests, not necessity. In his 1986 book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," Paul Kennedy argues that great powers fall by bankrupting themselves to rule extensive empires. After the invasion of Iraq, Kennedy published an op-ed, "Perils of Empire," suggesting America may furnish material for another chapter.
In the last decade, America fought two expensive wars and Congress has yet to pay for them; that policy has contributed to our precarious economic position. Sequestration is not an effective means of excising wasteful Pentagon spending; it is the result of political gridlock and special interest intransigence.
As Congress attempts to undo its own mess and prevent sequestration, the Pentagon budget needs to be on the table. Reducing wasteful spending on unneeded programs and outdated strategy will save money and enhance national security.
The political argument that cutting defense spending will cost jobs is spurious. Pentagon spending purchases one item and does not provide greater economic benefits. The F-35 program is slated to cost $1.5 trillion over its lifetime; these are resources that are desperately needed elsewhere or could pay down the national debt.
After more than a decade of wars of dubious value, America will receive a greater return on investment by investing in our troops and veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Every dollar wasted on unnecessary programs could be caring for and training our servicemen and women.
Instead of building new toys that are kept in the garage, let's provide education and job training to veterans. Recent congressional refusal to approve such a jobs program is a disgrace.
Cutting Pentagon spending recognizes that national security is more than military power. The United States is stronger with a strong economy, sustainable jobs, investment in education, renewal of our infrastructure and a sensible energy strategy. Continuing to waste money when our nation should have other priorities is bad policy and bad for security.
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Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:b5b4ca86-b0ee-4528-b062-9531c67da441> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ketv.com/news/national/Generals-Cut-Pentagon-spending/-/9674576/17745572/-/format/rsss_2.0/view/print/-/j4083tz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956681 | 904 | 1.578125 | 2 |
We haven't checked in in some time on Scott Armstrong's "scientific forecast" that global temperatures will remain unchanged for ten years, or his fake "bet" with Al Gore that no warming will occur. After losing eleven of the twelve months of 2010, something Armstrong avoided talking about by simply declining to update his own site, Armstrong, a professor of marketing who styles himself a "scientific forecaster," started to seem just too pathetic to pick on.
The recent La Nina, however, seems to have roused Armstrong from his self-imposed blog stupor long enough to fake the background of his "challenge":
Armstrong has been counting monthly anomalies as "wins" if they are no warmer than 2008, and "losses" (he rarely talks about these) if they are closer to an inflated trend of 0.3C/decade, which he falsely attributes to Gore.
The "bet" has not gone well for Armstrong. But Armstrong has been busy re-writing history. You will notice to the right on the chart above that Armstrong has deleted the first five months of 2008, presumably to disappear the La Nina-influenced depression in temperatures and hide the fact that counting from January 2008 (when the anomaly was -0.3C in UAH 5.3, compared to +0.32C last month -- hey +0.6C warming in just three and a half years!*), Armstrong has lost every single month of his bogus "bet."
La Nina is over, so it's no surprise that the June UAH anomaly of +0.32C is absent from Armstrong's site. I suppose when you've "disappeared" half a year of temperatures from a three-and-a-half year record, ignoring the present is no big deal.
* This is why serious people use moving averages, or at worst, yearly anomalies, not month-to-month fluctuations, to track global warming. To quote myself: "You could set up this bet in a more honest, evenhanded way which might be semi-valid in terms of shedding light on what is happening with our climate. Needless to say, that's not the process Armstrong came up with, which makes it all the more amusing that he has managed to deal himself a losing hand from a stacked deck." | <urn:uuid:4e616f06-73f9-4169-b722-dd7a3aaa595c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/07/scott-armstrong-liar-fraud-scientific.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971528 | 473 | 1.703125 | 2 |
IF YOU LIVE ON Main Street, Wall Street tells you to buy and hold stocks. When the shares decline, "don't be sore, buy some more" is often the prescribed antidote.
Meanwhile, your brokerage firm makes money lending your buy-and-hold shares to traders who sell them to bet your favorite stock price will plummet.
Even many mutual funds, which seem like the paragons of buying-for-the-long-run, are often extremely active stock traders.
Indeed, the recent credit crisis and resulting market swoon has finally caused some on Main Street to question if "buy and hold" investing is truly all it's cracked up to be. Many blue-chip stocks, including General Electric (ticker: GE), tumbled sharply lower, and many investors saw their investment portfolios fall to unimaginably low levels.
Rather than buying and holding shares, and watching them rise and fall, we instead advocate managing a stock's inevitable gains and declines -- rather than hoping that time heals all wounds.
Supporting that approach is a recent study by academics at the University of Massachusetts. The report reviewed how a Nasdaq-100 (QQQQ) "collar" -- buying a defensive put option and selling a call option -- performed over a 10-year period.
The collar strategy is widely used by investors with large concentrated stock positions, and also to manage entire investment portfolios.
The collar strategy is simple. By buying a put, which will increase in value if the stock price declines, investors guarantee the position's value will never decline below a certain dollar amount. To offset the expense of buying a put, a call is sold. Selling a call limits the price appreciation of the stock and obligates an investor to sell the stock, or "cover the call."
The study found that over a 10-year period the collar strategy outperformed the traditional buy and hold strategy, and significantly reduced investment risk.
The collar hindered performance during the stock-market climb of October 2002 to September 2007, but over the study's entire 122-month period, including the technology bubble and credit crisis, the collar strategy "outperformed a buy-and-hold strategy and provided much needed capital protection."
From April 1999 to May 2009, a small-capitalization mutual fund that was not protected by a collar had an annualized return of 2.35%. When pairing an actively managed collar to the fund, which requires an investor to monitor and adjust the options position, the annualized return increased to 9.83%.
On his blog, Options for Rookies, Mark Wolfinger notes that the study shows that collars are not "always too expensive to pay for themselves, and are capable of producing market outperforming returns."
To be sure, the study was supported by the Options Industry Council, a quasi-marketing/educational group comprised of options exchanges and the Options Clearing Corp. But that shouldn't detract from the scholarship of this work.
Clearly, not everyone will want to "collar" stocks or portfolios, and that's understandable. There are other ways to manage stocks to hedge against declines. No way is really worse than the other.
The important takeaway from the study is that it is a mistake to idly accept whatever it is that the stock market gives you.
Innovate. Take action. Protect your assets. It's much easier than having to start over from scratch. | <urn:uuid:e9dfee15-c912-424e-80e8-7168d1f283d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.barrons.com/article/SB125374411183435557.html | 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 | 0.956053 | 695 | 1.507813 | 2 |
A North Carolina woman pulled in a nice profit this past weekend after a painting she had purchased at Goodwill last spring for just $9.99 was auctioned off. It fetched over $27,000.
The amazing part is, the buyer didn't like the style of the painting and didn't even want it.
An artist herself, Beth Feeback only bought the art piece because she wanted the canvas so she could use it for her own work; painting cats are her specialty.
As Digital Journal reported in July 2012, Feeback had been planning to paint over the painting until a friend advised her to get the labels checked out before she reused the canvas.
Feeback took her friend's suggestion and was stunned to learn the painting was a valuable piece by Ilya Bolotowsky entitled "Vertical Diamond". She learned Bolotowsky was a well-known abstract painter; his works are displayed in museums and galleries throughout the U.S.
She then had the painting appraised; it was speculated to fetch about $15,000 to $20,000 and she made arrangements to sell.
According to Sotheby's website, the painting's final price was a total of $34,375, which includes the auction price, plus the buyer's premium.
ABC News reported Feeback said after the sale, “It’s a great return on $9.99."
It seems "Vertical Diamond" has also inspired her to do a new series of cat paintings. Feeback told the media she plans to do a "knockoff" of "Vertical Diamond" paintings with large cat heads painted in the diamonds' centers. | <urn:uuid:044bf4aa-8e3c-4ce0-babe-71d9b8cbb7fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitaljournal.com/article/333502 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987286 | 341 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Final Report for the Ten Year Review of
The Application of Ex Corde Ecclesiae for the United States
June 11, 2012
As Chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education, I am pleased to offer this report regarding the ten year review of The Application of Ex corde Ecclesiae for the United States. In January 2011 bishops were asked to hold conversations with college and university presidents in their dioceses. With more than 100 bishops reporting on their conversations at regional meetings during the November 201I General Assembly, the prevailing tone was positive and the news was good. Bishops reported that they believe our institutions of Catholic higher education have made definite progress in advancing Catholic identity. The relationship between bishops and presidents on the local level can be characterized as positive and engaged, demonstrating progress on courtesy and cooperation in the last ten years. Clarity about Catholic identity among college and university leadership has fostered substantive dialogues and cultivated greater mission driven practices across the university. In acknowledging that much progress has been made, we recognize there is still work to be done.
The robust discussion among bishops at the regional meetings in November 2011 generated some constructive suggestions. The Committee on Catholic Education, having reviewed the compilation of the regional discussions, offers the following recommendation for your consideration.
Under the auspices of the Committee on Catholic Education, a working group of bishops and presidents will be formed to continue the dialogue about strategic subjects on a national level. As they consider topics, they will gather information regarding best practices, offer suggestions for conversation at the local level, and as needed, develop resources. The subject areas to be addressed by the working group are as follows:
- Continuing dialogue between bishops and presidents toward greater cooperation in advancing the mission of the Church
- Hiring for mission
- Forming trustees, faculty, and staff regarding Catholic identity
- Addressing the need for improved, accurate, and deeper theological and catechetical knowledge through curricular and pastoral means.
With this report, I officially conclude the ten year review of The Application of Ex corde Ecclesiae for the United States. The review process yielded fruitful and necessary dialogue. The Committee on Catholic Education echoes the attitude of Pope John Paul II: "I turn to the whole Church, convinced that Catholic universities are essential to her growth and to the development of Christian culture and human progress." The success of the ten year review provides a clear course for continued dialogue regarding Catholic higher education and its essential contribution to the Church and society.
In the 2001 document, The Application of Ex Corde Ecclesiae for the United States, the bishops of the United States committed themselves to a ten-year review. The guidelines provide a reference tool for both bishops and presidents of Catholic Institutes of Higher Learning. We hope the ten-year review, modeled on the five-year review of 2006, will occur in a spirit of ecclesial communion and will yield an appreciation of the positive developments and the remaining challenges in the implementation of the Application document for the United States.
This process consists of a conversation between a bishop and each university president within his diocese. Following the local conversations, bishops will share their reflections with one another at USCCB regional meetings, and the minutes of the discussions at the regional meetings will be compiled and presented to the president of the USCCB and the Chair of the Committee on Catholic Education.
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nor does it necessarily endorse, the website, its content, or | <urn:uuid:bc31b515-e8d5-4a61-b8a8-7f26483b384d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catholic-education/higher-education/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95172 | 775 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The Radical Redesign of Business – are you ready?
One could argue our industrial world has reached the edge of its adaptive range.
We are faced with a world that in a very short period of time has gone from seemingly linear (simple) to complex and non-linear (chaotic). Now is the time when we need a way of evaluating how we deal with volatility and unpredictability.
In the words of Prof. Mervyn King, Chairman of the GRI & IIRC:
‘I have little doubt that commentators in 2020 will look back on the decade of 2000 – 2010 and describe it as the decade of stupidity, because generally companies with knowledge of the crises faced by the planet carried on business as usual. They continued to take, make, waste, as if the planet had infinite natural assets and an infinite capacity to absorb waste….The decade of 2010 – 2020, I believe, will be known as the decade of change.’
Transformational times call for transformational change
What is called for is nothing short of a ‘radical redesign of business’. Alan Moore, author of No Straight Lines, and Giles Hutchins, author of The Nature of Business, partner up at Schumacher College to explore this ‘radical redesign of business’.
In redesigning the world, Alan Moore argues that we need human creativity in the sense of the capacity to ‘make’ and we need visionary leadership in the sense of ‘making a positive difference’. In this ‘making’ we need a craftsman’s approach more focused on quality than quantity – we seek the craftsman’s critical eye, steady hand and creative mind.
The call for Craftsmanship
The craftsman’s critical eye and creative mind is vital to evaluating new possibilities; he/she must be open to new ideas, information, tools and materials to make things that enable humanity to flourish in these challenging times. But this requires us to think and act as craftsmen and women and apply our critical thinking to understanding our non-linear world, which is in part shaped by participatory cultures, open, complex and seemingly ambiguous systems that are highly interdependent of each other.
Giles Hutchins notes that we need humanity to flourish in harmony with all of life for there to be anything resembling a successful outcome for business, society and humanity; hence a business paradigm that is both inspired by and in harmony with nature. Seeing the world with different perspectives begs the question of humanity’s purpose and place in life. Is the shift from a mechanistic, linear world to an emergent, non-linear world aided by a changing relationship between humanity and the wider web of life? Can this shift in business and beyond also include a shift from anthropocentric and reductionist thinking to eco-system being?
Sir Ken Robinson famously said:
‘We educate our children from the waist up, then we focus on their heads, and then we only educate one side of their brain. The whole purpose of education is to produce university professors who live in their heads, their bodies are only there to transport their heads to meetings’.
As Alan Moore says, humanity now ekes out its existence under the industrial tyrannical twins of obsession with numbers and measurement of efficiency in every walk of life, whilst ignoring its fundamental needs. In addition, an unfettered pursuit of material wealth over any other value has come at a terrible cost for society; deeply damaged us spiritually and, ironically for many, materially.
Education was created at a time when the need was to fuel the explosion of industrialisation, yet in its present form, it is becoming a devalued commodity. The current education system educates creativity out of us.
describes a sense of hopelessness, and isolation that deconstructs our character in the workplace; ’unfettered capitalism’ makes it impossible for us to create coherent ‘character’ with its deadly consequences. Eric Beinhocker points to the failure of neoclassical economics, becoming enslaved to an ideology of neoclassical theory that is in the process of being supplanted by what he calls ‘complexity economics’ – the view that the economy is a complex adaptive system made up of realistically rational people who dynamically interact with each other in an evolutionary system. When people communicate with each other it is not simply a matter of communication, but it is a sharing that takes place in a very real, embodied way.
We are not atomised, rational people; we are creative, social, intuitive, relational people. As Cacioppo and Patrick point out, brains and bodies are designed to function in a collective and networked fashion, not in isolation. That is, they say, the essence of a social species: ’social connection is not just a lubricant that like motor oil, prevents overheating and wear, social connection is a fundamental part of the human operating and organising system itself.’
The rise of the Human Operating System – the ‘super organism’
As Alan Moore insightfully recognises:
‘We are midwives to a world that’s evolving from the straight lines that were representative of an industrial era, to a world that in its networked beauty is more like nature; more like us. Nature’s default setting is connection.’
Authentic living seeks a different way to work, one that provides greater meaning. This quest is driving a revolution in the structure and methods of business. A radical redesign of business where no corner, no open-plan office, no meeting room is left out. We need a new language and philosophy, an idea of a different type of society, by unfolding and exploring ideas of language and creativity that brings us new ways of describing and comprehending our world. You might call it a new common sense. This human operating system looks beyond materialism to something greater to liberate us from closed systems. In this way, we can become meaningfully re-engaged with the world, understand how we make our way in it, be truly accountable to each other and enjoy the full richness of life.
A transformation to a networked world where people ‘get connected’ is only whole if people also ‘re-connect’ with life, with their sense of purpose and place in life. Richard Sennett tells us that the craftsman constructs authentically. His honesty is communicated through his work, which then holds an inherent eternal truth. And the craftsman represents all of us with a desire to do something well, concretely and for reasons for other than material profit. It’s the unleashing of this deep motivation that we seek.
Alan Moore’s ‘No Straight Lines’ can be found here.
‘Anyone worried about where business is going in today’s chaotic world – and everyone concerned with where it should be going – must read No Straight Lines. Alan Moore has captured what is happening, but more importantly provides prescriptions for what individuals, companies, and society should do about it to create a better world’.
– B Joseph Pine II, Co-author, The Experience Economy and Infinite Possibility
‘The Nature of Business’ is not just a very entertaining read, but also a redoubtable sparring partner. A must read for everyone involved in the business of the future…. and aren’t we all?
To explore the ’radical redesign of business’ further, join the Face Book community here | <urn:uuid:0572bad5-581c-4152-aacb-11bc8fa27834> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenatureofbusiness.org/2013/02/15/the-radical-redesign-of-business-are-you-ready/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946375 | 1,542 | 1.5625 | 2 |
April 14th 1912, 11.40 pm: in the dark and cold waters of the Atlantic ocean, the transatlantic RSM Titanic, during it’s first journey, sinks after a crash against an iceberg. The block of ice opens a fall in the right side of the hull and after two hours and forty minutes the Titanic is doomed.
After 100 years of those happenings, Sir Chester Cobblepot™ offers a refined board game that celebrates the unforgivable heroism and determination of the passengers of the english transatlantic: our main characters will be the survivors of the last lifeboat lowered into the water, the collapsible D.
Collapsible D™: The Last Minutes of Titanic is the first project from Chester Cobblepot. The idea comes from the mind of the italian author Gianluca Santopietro, already well known to have signed other games.
In this game the players will be on board of the Titanic during the night of april 14th 1912, when at 11.40 pm the ship collided with an iceberg, sinking in the ocean at 2.20 am of april 15th. Each turn represent 10 minutes of that lapse of time.
Each player, from 3 to 6, controls a passenger of each Class and a member of the Crew. Each character has a different starting point, trying to recreate the exact location they were on the ship, thanks to a historical research lead by the author, in cooperation with historian expert on Titanic facts like Claudio Bossi. Thanks to a very intuitive movement system, players will move their passengers through the ship, trying to reach the lifeboats on the dock.
Meanwhile, the water floods fast and the risk of drowning is very high. Each saved passenger will grant victory points, so the player with the highest score will win. Easy, touching and fascinating are three adjective that can be used to described Collapsible D™: The Final Minutes of Titanic.
A game to be played with the family or with friends: the drama of the happening is dealer with respect and tries to be very historical accurate, like other products based on the Titanic.
The game is fast, never too tiring, thanks to a system based on a fixed number of turns.
Collapsible D™: The Final Minutes of Titanic is a must have for Titanic history’s collectors and for every player searching for an high quality and fun board game. | <urn:uuid:b5b6de02-1402-4a5d-9669-970543764476> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sirchestercobblepot.com/2011/09/collapsible-d-i-minuti-finali-del-titanic/?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957724 | 490 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate receives Phase II funding
Published Feb. 28, 2011
A three-year, $700,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education will support the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate as it conducts further research as part of a national effort to strengthen the education doctorate, the Ed.D.
This second phase of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) has three goals:
- evaluating change in organizational structures of graduate schools of education
- evaluating change in the signature learning processes, learning environments and patterns of engagement of faculty and candidates in Ed.D. programs
- disseminating lessons learned and best practices for the design and implementation of professional practice programs to other schools of education.
Valerie Storey, director of the Ed.D. Educational Leadership program and Lynn’s CPED principal investigator, is a member of the initial research team and CPED’s executive committee.
“The institutions involved with CPED want to make the Ed.D. a high-quality degree of choice for K-20 educational leaders,” Storey said. “Much like the M.D. prepares practicing medical doctors, we want the Ed.D. to provide strong preparation for educational leaders confronted with serious and challenging educational problems.”
Since 2007, CPED has engaged two dozen colleges and universities, which have committed resources to collaborate on a critical examination of the doctorate in education. The overall intent is to redesign the Ed.D. making it a stronger, more relevant degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners, clinical faculty, academic leaders and professional staff. | <urn:uuid:8896d81a-67e6-4caa-a33a-b0172479b833> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lynn.edu/about-lynn/news-and-events/news/carnegie-project-on-the-education-doctorate-receives-phase-ii-funding | 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 | 0.945064 | 341 | 1.65625 | 2 |
This is the story of the unlikeliest of business people.
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment and catalyst of her foray into entrepreneurship, but during the 1980′s, she was actively involved in importing shoes from Italy to Ghana.
In the 1990′s however, her life took an unexpected turn and so did her business.
She had lived in Lagos, Nigeria for over a decade with her husband. In the mid-nineties, he asked her to move back to Ghana while he wrapped up his business dealings in Nigeria. It was a move she made with great reluctance and sadness. To occupy her time, she renewed her entrepreneurial quest with her partner of many years, her twin sister. They established landscaping and horticultural businesses.
New Places, Unfamiliar Faces
The businesswoman and her partner noticed a new trend – people were becoming more interested in using artificial plants and flowers as low maintenance substitutes for the real thing. Homes and offices were now being decorated as if inspired by Martha Stewart with a plastic fetish.
Stories started to emerge about a mythical place, a veritable business Shangri-La, where endless factories existed to satisfy the whims of prospective wholesalers. Places where massive quantities of artificial flowers could be made to order and purchased at very low prices. This place existed in China, a land hitherto unexplored by Ghanaian entrepreneurs for any reason. The businesswoman in question flew out to establish the veracity of these claims and hence strike the proverbial business iron while it was hot. She made her way to this province where people didn’t speak English and the sight of two African women was enough of a novelty to draw stares from children and a few adults too. Then began the long process of establishing connections and links with the local business community and determining the logistics of shipping their orders back to Ghana.
As a precaution, in case she found the local food unappealing, she had packed dry goods and other long shelf life provisions from Ghana.
What became an annual trip to factories near Guangzhou started off slowly and with some growing pains. While demand existed back in Ghana, retail customers insisted on buying on credit and often took months and even years to pay. Cash flow was a critical issue. Yet business grew. More things were added to the list of imported items – wall décor, furniture and other household items.
Ripping up the Playbook.
It took almost 15 years, but the entrepreneur and her partner both created modest yet profitable business empires. They opened retail outlets in the heart of the city, while running their wholesale businesses from their homes and from converted shipping containers situated precariously close to a major thoroughfare near the International Airport. The entrepreneur grew her business not from an adherence to established business principles, but in spite of them.
1. You need to be ruthless to build an empire. The entrepreneur gained a reputation for being charitable and overly accommodating to her customers and the public, drawing admonition from her family, including her business partner and twin sister. She always maintained though, that it cost her nothing in long-term assets to go the extra mile for her clients and friends. Clients notorious for not paying back their obligations on time or ever at all were always received and even extended more merchandise on credit. She never used harsh language nor did she ever put undue pressure on them. Most of them made their way to pay their debts. Even if it took years.
2. Don’t mix family with business. The entrepreneur not only had a long-term partnership with her sister, but also encouraged other family to participate in her business. She would find ways to get her other siblings to benefit from her business dealings and connections, including enlisting her younger brother as a buyer for the businesses. Those who couldn’t participate directly still benefitted; she believed in family-based profit sharing.
3. Nice guys/gals finish last. Her twin would later comment that in spite of her (the twin’s) own more structured and “strictly business” approach, the entrepreneur’s customer base grew faster and she saw more profits. She would often keep her store open much later than the scheduled closing time so she could accommodate a client coming in from out of town, or one who just wanted to stay a few minutes longer to chat. She never rushed anyone.
4. You need to have a slick operation and a dazzling façade. The entrepreneur worked out of a converted shipping container and without a register. All her accounting was done by hand, in the numerous ledgers she lugged along to and from her store. She could always be seen sitting outside her shop, by the motorway, on a plastic lawn chair and writing on a plastic table or talking on her cell phone.
Always Looking Ahead
Even when the doctor delivered the harsh news of an advanced malignant tumor, the entrepreneur – in spite of her fears and tears – kept her business plans going. She whiled away the time during post-mastectomy convalescence by discussing her future plans with her twin sister and other family members. In spite of being weakened by chemotherapy, she insisted on not being treated like an invalid. She had things to do and was not going to be derailed from her efforts. When she died on July 15th of this year, after a yearlong battle with breast cancer, she left behind a thriving business and a devastated family. Her twin sister lamented the loss of her partner, planner and strategist. She was a woman of interesting contrasts – she dressed well and believed in making the best visual statements but was also very humble and considerate. She had a strong sense of fair play and never wanted anyone to feel cheated. She had an appreciation for beauty and quality and yet her throne was a plastic lawn chair. She had time for children and people in need but was extremely impatient with sloth and laziness. Her sisters called her “Woman of Principle.”
I called her Mum. | <urn:uuid:8cf4b17f-3496-43d5-830c-de49a02d978c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.timesunion.com/microbusiness/640/the-plastic-lawn-chair/ | 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 | 0.985306 | 1,224 | 1.625 | 2 |
This paper assesses Egypt’s service sector, its main service sector liberalization policies, and its commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The paper compares Egypt’s GATS commitments to those of other developing countries. It highlights the main developments of the liberalization and privatization policies in five main service sectors: telecommunications, banking and insurance, tourism, maritime services and air transport.
The paper argues that service liberalization in Egypt appears to be slowed down by two issues. The issues are:
the dominance of government monopolies in many service sectors which creates the concern that eliminating barriers to allow private sector participation requires strong anti-trust laws and regulatory bodies
the government’s emphasis on service liberalization only as an input to achieve other goals such as raising saving and investment levels, which excludes service sectors with higher growth potential and where risk of market power is limited
The paper then considers the policy options for service liberalization. It notes that if services are liberalized in the context of a multilateral agreement, it locks in liberalization policies, thus enhancing their credibility. Quantitative analysis and country experiences also suggest that it produces the strongest impact of any change in policy. The paper recommends that:
the decision to liberalize services should not be open to compromise, but the issue of how to achieve this goal should be allowed to vary from sector to sector based on the initial conditions in each sector
sequencing of liberalization should start with sectors that are initially private but lack dominant private players | <urn:uuid:4d2fa4f4-6aa5-403b-a337-e361cb24b983> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cloud1.gdnet.org/~research_papers/Case%20study%20of%20Egypt%E2%80%99s%20service%20liberalization,service%20barriers%20and%20implementation%20of%20the%20GATS%20agreement | 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 | 0.934578 | 307 | 1.6875 | 2 |
With an unemployment rate just under 10 percent for veterans returning from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, finding a job for those who have served their country has proved to be a challenge. In pledging to hire 100,000 veterans over the next five years, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, has set an example of honoring the sacrifices of the nation's men and women in uniform that other corporations should follow. Few gestures say welcome home more profoundly than the security of a job.
Scheduled to begin on Memorial Day, the Wal-Mart jobs program will be open to any veteran who has been honorably discharged within 12 months of the end of their active duty service. The jobs program is a commendable business decision and a recognition veterans make dependable employees.
Wal-Mart has suffered from several public relations fiascoes in recent months — a brewing bribery scandal in Mexico, claims of sexual discrimination by 2,000 female employees and an embarrassing snub of Vice President Joe Biden's gun violence task force. The company's jobs program for veterans may not completely rehabilitate Wal-Mart's image. But it's a good first step. | <urn:uuid:cd75ab05-a651-4333-88e7-cabceca17fcc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/wal-marts-plan-to-hire-vets-is-a-worthy-effort/1271259 | 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 | 0.940907 | 231 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Tajine blanco is a Canarian endemism found on the islands of Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
It is a shrub with ample branches that can grow to two metres in height.
It is characterised by lance-shaped leaves with small tags spaced along the edges and the main nerve.
The most striking feature is the dense inflorescence with a conical shape, which can be enjoyed throughout the year.
It has a high ornamental value, often used in gardens on the islands. They are a protected species at the regional level. | <urn:uuid:025e67db-273f-449e-9d79-b2e3d2c6e72d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.salobregolfresort.com/en/node/835 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959606 | 123 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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