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By Ty Roth
(Ember, Paperback, 9780385739597, 336pp.)
Publication Date: February 14, 2012
Until now, high school junior, John Keats, has only tiptoed near the edges of the vortex that is schoolmate and literary prodigy, Gordon Byron. That is, until their mutual friend, Shelly, drowns in a sailing accident.
After stealing Shelly's ashes from her wake at Trinity Catholic High School, the boys set a course for the small Lake Erie island where Shelly's body had washed ashore and to where she wished to be returned. It would be one last "so Shelly" romantic quest. At least that's what they think. As they navigate around the obstacles and resist temptations during their odyssey, Keats and Gordon glue together the shattered pieces of Shelly's and their own pasts while attempting to make sense of her tragic and premature end.
TY ROTH teaches literature and composition at both the high school and university level. He has studied the Romantic poets and enjoys teaching his students about them. He holds a Sociology degree from Xavier University and a Masters of English Literature from the University of Toledo. He lives with his family in Sandusky, Ohio, along the shores of his much-loved Lake Erie. | <urn:uuid:0eaff143-554a-4fbb-8714-581ec08a9bf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385739597 | 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 | 0.969018 | 269 | 1.570313 | 2 |
May 19, 2013
Paul Ryan: A Man With a Plan, From the Fiscal to the Physical
Posted on Aug 15, 2012
By Amy Goodman
The floundering Romney campaign was thrown a life ring of sorts last week, from aboard the USS Wisconsin, a decommissioned US Navy vessel based in Norfolk, Virginia. There, Mitt Romney introduced the man he said would be “the next president of the United States,” until he corrected himself. “Every now and then I’m known to make a mistake,” Romney confessed. “I did not make a mistake with this guy. But I can tell you this, he’s going to be the next vice president of the United States.” And with that, Paul Ryan became Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate, the man who, in the event of a Romney win in November, becomes a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Ryan is considered by many a champion of small government. For women, though, the federal government that Paul Ryan envisions is big, intrusive and controlling. Paul Ryan would ban all abortions, with no exceptions, even in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother. In other words, the mother could die as a result of complications from the pregnancy.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund highlighted several other issues, among them, “his budget plan to dismantle Medicaid, jeopardizing the basic health care millions of women rely on, [and] his vote last year to end funding to Planned Parenthood, putting at risk the cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and treatment, and other preventive care that nearly three million Americans rely on each year.”
The anti-choice National Right to Life Committee stated, “Ryan has maintained a 100 percent pro-life voting record.” He is a co-sponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, what critics call the personhood bill, now in Congress, that would define in federal law that “the life of each human being begins with fertilization ... irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”
The law goes on, “a one-celled human embryo ... is a new unique human being.” As reported in Mother Jones, this law would make normal in vitro fertilization (IVF) practices illegal, as the process creates multiple fertilized eggs, one or two of which might be used to help a woman have a child. The others are frozen, used for research or destroyed, which, under this bill pushed by Ryan, would become murder. Mother Jones points out that at least three of Mitt Romney’s sons have relied on IVF to give birth to several of his 18 grandchildren. Likewise, the IUD, intrauterine device, which prevents the fertilized egg from implanting, would be illegal.
What we cannot do is turn our eyes away from just how radical Paul Ryan’s plans are for more than half of the U.S. population: women and girls. Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist famously called for a government small enough to “drown in the bathtub.” Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., told online news website Buzzfeed, “House Republicans—of which Paul Ryan is a leader—would shrink government so small it can only fit under the door of a woman’s doctor’s office.”
As the Romney-Ryan team stood beside the USS Wisconsin, it was clear that we are not all in the same boat. Corporations are people to be protected. One-celled human zygotes are people to be protected. But when it comes to the already born, flesh-and-blood people of this country, reeling from a massive recession, they would shred the social safety net. Sink or swim is not a plan.
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 1,000 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.
© 2012 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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Mont. tribe signs coal deal with Wyo. company
CROW AGENCY, Mont. (AP) — Leaders of the Crow Tribe agreed Thursday to give a Wyoming mining company rights to lease an estimated 1.4 billion tons of coal beneath the tribe's land in southeastern Montana.
The deal with Cloud Peak Energy involves more coal than the U.S. consumes annually, and revives stalled efforts to expand mining on the impoverished, 2.2 million-acre reservation.
Cloud Peak is hoping to ship the fuel overseas, tapping into coal export markets that have become increasingly attractive to mining companies as domestic demand falters due to competition from cheap natural gas and other factors.
Cloud Peak will pay the tribe $2.25 million up front. Additional payments in coming years could add up to $10 million for the tribe in exchange for leasing and exploration rights.
Approval from the Department of Interior is required before the deal can go into effect.
"The hopes and dreams have always been there of the Crow people developing that area," Crow Chairman Darrin Old Coyote told a crowd of several hundred people gathered to witness the signing of the agreement in Crow Agency. "I ask that we all work together collectively as a tribe to push this project forward so we can all benefit from the massive natural resources we have as the Crow people."
The future mining project was dubbed Big Metal in honor of a legendary Crow figure by the same name.
The tribe's coal reserves are within the Powder River Basin, which accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. coal production.
Cloud Peak and other companies have been seeking to boost exports of the region's coal through West Coast ports. They face determined resistance from environmentalists.
Cloud Peak chief executive Colin Marshall said it could take five years to develop a mine that would produce up to 10 million tons of coal annually. Other mines are also possible in the leased areas, he said.
But whether anything gets built will be tied closely to the fate of pending coal port proposals in Oregon and Washington state, he said.
"If a coal port is developed, then this mine will go ahead and bring us the prosperity we are both looking for," Marshall said.
He added that without the option to export coal, Cloud Peak would have to find domestic buyers. That's a difficult prospect under current market conditions that have prompted many utilities to reduce their use of the fuel. | <urn:uuid:3c158b84-dc9d-4ca2-a74f-f3d591feac45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsok.com/mont.-tribe-signs-coal-deal-with-wyo.-company/article/feed/491410?custom_click=rss | 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 | 0.967419 | 489 | 1.71875 | 2 |
A digest of important news from sources selected by our local editors. Delivered weekday mornings.
RALEIGH – Though a bill aimed at promoting job growth has yet to reach the floor of the U.S. Senate, language regarding the transfer of discoveries from universities to the private sector is already stirring up controversy in the Triangle.
The Startup Act, introduced by U.S. Sens. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, is based on a model submitted by the nonpartisan Kauffman Foundation. The bill, currently in committee, could see a floor vote in the next few weeks, Kauffman senior adviser Cameron Cushman says.
The tech transfer element of the legislation would speed up the process of commercializing a product, Cushman says, by allowing innovators to choose where to license inventions and start the patent process themselves. Innovators at UNC-Pembroke, for example, would no longer be confined to Pembroke. They could license products through other institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill, MIT and Harvard.
That’s the part of the bill that has Laura Schoppe, president of tech transfer company Fuentek, and some of her colleagues skeptical. “Our concern is the practicality of implementation,” she says. “UNC, larger universities, they are overburdened just by the technology they have.”
The bill doesn’t address how institutions would prioritize licensing.
“Are they going to go offline from one of their own technologies and devote resources to the Pembroke one?,” she asks, adding that licensing outside technologies would bring about even more problems. “They’ll get less a piece of the pie than they would if it was their own technology, and it could damage the relationship with their own faculty.”
Lauren Ohnesorge covers technology, biotechnology and Durham County.
The latest local business news delivered to you each day. | <urn:uuid:158faa75-c563-4b1f-a295-5acfac80e653> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/print-edition/2012/03/02/concerns-raised-about-bill-aimed-at.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960021 | 414 | 1.835938 | 2 |
MANILA — The Philippine Supreme Court temporarily halted a landmark law on Tuesday that would provide free contraception to poor women.
In a 10-5 ruling, the court froze for 120 days when the law could take effect. It was passed in December after a ferocious national debate that pitted the Roman Catholic Church against President Benigno S. Aquino III.
Supporters and opponents of the legislation will argue their cases before the Supreme Court on June 18, said a court spokesman, Theodore Te.
The decision indicates that the Supreme Court is seriously considering the more than a half-dozen petitions filed against the law, said Harry Roque, a constitutional expert.
That does not necessarily mean the measure is likely to be ruled unconstitutional, he added. The Supreme Court has previously delayed laws that it later validated.
“The law will be carefully examined in court as it was when it was debated in Congress,’’ Roque said.
Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines, but it is out of the reach of many poor women and those living in provincial areas. | <urn:uuid:06a7127e-5fe3-44a7-a135-552bfb95d3a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2013/03/19/philippine-supreme-court-temporarily-halts-law-giving-free-contraceptives-poor-women/lcFAuulhXNPPIUfReRdPTJ/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973722 | 220 | 1.578125 | 2 |
For the past 10 years, Karin Feltman has been an emergency-room nurse at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
She knows pain, trauma and despair.
That's why she volunteered to go wherever she was needed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"I thought to myself, 'Hey, I've worked ER, I can do this,'" Feltman said during an after-hours cell phone interview from her tent behind an impromptu medical clinic in the scattered remains of Long Beach, Miss.
"I really felt I was called to do this," she said.
Feltman, 37, has been in Long Beach, population 17,800, since Sept. 20. She returns to Lawrence on Oct. 9.
Her life, she said, has been forever changed.
"I'm still looking for the words to describe it. I can't do it justice," she said. "Ninety percent of the houses here are gone. When I say gone, I mean all that's left are the front steps and a concrete slab. There's nothing there."
"The 10 percent that are still standing - you can see daylight," she said. "They'll have to be torn down."
Giant oak trees, she said, have been uprooted. The region's tall pines have snapped like toothpicks.
"There are people running chainsaws 12 hours a day," Feltman said. "It didn't dawn on me at first, but the trees that are still standing, they're completely bare. Everything looks dead."
During a six-mile trip to Gulfport, Feltman said, not a single house was standing. "You have to go a half-mile inland before you see a building," she said. "Entire communities are gone."
It's been hot, too. "It's 100 degrees and 100 percent humidity," Feltman said. "We're in tank tops and flip-flops. Even the people from here said it's hot."
At the clinic, she said, patients are dazed.
"Most people, their doctors' offices are gone, their pharmacies are gone. People with heart and lung conditions and mental-health issues, they have no meds," Feltman said. "Fortunately, we have a pharmacy here. We're dispensing meds."
Every patient, she said, has been traumatized.
"There is such a sense of loss and grief," Feltman said. "You can be having a normal conversation with someone, and they'll just burst into tears. Most people here have lost their jobs, their homes, their friends, their neighborhoods. They're very desperate and very depressed. They're numb, they have no idea what they're going to do."
Feltman said she's been struck by the grace and compassion of Long Beach's citizenry.
"After what they've been through, I totally expected people to be agitated, irritable and impatient," she said. "We've seen none of that. We're here to help them, and they keep coming by to see if they can help us. We had a retired nun volunteer to do our laundry."
Half-joking, Feltman said she had given as many shots in her first week at the clinic as she had in 10 years at the LMH emergency room.
"I gave 100 (tetanus) shots yesterday," she said, adding that she's worked 12 to 14 hours a day, every day. "We're seeing a lot of puncture wounds and scrapes, viral illnesses, rashes, respiratory illnesses caused by breathing all the dust and mold, and dehydration - a lot of dehydration."
Lawrence residents return from storm-ravaged region with photos.
Feltman said the clinic, a project of the Mississippi Episcopal Diocese, had abundant supplies of clothing, toys, bottled water and medicine.
"What we're short of," she said, "is nonperishable food. Canned goods."
Long Beach is a "tourist and bedroom" community that has "a lot of retirees and commuters," said Jeannie Ripoll, director of the city's library.
The city, Ripoll said, is bisected by an east-west railroad track.
"Everything below (south of) the tracks is pretty much flat. The first three blocks (nearest the beach) are totally gone. No houses, no apartments, no condos. Nothing," Ripoll said.
"Everything that's left will have to be condemned. It's bad, really bad," she said. "Our mayor just announced that we've lost 75 percent of our revenue (producing property)."
Katrina, she said, demolished Long Beach's city hall, police station, water department and one of its two fire stations.
"The library will have to be torn down," she said.
Ripoll said she hadn't met Feltman.
"I've not been down there," she said. "But the volunteers have been wonderful. People are being so generous."
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- On the Street: What should people do locally to help hurricane victims? (09-02-05) | <urn:uuid:393bc111-dbea-471c-8feb-556e73e82380> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/oct/01/local_er_nurse_recounts_desperation_victims/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980069 | 1,281 | 1.6875 | 2 |
PATTAYA, Thailand—An exercise here that tested the ability of Self-Defense Forces troops to evacuate civilians overseas has highlighted problems ranging from mandate restrictions to patchy field skills.
Some troops appraised their readiness as modest.
"We are incapable of executing a 'Rambo-style operation,' " said one SDF member, citing a Hollywood action hero widely seen as defining a can-do military attitude.
A long-planned multinational exercise involving SDF troops and the armed forces of four other countries on Feb. 17 gained added prominence after 10 Japanese engineers died in a mass hostage-taking by Islamist militants at a natural gas plant in Algeria in January. Seven Japanese individuals survived.
Existing laws prohibit the Japanese government from dispatching SDF troops to foreign emergencies unless it can confirm that they will not get drawn into the conflict.
But the SDF lacks a specific mandate to protect Japanese citizens overseas.
The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to overhaul the Self-Defense Forces law to enable a wider range of missions overseas.
The latest drill saw a small unit of SDF troops take part in a major annual exercise between U.S. and Thai forces, in which several other countries typically participate. Known as Cobra Gold, the exercise's individual drills continue at various locations in Thailand through Feb. 22. It is the 32nd time Cobra Gold is being held, and the ninth year that SDF forces are participating in it.
Thirty-five diplomats from Japanese missions worldwide, including the Middle East and Africa, played the role of civilians caught up in an unspecified emergency overseas.
A total of 34 Japanese troops helped them board aircraft at a hypothetical military base operated by another foreign country.
Tatsuo Tarumi, who heads the training and exercise section of the SDF Joint Staff Office, assessed the Japanese troops' performance as relatively successful.
"It was not 100 percent, but it went well up to a point," he said.
But the multilateral exercise sharply exposed the limits of what the SDF can do.
Existing law restricts troops to collecting Japanese citizens from airports and ports that are deemed safe and transporting them out of the theater by air and sea—not from dangerous ones, and not by driving them across foreign territory.
This exercise supposed that Japanese evacuees had been able to reach a secure airport under their own power. There, SDF troops met them and escorted them onto U.S. helicopters. The aircraft then flew the evacuees to a U.S. vessel playing the part of an SDF ship.
The SDF requirement of a safe operating location was in this case met by another nation's troops securing it for them. And the guns they carried could be used only within the strict bounds of self-defense—meaning they could not have sprung to the aid of allied forces under attack at the same base.
One Japanese government official was skeptical about the value of sending the SDF on such a mission.
"In these circumstances, a commercial jet would have done the job because it would be able to carry more passengers," the official said. "I also wonder whether an SDF ship could reach a foreign port swiftly enough."
Therefore, government officials said, revising the Self-Defense Forces law for this purpose would result in no significant capability boost.
Before the law was revised in 1999, the government considered allowing the SDF to transport Japanese nationals by land.
But officials calculated that escorting troops would be more likely to encounter a situation requiring more than pure self-defense. Using force overseas is considered a violation of Japan's war-renouncing Constitution—and, in this instance, the government backed down.
That view gained reinforcement amid revelations that attackers in Algeria had been armed with sophisticated assault weapons, perhaps from neighboring nations such as Libya.
"Only U.S., British and Israeli commanders have the capability to plan and execute a rescue operation of their nationals anywhere overseas," said a government official.
Whenever Britain or France, for example, see foreign crises looming and a potential need to evacuate expatriates, they dispatch foreign-service and military specialists to draw up contingency plans.
The SDF has only twice in its history transported Japanese nationals from overseas: from Iraq in 2004, and from Algeria last month.
Another government official said the use of SDF aircraft may often be the best option.
"Even if the mission involves danger, the best solution may be to dispatch ASDF aircraft abroad after making a political decision that the place is safe enough," said the official.
Meanwhile, the Cobra Gold exercise included a separate drill with the kind of scenario the government has recently been paying close attention to.
An amphibious assault demonstrated in central Thailand Feb. 14 was the kind of maneuver the SDF has been studying as it tries to enhance its readiness to recapture remote islands. Such a scenario seems more likely amid an ongoing flare-up in tensions between Japan and China over the sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
The Feb. 14 exercise saw U.S. and Thai forces deploy attack jets, landing craft and small boats—and Osprey aircraft from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture. The SDF did not take part.
It remains unclear whether the SDF is able to conduct this type of operation.
The government referred to such a mission only for the first time in the National Defense Program Guidelines released in late 2010.
The Ground Self-Defense Force is currently conducting war games on such a scenario with U.S. Marines on the U.S. West Coast.
Defense analysts say the GSDF is able to conduct amphibious operations with its current strength and inventory.
But one U.S. Marine officer involved said the success of Cobra Gold's amphibious assault demonstration hinged on the effectiveness of coordination between participating nations and between the various elements of each one's fighting forces.
"We can work with ourselves pretty well, but working jointly and combined, it's a challenge," said Capt. Adam Stiles of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. Stiles is based in Okinawa.
The SDF lacks experience that the armed forces of other nations might consider second nature: using ships for cannon fire and jets to bomb targets. It has never conducted comprehensive, full-fledged exercises using only its own ordnance.
Satoshi Morimoto, former defense minister, explained this by saying Japan needs to take into account how SDF exercises might appear to its neighbors.
"Japan must not conduct aggressive exercises that create misunderstandings about its intentions with China and other Asian countries," he said.
Another barrier is the question of exercising the right to collective self-defense, which Abe is seeking to lift by altering the government's official interpretation of the Constitution.
Successive governments have worked under the understanding that although Japan has a right to collective self-defense in light of international law, the Constitution prevents that right from being exercised.
Moreover, even taking part in exercises like that conducted Feb. 14 could pose questions of legitimacy when the involved personnel include the forces of Thailand, with which, unlike the United States, Japan lacks a security treaty, defense analysts say.
Japan's choice of partner in trying to recapture a foreign-held island would be limited to just one nation: the United States.
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“Smart Nanosystems” — Opportunity for Multi-functionalization in Tumor Targeting and Delivery
Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Chair, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Director, Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine
Northeastern University , MA
Dr. Torchillin’ major research areas includ drug carriers, drug delivery sytems, drug targeting, liposomes, micelles, experimental cancer immunology, and imaging agents.
At just sixteen years old, Vladimir P. Torchilin so impressed officials at the world-renowned Moscow State University that they admitted him a full two years early to one of the most academically rigorous science programs in the world.
He did not disappoint. An ambitious young scientist, Torchilin had earned an M.S. in polymer science by age twenty-two and a PhD in chemical kinetics and catalysis by age twenty-five, when he joined the faculty at Moscow State University as a junior scientist.
He was one of the youngest scientists ever to receive the doctor of science degree in chemistry and to win the Lenin prize, the highest scientific award in the former Soviet Union.
Nearly three decades and several prestigious appointments later, Torchilin, professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences for the past five years, has received countless honors for his innovative research in such areas as drug delivery systems, drug targeting, cancer immunology, and imaging agents.
He holds more than 45 patents, has received upwards of $5.5 million in grants, has published more than 300 papers, and sat on the editorial boards of fourteen highly respected scientific journals.
On coming to Northeastern from Harvard Medical School, where he was associate professor of radiology with a joint appointment as head of the chemistry program at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Imaging and Pharmaceutical Research (CIPR), Torchilin said, “I like what is going on at Northeastern. It is changing fast. More and more strong scientists are coming on board. There is a lot of opportunity to do serious and important work here.”
Studying the delivery methods for drugs used to treat cancerous tumors, just one of Torchilin’s research areas, is indeed serious work.
“There are many new promising drugs today, but they still have physical properties that make them difficult, and sometimes less efficient, to use,” explained Torchilin. “They have terrible side effects and can damage healthy tissue while treating disease.”
According to Torchilin, passive drug targeting — administering drugs that go throughout the entire body and deliver only a minor fraction of the drug to the actual tumor or disease site — can be costly and ineffective.
To improve the efficacy of these drugs, Torchilin is researching active drug targeting — a system of administering from inside the body drugs that have been designed for use with certain carriers to literally seek out the disease site, delivering a highly targeted, more efficient and, hopefully, more effective therapy.
“There is so much happening in the field of pharmaceutical biotechnology,” he said. “Life expectancy continues to climb. Unfortunately, living longer doesn’t man that you stay young longer; it means you stay old longer. We need good medical care and major advances to make longer life healthy and enjoyable. It is an exciting time to be working in this field.”
Co-chairing the special symposium on Nanotechnology for Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment.
View Confimed Speakers
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Think protecting customer privacy is only an issue for business giants like Facebook and Sony? Think again.
Many small companies have lost customer trust or even been sued over privacy mishaps in recent years. And they're likely to face more problems as digital data files grow in size and importance to modern business.
You are legally, if not morally, obligated to treat your customers' private personal data respectfully and fairly. But protecting customer privacy need not be a drain on your company. Done wisely, it can create customer goodwill and even lift sales, while reducing business and legal risks.
1. Conduct a data privacy audit.
Step one is to understand what data your business needs, what data it's collecting and how data is being stored and secured. Consider also your legal obligations if you handle medical, financial or minors' data.
Businesses sometimes collect more data than they realize because they've used third-party software code that does so automatically or because a partner, such as an advertising network or analytics company, is pulling data.
Lack of attention to this data collection is what often sparks a crisis, says Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C., think tank. But you can avoid trouble by making sure someone in your organization is responsible for data privacy, be it a full-fledged chief privacy officer or simply the marketing director.
"No one ends up knowing what is collected and kept from beginning to end unless someone is in charge of that," Polonetsky says. "Someone needs to be accountable."
2. Minimize data collection and retention.
What you don't have can't hurt you. Privacy advocates recommend that companies collect and store only data they need to deliver their product or service. Sometimes businesses gather extra information because they think they might want it in the future. But doing so increases risk. Data can be lost or stolen by hackers, and customers can mutiny if they feel you're asking unnecessarily intrusive questions.
3. Secure the data you keep.
Even if you don't take credit card numbers, other personal data you keep could be valuable to identity fraudsters. It's embarrassing, not to mention costly and damaging, to tell customers their personal information has been compromised in a hack. And such disclosure is often legally required. So be sure you have secured your network, databases and website.
5. Communicate with customers.
Privacy advocates and industry groups such as the Online Trust Alliance recommend direct and upfront communication with customers about data you collect and your plans for using it. That's especially important for small companies without recognized brands that people know and trust. Most consumers will happily supply personal data necessary for a service they want. For instance, Amazon.com keeps purchase data and uses it to deliver product recommendations that millions of customers embrace.
6. Give consumers a choice.
Recent research suggests customers expect settings and features that let them choose whether to share data, not sweet words about your respect for their privacy, Polonetsky says. They want to see signs that businesses are "serving" them, not "selling" them.
7. Provide a forum for complaints.
Give customers an online form or email address for communicating their privacy problems or concerns. And be sure to respond to their messages. Such two-way communication can help build trust and loyalty -- and help avoid potential privacy crises.
"Don't think you're too small to be noticed in this world of savvy critics," Polonetsky says. "One aggrieved customer on Twitter … can send the most minor complaint viral." | <urn:uuid:0812223e-7c5a-4120-abba-8c7699342de9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222552 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945016 | 729 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Home improvement for your health
(BPT) - When considering home improvements, people tend to choose projects that will improve the value of their home. While this is important for a healthy bottom line, investing in the health of those living inside the home also is a value-added improvement. "I love going to the gym, but there are days when my workout will only happen if I work out at home because I don't have time for the commute," says Chris Freytag, a national health and fitness expert and contributing editor of Prevention Magazine. While die-hard gym-goers might need a home-exercise option if they have sick children or a sudden change in schedule, even outdoor exercise enthusiasts might need shelter from extreme weather. "If you're committed to your fitness routine, you always need that plan B, even if you do belong to a health club," Freytag says. Freytag, who is chairman of the board of directors for the American Council on Exercise, says that in cases such as these, having a fitness option at home keeps your workouts convenient. And for those who make their home the primary place to work out, dedicated space for fitness is important. "When you make it easier to exercise, you are more likely to do it," she says. "Depending on the room in your budget and the room in your house, you can create a home gym that's perfect for you and will help you meet your personal fitness goals." Furnishing the home for fitness Having space in the home dedicated for fitness is one thing. Knowing what to do in that space is another. Having the right fitness equipment and resources at home can turn the best intentions to work up a sweat into a successfully completed workout. The good news is you no longer need to forsake your dining room table for a home gym. Today's fitness equipment is compact - making out-of-sight storage convenient - and portable enough to move from room to room, if necessary. Here is a list to consider when furnishing your home for fitness: 1. Healthy Way of Life Weight Loss DVD: This two-DVD package is the first of its kind offered by Life Time Fitness, The Healthy Way of Life Company, based on weight loss and fitness classes in their clubs. It provides a 12-week series of four workouts and includes a free 30-day trial to their new online program, Life Time at Home. While free for members, nonmembers can buy this virtual membership for $10 a month and, without setting foot into a gym, get a free consultation with a nutrition coach, access to supplemental workouts, a personalized tracker for nutrition, exercise and weight, and access to other health and fitness resources. For more information, go to lifetimefitness.mylt.com. 2. PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells: Although they might seem more pricey at first glance, they are less expensive than purchasing multiple dumbbell pairs of varying weights. Because there is only one pair for all the various weights, you keep your fitness space clutter free. 3. Stability ball: Replace the bulky bench you would use for resistance training with a stability ball to work on balance and core strength. Make sure your stability ball is burst resistant and rated for a slow deflate if punctured. 4. Resistance bands: While they enable you to work just about every muscle group, resistance bands are compact and can be stored in a drawer. "I highly recommend spending a little more for the braided bands, which are safer and hold their resistance better over time," advises Phil Timmons, national director of group training at Life Time. Purchase a set that comes with light, medium and hard resistance that also includes a door anchor. 5. Coach Troy's Performance and Fitness DVDs: Have a stationary bike or treadmill that has been collecting dust? Coach Troy Jacobson has a line of Spinervals, for the bike, and Runervals, for the treadmill, to help get that fitness equipment back in use. "People get bored without structure and goals," Jacobson says. "The key is to do workouts that are focused and meaningful as opposed to just mindlessly moving on the trainer or stationary bike. Indoor training is highly specific and very efficient on a time/work scale. For most people, efficiency rules the day." | <urn:uuid:4ef9dc8b-2168-41dd-bfa4-b2f68dd70bf8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newportindependent.com/section/?template=araArchiveDetails&CategoryID=86&article=8061930312&archive=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963389 | 864 | 1.5 | 2 |
I'm attending a potluck on Thursday night, and I'm bringing my own BFL friendly dish, but another girl is bringing quinoa. What is it and can I eat it? It looks like a Peruvian grain, but I have no idea about it's nutritional value. Any ideas?
Quinoa is a wheat seed and is one of the few complete proteins there is. Just watch your serving and understand what your friend is putting in to the Quinoa. It's a carb that does contain protein, you'll want to keep it to 1/2 cup serving. I imagine that Quinoa wasn't main stream back when the book was written.
Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right ~ Henry Ford
Michelle Simpson ~2009 Body-for-LIFE Champion 46+ Catagory
Thank you for such an informed answer. I will certainly ask what else is in her recipe. Thanks!!
and also it is really delicious!
© Abbott Laboratories,2013 | <urn:uuid:28af3171-1500-4fa2-8458-0b1ec60c6b24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bodyforlife.com/community/boards/bfl/f/13/t/1202.aspx | 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 | 0.973042 | 205 | 1.546875 | 2 |
A 13-year-old great-granddaughter of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, has been killed in a car crash after leaving a concert ahead of the World Cup kick-off, the Nelson Mandela Foundation has said.
"Zenani Mandela was travelling in a car returning from the World Cup Kick-Off Concert at Orlando Stadium when the accident occurred," a statement from the Foundation said on Friday.
Mandela's ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was in the car when the accident happened, the South African Press Association quoted police as saying.
Zenani, who celebrated her 13th birthday on June 9, was the grand-daughter of Zindzi Mandela, Nelson and Winnie's daughter.
She was one of Mandela's nine great-grandchildren.
The driver of the car was drunk and police have arrested him and are investigating charges of culpable homicide, a police spokeswoman said.
Mandela to be absent
Mandela, 91, helped the country win the 2010 World Cup bid in 2004 and South Africans have been hoping he might be able to attend the opening match despite his frail health.
But he will not be attending the opening celebrations or the opening match in Johannesburg because of the family tragedy.
Sello Hatang, a spokesman for the Mandela Foundation, said that Mandela would not be attending the celebrations.
"We are sure that South Africans and people all over the world will stand in solidarity with Mr Mandela and his family in the aftermath of this tragedy," Hatang said.
Mandela, who turns 92 on July 18, has largely retired from public life but was inundated with requests for meetings as visitors flocked to the country for the football tournament.
"Mandela's diary will remain closed for the duration of the World Cup," his spokesman said, adding that the former president "remains in good health".
Mandela, a Nobel peace prize winner, spent 27 years in prison during the fight against Apartheid.
He has called the month-long World Cup "one of the greatest" events in Africa's history.
"The tournament symbolises the power of football to bring people together from all over the world, regardless of language, the colour of one's skin, political or religious persuasion," he said. | <urn:uuid:b01fb554-fec3-4a6c-bf88-daed1e762720> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2010/06/201061154657370318.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975237 | 467 | 1.5 | 2 |
Saturday, 10 December 2011
“These images were produced by direct, large format, light projection. The projector, powered by a mobile generator, was moved from site to site. All of the pieces were photographed at night using long exposures. On moonless nights, the landscape was lit with searchlights. The landforms themselves are quite large, requiring the projector and camera to be, on average, 1/2 mile away from the subject landscape.” – Jim Sanborn
via Field Notes. | <urn:uuid:7f9c6916-417c-4f24-b692-259c6f3c8877> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ilikethisart.net/?p=11566 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977529 | 102 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Oliver on receiving end of meal delivery
Meals on Wheels provides nutritious meal, security
Vera Oliver was on the front lines of Meals on Wheels when the delivery service started in Gothenburg in 1976.She and friend and fellow Presbyterian Church member Janice Williams delivered countless numbers of meals to people for several years.
Then, meals were prepared at Gothenburg Memorial Hospital and delivered by volunteers.
Now they are cooked and picked up by volunteers for delivery from the Senior Center.
For the past two years, 94-year-old Oliver has received a hot noon meal and is grateful that the service is still available.
“I signed up because I have trouble walking,” she said, “and because my kids insisted.”
Oliver receives meals Monday through Friday. She usually has enough left over for her evening meal.
“Except when they have chicken on Thursday,” she said. “Then I eat it all at noon. I love fried chicken.”
Getting Meals on Wheels helps Oliver stay in her own home, she said, and it also provides a balanced diet.
“Otherwise I’d eat more Cheerios,” she said with a laugh.
Another important aspect of the service, Oliver said, is the security it provides.
While delivering Meals on Wheels, she encountered situations when meal recipients were in trouble.
One day, she took a meal to the front door of a woman in a wheelchair.
When Oliver opened the door, she heard the lady yelling for help.
The woman had fallen out of her wheelchair in the bathroom and couldn’t get back up.
Oliver and her husband and a neighbor helped the woman who was fortunately uninjured.
Another time, Oliver and Williams took a meal to man who lived alone and discovered that Saturday’s newspaper was still on his front step.
“We called the police,” she said.
The man had a stroke and was still alive but later died at the hospital.
Meals on Wheels board president Kendra Fecht agreed with Oliver that the service delivers a nutritious meal, a sense of security and more.
“Many times a smile at the door or a short visit will lift spirits on a tough day,” Fecht said. “It’s another line of communication.”
With a growing older population, Fecht said the need for the service will continue.
Statistics reflect that Meals on Wheels is needed.
Fecht said 7,440 meals were delivered in 2012 compared to 6,992 in 2011, representing a 448-meal increase.
The price of a meal remains the same at $4.50. Fund-raisers help defray the cost of replacing meal containers and coolers used in deliveries.
Fecht said relatives and friends can purchase Meals on Wheels for their loved ones.
“Christmas, birthdays or just ‘I care’ are great reasons for family and friends to give a gift of nutritious meals,” she said.
Qualifications to receive a meal include that the person is handicapped, or needs temporary help like recovering from surgery or injury, is a shut-in, is unable to cook or who wants and needs a good balanced meal.
Volunteer groups that deliver meals are the Evangelical Free Church, United Methodist Church, Zion Lutheran Church, First Presbyterian Church, The Crossing, American Lutheran Church, Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church, Trinity Lutheran Church, the Lions Club and Gothenburg Rotary Club.
During the summer, Gothenburg Public Schools teachers and staff, Gothenburg FFA and Tail Twisters 4-H Club deliver meals.
Besides Fecht, board members are Janet Evans, secretary; Jody Macek, treasurer; Angie Barkmeier, Senior Center representative; and Shannon Sell, Rita Thomalla, Charlene Devine and Deb Clark.
Local News Slideshow
- Fun day at Block farm
- 600 bicyclists pedaling into town June 4
- Co. officer hired for floodplain duties
- Minister keynote speaker at Memorial Day service
- Village moves ahead with well repairs
- Brady students receive recognition
- Scottsbluff claims Dist. B-4 golf title
- Variety of ways offered to support Relay For Life | <urn:uuid:818d6cb7-eec9-4438-bfb4-2726e3d6fd08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothenburgtimes.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=5498:oliver-on-receiving-end-of-meal-delivery&catid=1:local&Itemid=2&fontstyle=f-smaller | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967726 | 904 | 1.515625 | 2 |
OSDBUs are Good Friends to Have, But They Don’t Have Any MoneyPosted: January 11, 2012
The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) is a position that’s created in almost every physical location and/or agency organization within the federal government. These folks are charged with a variety of missions that are devoted to small business success, whether you are a small business, an 8(a) (socially and economically disadvantaged) small business, a woman-owned small business, a veteran-owned small business, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business or a HUBZone business (located in a traditionally underutilized business area).
They serve you in three major roles:
The OSDBU can give you information about the agency/organization, such as their typical buying patterns and even a forecast of anticipated spending that covers everything from pencils to airplanes and everything in between.
OSDBUs work directly with your customer (the government agency) to encourage them to designate contracts so that only small businesses can bid on them. Otherwise, contracts with an open requirement can be bid on by anyone, from a one-person business to a massive company like Lockheed Martin. OSDBUs help level the playing field.
The federal government, through congressional action, has established a requirement that 23% of the money contracted through the federal government go to small businesses. The OSDBU monitors this and also assists small businesses to bid for the jobs that are reserved for them. They are a part of the internal agency review process that determines the “acquisition strategy” – whether the job will be set-aside for small business, or allowed to have “full and open” competition (i.e., anybody can bid, no matter what size). As the internal advocate for small business, the OSDBU works on our behalf to make sure the government gives a fair shake to small business.
So if you plan on trying to make money in the federal government, talk to the small business officer in your local area, whether that is an air force base, army base or a regional office. They can give you crucial background information about that agency or location, and can open doors by telling you who might have work that will be bid soon. Contracting Officers (COs) will come to the OSDBU for names of small businesses, since COs like to have three bidders on each contract. Get your small business included on that list of names!
Although they have a very important function to perform, the fact is OSDBUs themselves don’t have any money for you. They may know who needs contractors, but they are not hiring contractors. They have influence, they can be your advocate and they can help you, but they are not your customer. The customers are the people who have money. OSDBUs and their staff are nice people and they want to help you, but they can’t give you an actual contract. So keep working on finding customers, but in the meantime you also need to make sure the OSDBU office knows you, so make sure you stop by often. | <urn:uuid:aee4bd84-5e81-4222-8425-320bf36a0b84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.federalsmallbizsavvy.com/getting-started/osdbus-are-good-friends-to-have-but-they-dont-have-any-money/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966231 | 654 | 1.773438 | 2 |
by Susan O’Neill
SUGAR GROVE—Enrollment at Waubonsee Community College continues to rise, with this year showing a double-digit increase over last year.
According to Waubonsee Community College spokesperson Jeff Noblitt, there are nearly 15 percent more students at the Sugar Grove, Aurora and Rush-Copley campuses taking classes this fall compared to 2008, when enrollment showed a 9.5 percent spike over the previous year.
This year, the total number of hours taken is more than 16 percent over fall 2008, on top of a 9.9 percent increase in hours over the year before, a trend that began six years ago.
More are becoming full-time students, Noblitt said.
“It’s partially driven by the economy,†he said. “The economic downturn has resulted in lost jobs and the need to go back to school to retrain for better jobs.â€
“People have either lost their jobs, had their hours cut or are fearful of losing their jobs,†he said. “They see education as the way to boost their career.â€
Noblitt said the college has also seen an increase in the number of traditional college-age students, as more begin their college career sat a two-year school before, transferring to a four-year college at the end of the second year.
“This way they can stay on track with their college education, and it saves a lot of money,†Noblitt said.
Noblitt said President Barack Obama made community colleges an important factor in what he feels will pull the economy forward. In addition, Vice-President Joe Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, a community college professor, has been a visible advocate of a community college education since the president took office.
People are also becoming more knowledgeable about what a junior college can offer, Noblitt added. With smaller class sizes and a more nurturing environment, the beginning student is more likely to succeed.
Increase in numbers of students enrolled at Waubonsee
2004-2005 2.4 percent
2007-2008 9.5 percent
2008-2009 14+ percent | <urn:uuid:4d6d31a3-bab9-46b0-a077-e491688b20a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elburnherald.com/5923/2009/09/05/wcc-sees-second-year-of-big-increases-in-enrollment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963056 | 474 | 1.625 | 2 |
I have taken this sketch (jpeg) converted to .eps and performed a live trace in illustrator. I then go to live paint to select areas to fill with different colors, but the whole image is selected. It could have to do with me not being able to separate into layers before the trace, but i'm not too sure where i am going wrong here. I've watched several tutorials on turning sketches into vector files, but obviously im missing a step. Any help?
There is no need for EPS before importing the image into Illustrator. That's just silly wasted effort. EPS is a "meta format"; just think of it as a "box" or a "wrapper" into which you can drop a bunch of different object types (raster images, vector paths, text) that can be understood by a PostScript device. You can import the raster image (JPEG, whatever) directly into Illustrator. There is no need for it to be contained in an EPS "wrapper."
Forget Layers. You're just confusing yourself. Has nothing to do with your problem.
...obviously im missing a step.
Bluntly, the step you are missing is reading the operator's manual. You're relying on cheezy online "tutorials" in an effort to use a rather complicated program without having to understand it.
I then go to live paint to select areas to fill...
What does that mean; you "go to live paint"? State exactly what you are doing; click-by-click, tool-by-tool, command-by-command. Use the terminology of the program. (Tool tips tell you the names of the tools.)
ALWAYS state what version of the program you are using.
This was done by merely copying your screenshot from your forum post and pasting it into CS3:
Europe, Middle East and Africa | <urn:uuid:36f08350-d277-4481-8aba-2e29845d02c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.adobe.com/message/4440377 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945212 | 388 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The "Oslo Syndrome" and the Terror Attack in Norway
By Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal
Reviewed by James L. Abrahamson, contributing editor
When Barry Rubin, Director of Global Research in International Affairs and Editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs, begin writing about the 22 July 2011 terrorist murder of 8 people in Oslo and 69 teenagers attending the governing political party’s youth camp on an island about 25 miles northwest of Oslo, he acknowledged that he was about to deal with “the most sensitive aspects” of a “very sensitive subject.” Having something important to say, and a close student of terrorism for the past 35 years, Rubin nevertheless pushed ahead, probably aware that his point of view would be distorted and draw much personal criticism — as it has.
Other commentators, and some officials, also tried to account for the actions of the heavily armed perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, whom the police easily arrested on the island. Early on, Deputy Police Chief Roger Andersen, for example, placed responsibility for Breivik’s behavior on the Left’s usual enemies by describing him as a fundamentalist Christian, which he is not, and an Islamaphobe, which he clearly is.
The phobia might explain the car-bomb attack on the building housing the office of a prime minister whose party had promoted Muslim immigration and, as an advocate of multiculturalism, often yielded to Muslim demands that conservative Norwegians regarded as undermining their culture and its Western values.
As an explanation for the mass murder of Norwegian teenagers, however, being an Islamaphobe does not work so well, though it might have if Breivik had instead attempted to slaughter a gathering of young Muslims. Nor can one readily explain the murder of Norwegian teenagers by reference to his plentiful writings condemning Marxists, multiculturalists, Muslims, and the well known efforts of Europe’s left-wing politicians to silence conservatives.
In an effort to explain Breivik’s behavior, other commentators emphasized Europe’s many past surrenders to the Continent’s unassimilated Muslim populations. They too found themselves under attack — for being anti-Muslim. In fact, they often did not so much blame Muslims for their lack of assimilation and their expectations of European governments; they instead criticized European populations and governments that invited Muslims to immigrate but subsequently failed to insist that they assimilate into European culture and to assist them in that process. In the view of those members of the media, accommodations to Muslim culture had typically failed to breed goodwill even as they caused native Europeans to feel threatened. Those surrenders now seemingly further the growth of right-wing political groups and parties and increase the likelihood of further inter-ethnic attacks — though surely not on European teenagers at a summer camp.
The task that Rubin set for himself in his essay was accounting for violent behavior directed at a target at which Breivik’s writings only hint. As a consequence Rubin must move beyond the available evidence and offer a hypothesis that involves some speculation, even about Breivik’s subconscious. Rubin’s speculation is nevertheless very insightful and points the West toward a useful path in its response to terrorism, whatever role Breivik’s innermost thoughts might have played in shaping his conduct.
As Rubin sees the situation, the mistake of Europe’s left and its multiculturalists is displaying an ambivalent attitude toward terrorism, approving it if engaged in by preferred groups who direct it at those not well regarded. In Norway’s case, this meant accepting the mass murder of Israelis by Palestinians — who deploy car bombs and send suicide bombers into crowded public thoroughfares, onto buses, and into restaurants — and by Hamas — who launch poorly aimed rockets toward Israeli villages. All those actions intend the indiscriminate murder of civilians. Such terrorism by Hamas in Gaza and from Palestinians on the West Bank, the Norwegian government was prepared to publicly justify, even as it condemned better-targeted Israeli responses aimed at terrorists.
At the time of Breivik’s attacks, the Norwegian government was trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which would facilitate the flow of arms to Hamas, and to offer immediate recognition of a Palestinian state without any commitment on the part of the proposed new government to end terrorism directed at Israel.
Ironically, building youthful support for that policy provided one of the themes of that summer camp attended by some six hundred teenagers regarded by Norway’s governing party as its future leaders. Though the campers and their guides would not have seen it that way, Rubin is so bold as to suggest that the young people were, in effect, “engaged in what was essentially . . . a pro-terrorist program.” Blunt words, sure to gain attention and make trouble for Rubin, but honesty must sometimes be intellectually brutal. Nor should a pro-terrorist program regarding government policy be confused with a terrorist training camp, as some of Rubin’s critics have dishonestly claimed he had described the gathering of the youngsters.
Rubin also made it clear that he was not implying that the young people or members of the Norwegian ruling party “had it coming.” A long-standing, and unqualified opponent of terrorism, Rubin clearly stated: “victims never deserve to be murdered by terrorists.” To him, neither what the party was teaching the teenagers nor the work of those in the Oslo governmental officers represented, was, in any way, “justification for a horrendous terrorist act.”
What Rubin wanted his readers to learn from Breivik’s horrible attacks was, first, that mass murder of civilians is NEVER justified, and, second, that if the public without exception condemns terror, those who engage in the tactic will abandon it when it no long appears “politically successful.” To that end Rubin offered four examples from the past two centuries in which public disapproval caused terrorists to abandon a tactic they once thought would rouse the public to support the terrorists’ political aims.
In contrast, praise of terrorism has inspired more terrorism. According to an aide to Osama bin Laden, the public response to Palestinian use of terror against civilians inspired the attacks on 9/11, which in turn inspired many Palestinians to join the PLO. Yasar Arafat’s use of terrorism enabled him to be applauded at the UN for a speech threatening more terror and, in time, to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. “Why should others,” Rubin asked, “not dream that the road to victory is paved with the corpses of deliberately murdered civilians?” Why would terror not also have inspired a Norwegian Islamaphobe?
To avoid that, the West, Rubin argues, must make no distinction between “good” and “bad” terrorism. It must also condemn grossly insensitive statements like that of Norway’s ambassador to Israel who “distinguished between ‘bad’ terrorism in Norway and ‘understandable’ terrorism against Israelis.” Thinking like that, Rubin wrote “opens the door” to a man like Breivik who believes “his country is ‘occupied’ by leftists and Muslims.”
What distinguishes Breivik from many others was not his political orientation or his feelings about Islam; it was that he believed his terrorism, which he acknowledged to be “atrocious but necessary,” was a means to rally the European public to his side. As with Osama bin Laden, Breivik believed that terrorism, in Rubin’s words, “would work on behalf of his cause;” it was needed in order to “change minds, gain support, and bring victory.” According to Rubin,the “successful terrorists and their Western enablers” were those who unintentionally suggested a strategy and prompted a “mentally unbalanced” man with “a material basis for his imaginings” to resort to mass murder. | <urn:uuid:890dd6a8-c354-4566-a8ec-2253d0347273> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2011/0912/ca/oslo1_abrahamson.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967112 | 1,671 | 1.554688 | 2 |
OUR RECORD YEAR.
Manawatu Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 76810, 4 April 1903, Page 3
OUR RECORD YEAR.
Increases All Round.
Absentees to be T Doubly Taxed. .
Threatened Bank Legislation
Levels Estate Purchased
Thanks and Welcome
Gore, Friday. Mr Seddon, addressing a large public meeting, said last year's revenue had increased approximately by £275,430, increases being shown in nearly all branches. The excess estimated revenue was £302,500, and the surplus this year would be about £250,000 or £300,000. The imports for the year just ended were approximately £11,484,000, and exports £15,083,000, a record year. The margin would pay interest on the public and private indebtedness, and still leave cash to come into the colony. It was intended to double the absentee land tax next session.
In regard to the Bank of New Zealand the Government would consider three propositions :—(1) A State Bank; he saw no harm in Government issuing notes ; (2) Leaving behind the Bank of New Zealand a portion of the sum given as guarantee, that portion to be interestbearing and the Government retaining some control over the Bank; (3) Withdrawing altogether, and leaving the Bank to the shareholders and itself. The last idea was not favored by the Government.
The Premier contrasted the amount received for last loan £91 14s with the amount gained for the previous loan £91 4s, showing that the colony should be congratulated rather than criticised. He announced the purchase of the Levels estate, Tlmaru, at a satisfactory price. He supported an increase of tho colony's contribution to the Imperial Navy to £30,000 so as to ensure up-todate ships. A hearty vote of thanks and welcome was passed to the Premier with great enthusiasm. | <urn:uuid:84d7f20c-5675-42a6-807d-c2acd3f59c46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=MT19030404.2.33&cl=&srpos=0&e=-------10--1----0--&st=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966971 | 394 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Coalition seeks more protection for hamlets in DEP land buying
By Jay Braman Jr.
At a time when regional planning is coming back into play locally in the form of efforts to coordinate economic development projects along the Route 28 corridor, there’s another layer of planning that’s beginning to take shape thanks to the Coalition of Watershed Towns. The current planning asks watershed communities to revisit some of the same questions that were asked back in the early 1990s when the historic watershed deal was reached between upstate and the City of New York.
Those questions are being asked again because there is an opportunity looming that could provide benefits to all the hamlets that dot the Catskills, but the coalition needs feedback from the leaders in those hamlets in order to know how to proceed.
In the early 1990s there was a fear that the city and its enforcement arm — the Department of Environmental Protection — were poised to condemn all the private property in the region as a way to protect its water supply. This fear led to a long battle between the city and the coalition that resulted in an agreement that the city would not condemn land but would only solicit lands and buy only from willing sellers.
Recognizing that the strength of local economies was concentrated within all the existing hamlets, the coalition convinced the city to respect designated hamlet zones as areas that were hands-off to solicitation.
In other words, the city couldn’t even try to get land in those zones, the idea being that it was in those zones where growth would occur over time, and the coalition wants the land in those zones to be filled with shops and restaurants and services, not wire fences, posted signs and DEP Police.
Those zones were set up in 1997, but now there is an opportunity to greatly expand those zones.
Dennis Lucas, the chairman of the Coalition’s Executive Committee, said Monday that the city is now armed with no less than an extra $300 million to buy land in the watershed over the next 10 years. With about 90,000 acres under city control already, Lucas said his organization did not like it when the Federal Environ-mental Protection Agency gave the city the right to buy so much more last year. So much so that the coalition has refused to support the deal. Such stubbornness has led the city back to the bargaining table, where Lucas says all are enjoying a spirit of cooperation.
“The city asked us what kind of a land acquisition plan could we live with,” Lucas said.
The coalition’s answer was, in part, larger hands-off areas.
Now Lucas awaits input from the coalition’s member communities, but so far the reaction has varied from some places that don’t want any hamlet expansion to others where committees have been at work establishing the maximum size of hamlet expansion they feel they can get away with.
The good news, Lucas said, is that there is plenty of time for communities to think things over and learn as much as they need to know about the pros and cons of the plan.
“There is no time limit for communities to weigh in on this,” Lucas said. | <urn:uuid:5ff1d056-5473-4e7a-870c-8fa8e249eb62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catskillmountainnews.com/content/coalition-seeks-more-protection-hamlets-dep-land-buying | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974984 | 654 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Kee Facts: A Few Things You Didn't Know
Sun December 30, 2012
Close The Year Out With Some Best-Selling Last Words
Originally published on Sun December 30, 2012 2:27 pm
People often make lists of the greatest opening lines in fiction, but closing lines really appeal to me. They're your final moments with a book and can help you remember and treasure it forever.
The last weekend of the year seems an appropriate time to consider the final words of our favorite novels and short stories. Here are some that I'm especially fond of:
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive, for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs."
Still Life With Woodpecker
"But I can and will remind you of two of the most important facts I know: (1) Everything is part of it. (2) It's never too late to have a happy childhood."
The Good Earth
"'Rest assured, our father, rest assured. The land is not to be sold.' But over the old man's head they looked at each other and smiled."
The Dharma Bums
"Then I added 'Blah,' with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world."
"I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, 'My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn't this a great country altogether?' 'Tis.'"
The Haunting of Hill House
"Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."
"His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."
The Silence of the Lambs
"But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs."
The World According to Garp
"In the world according to her father, Jenny Garp knew, we must have energy. Her famous grandmother, Jenny Fields, once thought of us as Externals, Vital Organs, Absentees, and Goners. But in the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases." (Note: John Irving has told interviewers that he always writes the last lines of his novels first.)
What last lines would you share from your favorite books? Please add yours to the comments section below. | <urn:uuid:e090bcba-d234-4330-9031-948fd6807d9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kazu.org/post/close-year-out-some-best-selling-last-words | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962315 | 649 | 1.53125 | 2 |
SpaceX is announcing today that they will be building the next larger vehicle after the Falcon 9, a Falcon Heavy with a lift of about 32 metric tons to low orbit and the ability to put most commercial communications sats into geosynchronous orbit. This puts them into the lift capacity range of the current top end Delta, Atlas and Ariane vehicles and at a price of $96M will have a rather significant impact on the current marketplace.
I have heard unsubstantiated rumors (I have not had time to dig further yet) that SpaceX may already have a customer signed up. We will all know shortly as the official press conference will be streamed live at 11:20am Eastern Time.
This comes hot on the heels of one of the most incompetent reports (from Aerospace Corp) to hit the aerospace sector in a long time. The report claims that private commercial space will be more expensive than government programs and does so by using a model that is so divorced from reality that one wonders what they were smoking and where you can buy some.
Note: The Aerospace report is demolished here if you are interested.
ED: The Aerospace document seems to have been pulled. If anyone can find it again, the title is: “The Financial Feasibility and a Reliability Based Acquisition Approach for Commercial Crew – Presentation to Administrator Bolden”, John Skratt, The Aerospace Corporation. Perhaps it became too much of an embarrassment…
ED: I have a copy of the Aerospace document for you now. | <urn:uuid:f54f0ad0-a61f-4704-b714-2a9f343298f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.samizdata.net/2011/04/spacex-is-build/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961226 | 306 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Rural Social Scheme (RSS) was launched by the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs (now Department of Community, Environment and Local Government) in 2004 and is administered by Pobal. The aims of this scheme are: - To provide income support for farmers and fishermen who are currently in receipt of long-term social welfare payments.
- To provide certain services of benefit to rural communities by harnessing the skills and talents available among low-income farmers and fishermen.
- The RSS is managed at a local level, on the Department’s behalf, by the LEADER groups. Responsibility for RSS in the non Gaeltacht Connemara area passed from Galway Rural Development Ltd. to FORUM in January 2009.
There are 14 participants on the RSS in the FORUM area, engaged in a range of activities including: - Environmental work. - Social care work. - Maintenance and care taking of community buildings. - Repair and upkeep of sporting facilities.
Who is eligible to participate in RSS? The scheme is aimed, primarily, at farmers who are in receipt of long-term social welfare payments, but the rules will admit low-income fishermen also. | <urn:uuid:f5f11b4f-ae9c-4db3-8629-c4e76d566b85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forumconnemara.ie/index.php?module=site&show=rural_social_scheme | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951228 | 241 | 1.828125 | 2 |
I’ve been listening to a lot of soul stuff lately, especially 1959-1962 Motown. It’s not as timeless as the mid-60s Motown–plenty of it sounds old–but it’s still chocked full of good tunes. Some take a while to grow on me and some are more immediate.
One that stopped me in my tracks on my first listen was “Don’t Leave Me” Henry Lumpkin. This 1962 track was released as a B-side of his “What is a Man (Without a Woman)” single after originally being a B-side for Marv Johnson in 1959.
Lumpkin cries “Don’t leave me/ Come on back” repeatedly with such anguish that it’s immediately believable that his woman–and what good is he without her–has left him. There are other lyrics in the song, the verses, but the song is so centered around that repeated line that it might as well have those repeat for two minutes.
In a way, I think of it as the anguished equivalent of Sam Cooke’s unceasingly suave first hit, “You Send Me” which just repeats the title line for most of length of the song. They’re both centered around one line and succeed in the emotion and style that is captured in that line–Lumpkin’s hurt and anguish and Cooke’s suaveness and love.
I have been hearing a lot of one particular feeling or emotion in a lot of indie songs these days: yearning. That’s the currency of the day and I–and it seems plenty of other people–are buying it. While “You Send Me” stands as a counterexample, I think a lot of the ’60s soul songs I like trade in anguish. One of my favorite all-time songs The Tracks of My Tears” is another example where the singer puts across pure anguish. What still gets me about it is that Smokey Robinson’s voice is a pure cry, a wail. It’s anguish in a way that only Smokey could do; Lumpkin twists his voice into anguish in a way that all his.
Also, let’s be honest, one of the best Motown singles of all time is “Bernadette” and that’s all anguish. | <urn:uuid:b1f96550-ef0d-4355-afb0-d01a0bc32494> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ipickmynose.com/2009/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970905 | 510 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Poirot is called to upon to investigate the murder of Roger Ackroyd, a man with an intriguing story. He’d been courting Mrs Ferrars, a wealthy widow, who had recently died of a suspected suicide by overdose. To solve the murder of Roger Ackroyd, Poirot realises he must delve deeper into the circumstances surrounding Mrs Ferrars’ demise.
The New York Times said of this book, “There are doubtless many detective stories more exciting and blood curdling than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd but this reviewer has recently read very few which provide greater analytical stimulation.” It was filmed for television with David Suchet as Poirot in 2000.
View locations in this story on the Christie map.
Christie revealed in her autobiography that the basic idea and twist in the novel was first given to her by her brother-in-law, James Watts of Abney Hall. In March 1924, Christie also received a letter from Lord Mountbatten, who was impressed by her previous works and write to her with an idea and notes for a story. Mountbatten’s basic premise echoed Watt’s suggestion – Christie acknowledged the letter and began writing the book to her own plotline.
Masthead Photography: Joan Hickson image © BBC
MURDER MOST FOUL © Turner Entertainment Co. A Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. All Rights Reserved.
AGATHA CHRISTIE® POIROT® MARPLE® Copyright ©2009 Agatha Christie Limited. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4bab822a-36f0-4cf5-a778-fe54231af2f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://agathachristie.com/story-explorer/stories/the-murder-of-roger-ackroyd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962516 | 320 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The letters for use when complaining about non delivery or delay delivery of goods have been purchased by a consumer.
Content the letter
1. Describe the item or service you bought.
2. Say where and when you bought the item, and how much it cost;
3. Explain that the goods you order have not been received yet .
4. Ask them the reason for the delay.
5. Explain what you expect to be done to rectify the situation.
1. The goods we ordered from you on … should have reached us …
2. We refer our to our letter of … that our order no … of … should have been delivered / despatched … weeks ago/last….
3. The goods we ordered from you on … have not yet been delivered.
4. We regret having to report that we have not yet received the goods we ordered on …
5. We are writing to complain about our order no … of … are considerably (long) overdue.
6. As the goods are required for …., we must now insist on immediate delivery (execution) of our order no …
7. We regret to have to complain about late delivery of … we ordered from you on …
8. As that is … and we have not yet received advice of delivery, we are wondering whether the order has since been overlooked.
1. I am very unhappy with this delay delivery.
2. This situation is causing us a great deal of inconvenience.
3. This standard of workmanship is not what I have come to expect from you.
4. This service is well below the standard expected.
5. I felt you would wish to know about this delay delivery.
6. I am sure you will wish to look into this and find out what happened.
Phrases used to stop the business reliationship
1. Unfortunately, there has been a similar delay on the previous occasion and this compels us to say that business between us cannot continued in such a bad condition.
Phrases used to cancel the order:
1. If you do not deliver the furniture within … of the date of this letter, I will consider you to be in breach of contract. The contract will then be terminated and I will require a full and immediate refund.
2. Unlesss the goods are received within…. we would have to cancel our order.
3. I hereby give you …. to deliver my order to me, failing which, I will expect you to reimburse me for the loss of my order in its entirety including associated costs.
4. We must ask you to complete the order immediately, otherwise we shall have no option but to cancel it and obtain the stationery elsewhere.
1. We shall be glad if you will look into the matter at once and let us know the reason for the delay.
2. We feel there must be some explanation of the delay and await you reply.
3. We hope you will understand how we are placed and that from now we can rely upon punctual completion of our order.
4. May I take this opportunity to advise you that any expenses incurred in relation to raising this court action will be added to my claim.
5. We feel there must be some explanation for this delay and await your prompt
88 Dimanawae Street
KLM/SKJ 6 August 2010
18 Queen Avenue
Dear Mr. Filan,
Our Cosmetic Products
We regret to have to complain about late delivery of cosmetic products we ordered from you on 22 July 2010. Although you had given us guarantee in delivery within 2 weeks, we did not receive them until yesterday.
We are very unhappy with this delay delivery. We must ask you to complete the order immediately, otherwise we shall have no option but to cancel it and obtain the stationery elsewhere.
We feel there must be some explanation for this delay and await your prompt reply.
Kelly Love Martin | <urn:uuid:53bfa27e-49e2-4903-81f7-508987a59e42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://szivella.blogdetik.com/2010/08/28/complaint-letter-delaynon-delay-delivery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948536 | 808 | 1.5 | 2 |
Even experienced PR people fumble, on occasion, with press release distribution services.
The humble press release was once a factual information sheet, and trainee PRs would be stood by the photocopier and licking and sticking envelopes as part of their apprenticeship.
Today it’s a much more contentious piece of literature, treading a fine line between spam, content and useful information sheet. And if the release itself requires a lot of thought, so too does the distribution method. Probably more, in reality, than the release itself, since the average blogger or journalist is more than capable of lifting the information appropriate to them and building on it.
Services fall into several broad categories.
Push services offer distribution to named individuals, usually journalists and bloggers. Some simply offer data, some will send the release for you – usually email. Familiar names might include Gorkana or Cision. Some more specialist services, like Press Dispensary, will tailor that distribution.
Due to increasing volumes of irrelevant material, many writers have now asked for their details to be removed from the more generic services. But they do make a good start point for identifying who might be interested in a release, and used carefully can make a good start point for releases, particularly when simultaneous release is needed (think market sensitive information or planned surprises).
Pull services deliver information to people who have asked to receive information on certain key subjects. Personally I’ve found Sourcewire quite good for certain sectors on this front. But it’s not failsafe.
Pull services also include wire services and news agencies, which sell appropriate information to recipients – think Reuters or Business Wire, for example. Because of the cost to use them, and the fact that they check information prior to release, the information tends to be higher quality – although there are always exceptions - meaning take up by good media outlets can be higher.
Within the pull category, there are an increasing number of agencies, like Technology4Media, that only work with specific categories of media. These work well for pick up on niche stories – the ones that the general public would probably pass on, but which enthusiasts or specialists will love.
Specialist online services
Specialist online services like Realwire are sprouting up all over the place. The better ones are worth a look. My experience has been that they each work better in certain sectors.
There’s a whole plethora of free press release services emerging, which often charge for additional services like adding links, or have no apparent financial model (which means you can probably guarantee they’re doctoring your release with dodgy links later).
I’ve personally yet to find a really good one of these services, and it’s nigh on impossible to guess where the releases are going to. Vitis PR recently ran a survey on free press release services. Their methodology wasn’t perfect, but as with many things in life, it concludes you get what you pay for – if a few pounds/ dollars for a low grade link is what you’re after, I guess they have their place.
If the purpose of your release is good quality ‘coverage’ (plus links) with decent bloggers and journalists, most good services offer up enough information for you to check what kinds of things are on a journalist or blogger’s normal beat. We all make the occasional mistake, but really, there’s no excuse for not researching, no matter what service you’re using. Some bloggers are happy to get releases to keep them up to date, some see press releases as a form of manipulation. You’ll be working with your client long enough to justify spending some time familiarising yourself with their media.
So how do you decide where and how to distribute? If there was a simple answer, we’d all be piling in.
My partner in crime at SEO PR Training, Nichola Stott, and I are currently working on a guide to the individual press release distribution services, and the process of creating it highlighted the crux of the matter. The best service to use is the one from which the medium you’d most like to be in is happy to receive information. But, of course, publishing that information is going to lead to a rash of spam for them, killing their usefulness.
Don’t shoot the messenger, but nothing beats a good relationship, which means investing time and research effort. But if you’re going to put out releases, this would be my rule of thumb:
Push services offer a great point to start from in finding the right places to send releases to relevant media. Don’t fall foul of data rules and treat recipients with respect. Personalise where possible.
Pull services can offer great value where you’re working in sectors just once that you don’t know well.
The better on line services work well for generic online coverage, but don’t expect those ‘Hollywood links’.
Below you can find a questionnaire which is for feedback when people have used a service, if you want to help, fill it in!
-Posted in PR | Tags: PR, press, press releases | <urn:uuid:b11e7945-f68e-4aa8-a816-38165a1e9018> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stateofsearch.com/tailor-that-press-release-distribution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943016 | 1,070 | 1.554688 | 2 |
In mapWindow 4.x one can easily place labels parallel to line features by setting the Labels.LineOrientation property for a given shape file.
I expected that this method should be easy to port to ...
Id #24232 | Release:
| Updated: May 17 at 1:02 PM by mafe | Created: May 5 at 10:54 AM by KwameAnsu
I have a MapRasterLayer and I would like to render its associated simbology to disk as a PNG file, getting a simple image from its 'legend'. I would like to know the minimum set of c...
Id #24221 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 30 at 11:37 AM by VictorVelarde | Created: Apr 30 at 11:33 AM by VictorVelarde
I create a Winform project in Visual Stduio 2012 with .Net framework 4. Then install DotSpatial.Control and its dependency by NuGet.
Every thing is OK. But when I choose DotSpatial.Control to add ...
Id #24217 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 29 at 7:09 AM by realxu | Created: Apr 29 at 7:09 AM by realxu
Hi again, another newbie question. I'm getting an exception when trying to clear a featureset (in readyness to re-populate it).
IndexOutOfRangeException was unhandled
The given DataRow is not in t...
Id #24211 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 26 at 2:56 AM by epsoft1969 | Created: Apr 26 at 2:49 AM by epsoft1969
Hi, I'm new to DotSpatial but I've managed to create a map with a point layer and line layer. This all works fine but I'm having trouble getting the map view to zoom to the extents of the visible l...
Id #24210 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 28 at 8:30 AM by epsoft1969 | Created: Apr 26 at 2:38 AM by epsoft1969
Wanted to check if something was possible, so investigated if an Entity data source could be used behind DotSpatial.
Answer is YES.
Have included my try!
However I do get dounut polygons having a l...
Id #24195 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 23 at 10:05 PM by ahrensd | Created: Apr 23 at 6:11 AM by ahrensd
There seems to be a bug in method Interpreter.SetPosition when it calls the PositionReceived callback.
// Notify of the value, even if it hasn't changed
Id #24188 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 19 at 4:19 PM by joaoportela | Created: Apr 19 at 11:15 AM by joaoportela
moved to discussion
Id #24185 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 18 at 12:44 PM by decvt100 | Created: Apr 17 at 3:00 PM by decvt100
DBF text field size in a shapefile created through fs.SaveAs(“F:...\test.shp”, true) is set to “254” rather than the maxwidth property of the input featureset datatable.
The modified sample code (...
Id #24181 | Release:
| Updated: May 5 at 5:45 PM by vzavec | Created: Apr 17 at 4:27 AM by Jrit1947
In the following code the raster layer just changes in the legend. The map does not change until it is applied the changes using the raster property.
private void button1_Click(object sender, ...
Id #24180 | Release:
| Updated: Apr 18 at 3:30 PM by carosoisu | Created: Apr 17 at 3:45 AM by carosoisu | <urn:uuid:c20763a6-1dfa-4940-bcb4-919786d84e05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dotspatial.codeplex.com/workitem/list/basic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933326 | 820 | 1.710938 | 2 |
With Obama's inauguration over, it's back to basic struggles on LGBT issues...and those include the growing groundswell of violence against us, not only in the U.S. but other countries as well. Bilerico readers will remember my posting last year about the brutal gang rape, torture and murder of South African lesbian soccer player Eudy Simelane. South Africa has our rights enshrined in its new constitution, yet the country has yet to stamp out the vile biases against us in some areas of both black and white populations.
According to Black Looks, an African blog news site, the trial of her murderers is finally coming up next month.
The story states:
The Delmas Circuit Court in Mpumalanga will hear the trial into the murder of lesbian soccer player Eudy Simelane from 11 to 13 February 2009. Simelane, a 31 year old, was allegedly robbed, and gang raped and tortured before being murdered on 28 April last year in her home township, Kwa-Thema, east of Johannesburg. The alleged motivation for her killing was that she was a lesbian who fought back like men.
As it has been reported previously, the murder of Simelane follows many similar ones across South Africa. These crimes, motivated by the hatred of particularly lesbians and transgender people, was covered by the media but unfortunately without drawing national attention from the ruling ANC and other parties in the country, safe of the local branches in Kwa-Thema. South Africa has one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world and has suffered over the last few years more and more hate crimes resulting in the assault and/or killing of people because of their HIV status, sexual orientation, or because they are black non-South Africans.
The rest of the Black Looks story goes on to report in depth on this kind of crime in South Africa. It's well worth reading | <urn:uuid:dd58d2ad-8a51-44fc-9886-f7c5fe5e648b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bilerico.com/2009/01/murderers_of_black_lesbian_soccer_player.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969416 | 390 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Sanitary Sewer ImprovementsThe City of Scottsdale Water Resources Department has identified sections of the City’s sanitary sewer collection system that are in need of improvement.
The sewer pipes run through the neighborhood easements. A new lining must be installed on the interior of the existing sewer pipe.
The goals of this program are to conduct sewer inspections, extend the sewer collection system, remove lift stations where possible, repair sewer breaks, rehabilitate aging components of the system and reline existing sewer pipes to extend service life.
The majority of the sections that need to be rehabilitated are located south of Indian Bend Road. The city began this project in 2009 and performs work in several neighborhoods each year. | <urn:uuid:2081e9b9-dda6-4457-a784-de69f5d0ae4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scottsdaleaz.gov/Construction/SanitarySewer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937211 | 143 | 1.625 | 2 |
A proposal to eliminate ninth-grade sports next year in Frederick County Public Schools is drawing mixed reaction from school officials and parents.
Schools Superintendent Theresa R. Alban’s proposed $547.3-million spending plan for fiscal 2014, which begins July 1, calls for the elimination of ninth-grade boys football and boys and girls basketball, cutting the programs in all 10 of the system’s high schools.
The proposal would save $49,158.
The Frederick County Board of Education voted Jan. 23 to take Alban’s budget to a public hearing, which was scheduled for Wednesday after The Gazette’s deadline.
But some school officials and parents are concerned that the move would limit the number of students who would be able to participate in those sports.
“It would affect basketball more than it would affect football,” said Tim Ambrose, athletic director at Middletown High School. “In football, the ninth-graders would probably all get to play junior varsity. There would have to be more kids cut [in basketball] because you can’t keep more than 12 on a court.”
Currently, freshaman boys football and basketball are available at all county high schools. In addition, some high school’s also have freshman girls basketball teams.
The freshmen sports program serves as a way to develop younger players, said Steve Nibbs, athletic director at Gov. Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick.
“Looking at it from the standpoint of a freshman coming in, there may not be as many coming out [for basketball tryouts] because they will be competing against the 10th-graders,” Nibbs said. “You never want to see programs cut because of the role it can play in students’ [lives]. ... It would be unfortunate for those kids, but we would absorb them into the junior-varsity teams.”
At Walkersville High School, the ninth-grade boys basketball team is an important resource for the varsity team, head varsity coach Ryan Burkey said.
“[The cuts] would impact us because right now we are able to keep up to 15 freshmen and develop them,” he said. “We won’t be able to develop as many players [and] that’s critical for a small school like us because we rely on that.”
In the past, the funds allocated for ninth-grade sports were used to pay for transportation and fees for sports officials, but a lack of interest in some of the programs has spurred the school system to consider their elimination.
Leslie Pellegrino, the school system’s executive director of fiscal services, said officials decided to cut ninth-grade sports in lieu of increasing activity fees — which are currently $90 per student each season.
“We have seen over the last several years that we have been over budget in our sports,” Pellegrino said. “We’ve been trying to mitigate that.”
All of the high schools have ninth-grade boys basketball and football teams this school year, but five of the schools were not able to field enough players for girls basketball, said Perry Baker, school system supervisor of athletics and extracurricular activities.
“We felt that it’s not eliminating sports as a whole, so students can still participate, but this is helping with the cost,” Pelligrino said.
High schools that couldn’t field teams included Urbana, Brunswick, Tuscarora, Walkersville and Middletown.
“I think sports are really important for the kids,” said Nancy Copen of Walkersville, mother of freshman basketball player Chris Copen. “A lot of the kids don’t get physical activity elsewhere without being involved in sports.”
Ambrose said that the move to eliminate ninth-grade programs is nothing new.
“Getting rid of ninth-grade sports has always been brought up when there’s a budget crunch,” he said. “[But] we’ll roll with the punches, whatever the board wants to do.”
Jane Beck, the mother of another Walkersville basketball player, said that she would understand if the board allowed the elimination of the ninth-grade sports program.
“I would be disappointed, but I understand that you have to save money some place,” she said. “Tough choices have to be made.”
County school board member April Miller said it would be “unfortunate” if students were not able to participate in some sports programs because of the cuts to ninth-grade teams.
“I put a high priority on things that impact students,” she said. “[Ninth-grade sports] will be one of those categories that we look more in depth at when we look at the budget. Maybe we could look at different ways to fund them.” | <urn:uuid:4b632d71-04fd-4660-96b3-de2cce487a31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gazette.net/article/20130207/NEWS/130209340/1122/third-silver-spring-resident-dies-of-injuries-after-beltway-crash/Ninth-grade-sports-could-be-cut-from-Frederick-County-schools&template=gazette | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975509 | 1,050 | 1.695313 | 2 |
First The New Yorker.
I love the New Yorker. Everyone does. Unless you are weird. Or do not like their politics.
But the New Yorker should get a better writer than James Verini on the upcoming Kenyan elections. Reporting on the first presidential debate, Verini made several unforgivable errors. I mean, I know it is hard to find information on countries that you may or may not have visited, or have only visited for a few days.
But Kenya is one of the most studied countries on the Continent. You can wikipedia or google your way to a decent article that passes a laugh test. Sadly, Verini’s does not. Here are the necessary corrections to his (original) piece (and certainly not the only ones):
- First of all, there were two moderators, not one. Unless Verini only caught the first half of the debate. I will admit that the second half could have been better. But it wasn’t bad enough to forget that there were two moderators. Julie Gichuru moderated the second half.
- Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta was not a “Mau Mau rebel.” Also, the Mau Mau are popularly known in Kenya as freedom fighters. Dedan Kimathi, a leading light in the independence movement and Mau Mau leader, has a statue in his honor on Kimathi street in downtown Nairobi.
- Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga is not “a human rights lawyer.” He is “an engineer by profession.” Odinga says so when he introduces himself at the beginning of the debate. What makes Verini think Odinga is a human rights lawyer? (Might be because, as he admits, he was at Njuguna’s – perhaps chasing down goat meat (nyama choma) with Tusker. The New Yorker should institute strict sobriety requirements when sourcing stories, but I digress.)
- Nairobi is not in Central Province. Nairobi is a Province on its own. Kenya has eight provinces (now called regions) – Rift Valley, Eastern, North Eastern, Coast, Western, Central, Nyanza and Nairobi. Nairobi borders Central. But it is not in Central. I swear. You can google it.
- The post-election violence in 2007-08 was not mainly a Kikuyu-Luo affair. Most deaths occurred in the Rift Valley in clashes between Kikuyus and Kalenjins, over land. Police brutality was number two in cause of deaths. Kikuyu-Luo clashes were horrific. But they were not the defining feature of the PEV.
- The 2010 Constitution did not make the position of Prime Minister permanent. It abolished it. You can also google a copy of the Kenyan Constitution. There is a pdf online. I swear. Or you could just read the Wikipedia entry here.
And then Al-Jazeera:
For a news organization that claims to counter the dominance and supposed orientalist biases of CNN International and the BBC with nuanced on-the-ground reporting, this is unforgivable. Here’s is how Peter Greste opens his report on the Kenyan election:
Political science is an imprecise discipline at the best of times. But in Kenya, it feels more akin to witchcraft.
In most established democracies, astute analysts can have a reasonable stab at predicting the outcome of elections. The regular if well-spaced drum-beat of polls gives anyone who cares to look, a decent set of historical data to work with.
It’s usually possible to check the voting patterns of a particular electorate; assess the impact of demographic changes; and with the help of some intelligent opinion polling, have a good understanding of the way a country might swing.
But in Kenya, this election is stacked with so many unknown factors that a witch throwing newt’s eyes into a bubbling cauldron might have as good a chance at predicting the outcome as the political scientists.
Really Mr. Greste, really?
Witchcraft? Why that term? Why not just say that you do not have a grasp of the political reality and so don’t know how the election will turn out? Are you trying to say something about your readers (that they easily resort to witchcraft to explain things they do not comprehend) or Kenya?
I put it to you that there are three firms that have been polling the Kenyan public on their political preferences since the last election in 2007. These firms accurately predicted the outcome of the messy 2007 election (and pretty much matched the exit polls conducted by UCLA academics) and the 2010 referendum. Kenya has demographic data that politicians make very good use of. For instance, we know the ethnic composition of Nairobi, the most cosmopolitan PROVINCE (hear me, Mr. Verini) in Kenya.
Also, a few political scientists, including yours truly, have done some predictions as to the potential outcomes of the election (see blog posts below).
Why did these two do this?
To me it looks like a bad case of trying to exoticize the Kenyan elections for their audiences – what with the references to witchcraft by Mr. Greste and Mr. Verini’s over-simplification of the election to a Kikuyu-Luo tribal contest.
It is also disrespectful to Kenyans, who they seem to think will not do any fact-checking to correct their sloppiness. | <urn:uuid:f03d7f99-e101-4534-b0e1-3f6e4821f24e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kenopalo.com/tag/peter-kenneth/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963504 | 1,147 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Timeless Preview - The History of the UK Hard House scene
Reported by benz
Submitted 22-03-05 15:42
Searching around on the net, it seems apparent that no-one has yet attempted anything resembling a detailed history of hard house music. Google yields little information – a two page account of the evolution of dance music from its roots in New York and Chicago through to handbag house, entitled “The History Of Hard House” (without one single mention of the hard stuff) [http://www.ravelinks.com/raveradio/hardhousemusic.htm], and a few questionable definitions of the music itself (apparently “UK Hard House is typically characterized by a stomping kick drum, and a progressive bassline” [http://www.dropshop.com/4/hard-house-samples.html] – what on earth is a progressive bassline?!). So I thought I’d better see if I could do any better, and trace back the history of our beloved music, with the help of a few legends of the scene…
So where to start? Let’s not dwell too much on the history of dance music from year zero, but rather jump to the years proceeding the emergence of hard house and look at the music that it grew out of. I think it’s fair to say that it blossomed as an amalgam of several different factions of dance music. In the early 90s, producers like Joey Beltram had transposed the sound of US techno to Belgium, and added their own twist to it – more specifically, they made their own brand of techno which was darker, harder, and generally nastier than anything that had proceeded it. The techno that had emerged from Detroit in the US had the seemingly paradoxical quality of somehow being soulful while at the same time being 100% electronic. The Belgian techno sound ripped out this soul, and replaced it with something altogether more sinister. Beltram’s “Energy Flash” was a classic example, as was The Outlander’s “Vamp” (both tracks still sounds ace today and their dark moody ambience still prevail). It was this style of music that first brought the sound of the beloved Hoover – a gritty synth sound supplied by the Roland Alpha Juno synthesiser, so called because of its apparent similarity to the noises made by vacuum cleaners. Meanwhile over Germany, artists like Westbam were taking this Belgian sound and adding their own Teutonic twist to it, bringing about the birth of hard German techno. This era marked the arrival of hard, 4/4 kick drum-lead electronic music. Before this, there were dark acid techno tunes and the like, but this period in time marked signalled the start of whole genres of music dedicated to the more pounding, heavy-hitting side of dance music.
Meanwhile on the other side of the ever increasing divide that stemmed from the unified acid house scene of the late 80s, the 'happier' side of dance music exemplified by Italian piano-house of the early 90s began to progress into a scene of its own. Throughout the first half of the 90s, house music which was more akin to the soulful, disco influenced dance music of the 80s continued to flourish. By the mid-90s, uplifting house music in this vein was in abundance, and producers such as The Sharp Boys were providing their own interpretation of the sound. They upped the BPMs a little, chopped up the disco samples into bitesize loops, chucked a load of filters in, and created music that was pure dancefloor business. This was the music that provided the basis for the origins of the funkier strains of hard house, epitomised in the early days by producers such as OD404 and The Tidy Boys with their Untidy Dubs material.
So we’ve examined the evolution of techno and the tougher side of funky house, but to complete the musical jigsaw that is hard house we should also consider the progression of trance music. The first half of the 90s saw the beginnings of the German trance scene. Essentially an offshoot of the aforementioned German Techno scene, Trance took the basic rhythmic structures of house and techno (4/4 kick-drum lead beats, tempos around 130BPM), and applied them to more hypnotic groove (inducing listeners into a trance-like state, hence the name). The funkier, happier sounds of house music and the barren-electronic sounds of techno were replaced with euphoric, uplifting, and occasionally haunting synth melodies, arpeggios and crescendos. Epic, anthemic breakdowns where the beat would cut out and the melodies would take centre stage were essential elements in these tracks.
The feel of the music was very conducive to the feelings of euphoria brought about by the ever increasingly popular drug ecstasy. The drug and the music went hand in hand. Labels such as Superstition and Overdose were instrumental in pushing this exciting new music that took Europe by storm. Following the emergence of the music in Europe, labels such as the legendary Hooj Records and Rabbit City were set up in the UK to carry the torch trance into this country, with imported productions as well as home-grown material.
‘I would say that tunes such as XVX’s “Tremorra Del Terra” and Interactive’s “Amok” (essentially the same tune) were absolutely defining moments. Early German Trance led directly to what Daz Saund and Trevor Rockcliffe were playing at Trade’ – John Truelove(Legendary Hard House Mover + Shaker)
Trade was one of the clubs that was responsible for helping to create the sound of modern hard house. Established in 1990 at Turnmills, it was set-up as a gay afterparty, and was inspired by the hedonistic, care-free attitude prevalent in Spanish areas such as Barcelona and Ibiza, where attitudes to going out later in the night were more relaxed. Initially the club was mostly continental types, but given time, the British gays warmed to the idea of going clubbing at 6am. The management couldn’t understand why anyone would want to come at 6am on a Sunday morning at first, but they were soon proved wrong. The soundtrack in the early days was house music from Chicago and Italy, techno from Detroit and so on, and as the new wave of Belgian and German techno emerged, these harder sounds started creeping into the club’s musical policy. Eclecticism has always been prevalent in the music at Trade. It was here that the Godfather of Hard House, Tony De Vit, began to establish himself as one of the most exciting DJs in the country.
Born in Kidderminster, De Vit took up DJing in his late teens and his first regular slot was a residency at Birmingham’s gay club, The Nightingale. Around 1988 he was picked up by legendary gay club Heaven in London, and was soon balancing two residencies. One Sunday morning he went to check out Trade for the first time, and he was instantly captivated by the new and exciting sounds he was hearing – a tougher sound to the eclectic mix of speeded-up disco and house he was playing at the time (known as Hi-NRG). He bought a shedload of the music he’d heard, and took it to his residency at the Nightingale. He played this new style, and basically got fired for it – the club didn’t like it one bit. He’d been a resident there for 10 years, and just like that, it was over (legend has it that a certain Andy Farley was his replacement).
Tony kept on building his reputation at Heaven, and religiously attending Trade. After 6 months of hassling the promoters with mix tapes, they eventually let him play in place of resident Smokin’ Jo one night. The reaction was amazing, and a legend was born. A residency soon followed, and alongside DJs like Malcolm Duffy and Trevor Rockcliffe, he helped to bolster the club’s ever growing pedigree. Following on from this prestigious slot, he began to play regularly across the country, at clubs such as Chuff Chuff, and Gatecrasher founder Simon Raine’s night Institute in Birmingham. He was embracing all corners of the harder end of music, from techno and Italian piano house to the emerging European trance sound.
Tidy's commerative Tony De Vit Retrospective CD
In 1992 he hooked up with a music engineer and producer called Simon Parker, who would go on to become a collaborator with him for many years to come. In Simon’s bedroom they produced Tony’s production debut, ‘Feel The Love (Don’t Go Away)’, followed by ‘Higher and Higher’. His third release ‘Burning Up’ was the one that really grabbed everyone’s attention, an uplifting slab of energetic hardbag that still sounds reasonably fresh today. A slew of remixes would follow, later on the line for major label acts such as Louise and East 17. His style was essentially uplifting, energetic and good-spirited, with a bouncy feel to it – perfect for high energy clubbing.
So by the mid-90s, Tony’s popularity was reaching unprecedented levels, with the man reaching god-like status across the country. The sounds that he and other DJs like Andy Farley were playing were starting to form a more distinctive, common feel. The borders between the aforementioned sounds of European techno, disco house, and trance were blurred to form what was labelled at the time as hardbag. Sure there were still different strands of hardbag, but it was the common term used to unite the tougher edged sounds that these DJs were playing. On a separate note, rather more purist strains of techno and trance were developing of their own accord away from this harder sound.
Tony de Vit’s biggest tracks were signed up by Tidy Trax, a Rotheram based record label set up in 1995 by two guys by the names of Andy Pickles and Amadeus Mozart. Armed with a quirky, distinctive logo, a good sense of humour and a desire to showcase the best in the emerging hard house scene, the Tidy Boys (as they became known collectively) set about signing the best in hard music from producers in the UK, as well as imported tracks such as Dyewitness’ “What Would You Like To Hear Again?”. Undoubtedly one of the most important labels in the history of hard house, the label went from strength to strength, bringing us dozens of the biggest tunes we’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing, from bouncy hard house, to thumping energetic hard trance, to funky techno, to hoover anthems and back again. They helped to establish the production careers of people like Lisa Lashes, Andy Farley, Ian M, Nick Rafferty… the list goes on and on.
Later down the line they would look to the most exciting young talent around to further their success, with innovative young producers such as Paul Maddox and Colin Baratt leading the way. In addition to Tidy Trax, they set up Untidy Trax (for funky, housey material), Tidy Two (for hard trance), Tidy White (for exclusive white label releases), and Synpase (for their new breed of producers). The latest addition to the label roster is Tidy Digital – the exclusive Tidy MP3 distribution service. Furthermore, they branched out into club events, merchandise, an online community, a TV channel, CD compilations, Weekenders… they are truly hard house’s biggest success story, and have been absolutely vital to the scene over the years.
It would be a mistake to attempt to trace back the roots of hard house without mentioning another of the most important labels, and one of the very first. Tripoli Trax was set up in 1994 by the guys at Pure Groove Records in North London, with the idea of releasing both the emerging hard house/NRG sound, and also slower, funkier, house material. Although the house material was slowly dropped from the label, this imprint was definitely one of the most important in shaping the sound of hard house as we know it. It was also one the key exponents of the funkier brand of hard house, epitomised by acts such as Brighton’s OD404 and Knuckleheadz. Only occasionally straying into the realms of trancey material, the label has generally stayed true to its NRG roots and kept it pure hard house, with material from legends of the scene such as Trade boys Steve Thomas, & Pete Wardman, and imported goodies such as nutty German hoover-lover Commander Tom’s “Eye Bee Em” and DJ Misjah & Tim’s classic “Access” (which has just been re-released in fact). Now in the capable hands of A&R man Marc Johnson, this essential label’s legacy continues to live.
Another label that stuck mostly to the hard house route for the duration, and went on to influence many producers down the line was Tinrib Recordings, a hard-NRG label set up by a nautically-inclined man called Jon Bell, otherwise known as Captain Tinrib. The Tinrib sound was very much a by-product of the birth of hard house at Trade - Hard NRG music (as they called it) that glorified the hoover, twisted synths, hard-as-nails kick drums, and hip-hop vocal samples, with The Captain producing filthy, tough hard house music alongside producers such as Karim, Max The Alien, and Steve Thomas. Alongside Tripoli, Tinrib was the other main label that can be traced back to from the dark and nasty hard house sounds that are so popular today.
Last but by no means least, Nukleuz Records has also been responsible for so many of hard house’s biggest tracks, and for years was one of the driving forces in the scene. Now but a shadow of its former self, just a few years ago it was consistently the top-selling vinyl label in the country. It was set up as an offshoot of the Italian record company Media Records (which already had several labels under its belt in Europe), with the aim of releasing the best in UK hard house, as well as some of the European material produced for Media Records and its existing sub-labels. A guy named Peter Pritchard was chosen to set up Media Records UK, and from 1992 to 1996 the label managed to ride a fine line between producing credible dance music and commercial success. It became evident that the label was being seen as too commercial though, and with the approval of the Italian parent company, he set up Nukleuz to cater for the more underground side of dance music.
He got a young lad named Ed Jenkins (a.k.a Ed Real) on board to mastermind the A&R (artist & repertoire) side of things – that is, seeking out the hottest producers and tracks to sign to the label. There were two artists that really helped to make Nukleuz one of the biggest dance music labels in the world. First off was an import from Media’s Italian label BXR - Mauro Picotto. He combined thumping kick drums and ludicrous military style percussion with massive trancey riffs on tracks like “Lizard” and “Pulsar” to astounding effect, creating a sound unlike anything else around at the time. These massive trance anthems brought him fame worldwide, and for couple of years he was one of the jewels in Nukleuz’s crown. He eventually started focusing on techno, and left the label, but his contribution to their success is undeniable.
The other guy whom Nukleuz have much to thank for is Ben Keen - otherwise known as BK. Signed to the label in his early 20s as an in-house producer, he cut his teeth on hard house by religiously attending Trade and displayed a flair for making imaginative, uplifting hard house, with bouncy basslines and vocal samples from old hip-hop and rave tracks. He made his name with the legendary HardBeat EP and ClubBeatz series, and was one of the founding fathers of bouncy hard house.
Bouncy hard house is characterised by an off-beat bassline consisting of short notes, often combined with cut up vocal samples, horns, and other infectious sounds. The sound began to emerge in its own right around 1999, with tracks like BK & Fergie’s “Hoover & Horns” and BK’s “Music 4 The People” paving the way for this rather fun and energetic strain of hard house. More on this later.
It was also in 1999 that another of hard house’s most prodigious talents was signed to Nukleuz. Nick Sentience came from a techno and breakbeat background originally, starting off in dance music with his live breakbeat act Sentience, but as he discovered hard house he began to produce tracks that combined his own previous preferences with this new and exciting sound. He injected a hefty dose of funk into the basslines and percussion patterns that he produced, sometimes combining them with trancey riffs, and at other times sticking with more techno based grooves. His sound was exciting, different, and very original.
Sentience is probably the person who is most responsible for bringing the techno influence back in to hard house - after he and BK began collaborating for Nukleuz around the turn of the millennium, it was noticeable that BK started to play techno in his DJ sets and started to include elements of it in his production. In terms of production techniques, these two really did raise the bar for hard house producers, creating a polished, innovative sound with plenty of interesting touches. They later left Nukleuz and became the first two artists in hard house to embark on full-length album projects, with excellent results. Hard house owes much to them.
But what about the clubs? Where was this exciting genre of music being played?
Aside from Trade, one of the key players in the rise of hard house was a Sunday afternoon club in the Midlands. In 1996, a new club was launched in Birmingham going by the name of Sundissential. It had been 2 years since the legendary Marco Polo Club had shut down in the city, where Tony de Vit regularly played. It was from this club that Madders got his inspiration for Sundissential from, and he set the club up hoping to offer the city something with a similar vibe, attracting a hedonistic, passionate crowd. It took place at Pulse, a converted church, at a time of the week when most people were sitting at home reading the papers, and therefore the people who attended were certified 24/7 party animals. Sunnyside Up in London was doing a similar kind of thing at the same time of the week, helping to ensure the rise of the dayparty as a national institution. Around this time the phrase “hard house” was beginning to be heard around the country, and by 1997 it was more or less the accepted term for the music. The sound of the hoover was now an integral and defining part of the music, and Tony de Vit’s 1996 classic “Are You All Ready?” (still getting regular plays in 2005) is a prime example of the sound that was being played at these clubs – full on, energetic, party music.
But it wasn’t just about the music – these young crazy Northern party-freaks dressed up with a sense of flamboyance rarely seen before. Alongside punters at the emerging trance phenomenon Gatecrasher in Sheffield, these clubbers were wearing UV clothing, fluffy boot/legwarmer hybrids, PVC, glitter, babies’ dummies, futuristic accessories, cuddly toys, and any other weird and wonderful clothing they could get their hands on. It soon grew to become a nationwide phenomenon, with the label 'cyber' bestowed on those opting for the UV look. This bizarre trend helped to further build on hard house’s identity, and gave young clubbers something to feel part of. It helped give the scene more exposure in the music press, and therefore helped it to grow further.
Meanwhile down South, 1997 saw the launch of a certain promotion called Frantic in London. One Will Patterson, a history teacher at the time, had been attending hard house and hardbag nights for a number of years, and was particularly interested in the really hard end of the music. He found it slightly frustrating that at nights such as Sunnyside Up and The Garage at Heaven, there would only be a couple of hours of really hard, Tony De Vit/Ian M style music, and the rest of the night would be soundtracked by slower, less powerful material. So he decided that we wanted to try his hand at organising a night of pure hard house music – for like-minded people who shared similar sentiments to his own.
“I started Frantic as I wanted to go to a night for clubbers like me that preferred the ferocious hoover led sounds of TDV rather than the softer hardbag sounds. I didn’t see why the night couldn’t be tough from the beginning and knew loads of clubbers who felt the same. I got into hard house by accident. I was out having a drink and ended up at Heaven on a Fri in March 1995 for a night called Garage which was playing hard house with Rachel Auburn and Blu Peter and then started to go to the Gallery, which was playing hard house for part of the night. Then after the Gallery there was an infamous afterparty with Skol and Roosta at a place called Grays on Grays Inn Road. It was there I started to hear about SSUP, which was every Sunday daytime at what is now Pacha.” - Will Patterson, Frantic
The first event was at a 200 capacity club in the West End called the China Club with a certain Phil Reynolds playing amongst other friends of Will’s. 200 people were turned away. Not bad for an opening night really. The crowd was mainly Antipodean and South African, but as Will ploughed on with Frantic and put on more and more events, its following started to expand, and after about 6 months he started to realise that there might be scope for bigger and better things. In terms of night time events, it was certainly the first full on hard hard house club in the capital. Almost 8 years on, and it has grown to become the biggest regular event of its kind of the planet.
Stage Two: Hard House Takes Over the World
1998 saw trance take over the planet, with a strength of material in the scene that remains to this day unparalleled. Combined with the so-called 'Mistubishi Revolution' (the wave of hedonism caused by a very large batch of particularly strong ecstasy tablets with the Mitsubishi insignia on them), the euphoric side of dance music came to the forefront, and the UK club scene got a massive kick up its arse. People like Spencer Freeland and Phil Reynolds at Frantic were championing the tougher-edged strains of trance that were prevalent at that time, and following on from this was the rise of UK hard trance.
Very much a London based sound, producers took hard house beats and married them to euphoric trance riffs and arpeggios, creating a contrasting sound to the often kick drum-dominated European sound championed by acts such as DJ Scot Project and DJ Wag (descendants from the original wave of German trance). By the turn of the millennium, there were now two distinguishable styles – hard house and hard trance. The trancey element no doubt helped to spread the gospel of harder music to clubbers who wanted a sense of euphoria that they might not obtain from the rawer sounds of hard house.
Additionally, the sound of bouncy hard house began to emerge around the end of the 90s, thanks to producers like BK, Fergie, and Ingo. Ingo shot to fame with his raucous unsolicited reworking of BK & Fergie’s “Hoover and Horns” (released on Nukleuz), which was a hyperactive bounce-fest of a tune, the intensity and OTT-ness of which had never been seen before in hard house. The sound was massive up North in particular at clubs like Sundissential, and Ingo rode a short-lived wave of success with subsequent productions alongside other producers of this sound such as Mr. Bishi, UK Gold and Rachel Auburn. After a couple of years however, the sound became stale and new ideas were thin on the ground, at which point the music started to disappear from hard house dancefloors across the country.
Thanks to producers such as BK & Nick Sentience, the sound of hard house continued to mature and be taken more seriously from 2001 and onwards. The trancey sound was massive, but the darker, filthier strains of hard house were also gathering momentum - relative newcomers such as Paul Glazby had been helping established artists such as Captain Tinrib further the sound of twisted dark hard house. By now, hard house was a pretty big scene, with a sizable following, massive events going on up and down the country every weekend, new promotions popping up all the time, and even achieved commercial success thanks to compilations such as Nukleuz’s Hard House Anthems series. It was now an established dance music force to be reckoned with, and it had a good few years of heritage and foundation behind it.
The Last Few Years
Recent years in hard house seem tame in terms of what’s happened compared to the previous few, but that’s always going to be the way when a style of music gets to a certain age. Although nothing revolutionary has happened, we have seen certain changes, as well as several trends come (and occasionally go). The aforementioned arrival of techno into the scene thanks to people like BK & Nick Sentience resulted in techno fever sweeping the nation. Many hard house jocks started playing and producing it, such as Paul Glazby and Andy Farley, who took the tougher end of the music and played it alongside hard house, and producers such as Alex Calver and Colin Baratt have helped to blur the edges between the two styles of music.
We have seen the return of bouncy hard house subsequently, as a backlash to what some saw as the po-faced, less interesting sounds of techno. We have seen a myriad of new technology reshape the scene - CD decks, MP3 downloads, effects units, revolutionary new soundsystems, and so on. We have seen the rise of the female DJ thanks to jocks like Lisa Lashes, Anne Savage and Lisa Pin-Up holding their own in an industry dominated by males, and we have seen the emergence of bright young new DJ talent who didn’t have to break into the scene by producing tracks first.
While some may say the scene is in dire straits at the moment musically, looking back on a rich and interesting history makes you realise how far the music has come. From underground gay music to worldwide dance music phenomenon, its progress has been inspiring. So next time you are out stomping on the dancefloor and hear some filthy beast of a tune, don’t forget where this music that we love so much and devote so much time and energy to has come from. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, love our music, and know how to throw a f*cking party. Long may it live.
Many, many thanks to John Truelove and Will Patterson, and anyone else who advised me on this article.
Photos courtesy of Benz, Tidy & Frantic.
While it would be impossible to cover all the amazing people and parties that have contributed to our scene as we currently know it, I hope that I have covered the most influential and important DJs, producers, trends, clubs and people responsible for hard house being where it is today, and that I have traced back its roots sufficiently. I hope that some of you have learnt something you didn’t know about hard house before reading this article. See you on the dancefloor!
Timeless: The 4th Birthday
Sunday 27th March
Limited Early Bird Tickets £14+BF Saver Tickets are £17+BF Standard Tickets are £20+BF
Call 08700 600 100/ www.ticketweb.co.uk
Call 07949 618 035/ firstname.lastname@example.org
The 4th Birthday
Easter Sunday 27th March 2005
Koko Club/ Camden Palace
Nearest Tube: Camden Town / Mornington Crescent
The Koko Club management have given Frantic 100% written confirmation that we can return to what we believe is the UK's greatest venue and our beloved home!
This is the ONE and ONLY underground dance event currently booked into this Palace of Dreams. At present there are NO other clubs booked to use the venue, only live bands and we have no more Frantic dates booked at the venue. This is your ONE and ONLY chance to have it right off in the Palace!!
Out of all the events Frantic run we thought it best that we use our only date at the Palace for a massive 4th Birthday Bash for the UK's biggest Hard House and Trance Classics event, Timeless. For 9 short hours the Palace will ring to the sound of classic after classic, anthem after anthem; tune after tune as we go back in time to the glory days of Frantic at the Camden Palace!
Not only will we be taking you back home where we belong for one night but we will also be taking u back to the music.
To celebrate the 4th Birthday Timeless have put together a line up of the DJs that have helped make Hard House great, playing the tunes that made them heroes to a generation.
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Other Features By benz:
Introducing: Salerno - part of Chemistry's NuWave selection
Eat Static return for Lost In Space
Coburn bring their live show to UP^^
The return of The Colosseum
Modernism, Politburo and Sedition: Matthew Duffield’s manifesto
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. | <urn:uuid:698ce4b3-92d2-4408-a62b-8f83e544c37e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harderfaster.net/?section=features&action=showfeature&featureid=10943 | 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 | 0.972883 | 6,376 | 1.710938 | 2 |
King celebration puts young, old together
Lafayette celebrated the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday with beautiful weather and words from those who said they see progress and the need for more work in the almost 45 years since the civil rights leader was assassinated.
The King observance coincided with the second inauguration of President Barack Obama. In Lafayette, the significance of the dual events was not lost on participants at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center off Willow Drive. The center featured a wide-screen television tuned to a CNN broadcast of Obama taking the oath of office.
“It’s a beautiful day,” said Larry Brown, a Youngsville resident. “Every day’s a good day, it being Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, the president’s inauguration.”
Rickey Miniex and his law partner and fellow Lafayette MLK Parade marshal Clyde Simien told about 200 people at the luncheon that King wanted everyone to fight through hardships and succeed.
Miniex and Simien, in their early 50s, are a generation removed from the frontline civil rights marchers and leaders of the 1960s. Still, they said, they had to fight to succeed in a world that is not yet color blind.
Simien said he and Miniex were rejected by bank after bank in Lafayette when they tried to secure a loan to open a law practice in the mid 1980s.
The turndowns from banks came after they mailed hundreds of ré sumé s that boasted top-of-their-law-class bona fides, only to hear a loud silence from the established law firms in return, Simien said.
“Those were some difficult times, but in the back of my mind, I understood the significance of what Dr. King stood for,” Simien said.
He said he and Miniex framed the $7,500 check they finally received from a bank to start their business.
“We never gave up, and that’s the challenge for you today,” Simien said.
Throngs of people attended events at the center Monday, from a morning prayer breakfast to the luncheon to the evening commemorative program.
Outside, children played on the grounds of Dorsey Park.
Inside, grown-ups signed up for wellness programs, had their blood pressure checked and got flu shots. Social organizations signed candidates, Wal-Mart manned a job booth, and a religious group urged others to sign a petition supporting student-led prayer in public schools.
“It’s an opportunity to offer a lot of resources,” said Kenneth Boudreaux, a Lafayette City-Parish councilman.
Boudreaux’s brother Gerald Boudreaux has been chairman of the committee that has organized King ceremonies in Lafayette since 1986, when King’s birthday was first observed as a holiday nationally.
“We’re excited because the community is engaged,” Gerald Boudreaux said.
Miniex recalled returning to his family home as a boy to find his mother crying in the kitchen. The date was April 4, 1968, the day King was killed in Memphis, Tenn.
He said he didn’t understand the significance of King as a boy. He said it took years of living for King’s lessons to sink in.
Miniex said that in the years that King spoke for civil rights, he received threats against him and his family.
“Dr. King fought on, even though he had a wife and young children,” he said.
The audience at the lunch ranged from infants to the elderly, from those who lived through Jim Crow Louisiana to others who would regard whites-only restrictions as laughable.
“I really believe that things are changing, that things are improving,” Miniex said. | <urn:uuid:aae995d4-1a07-42df-bbdf-c180d4910d2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theadvocate.com/home/4975023-125/locals-gather-to-discuss-progress | 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 | 0.971013 | 811 | 1.695313 | 2 |
A POSSIBLE Chinese buy- in at Woolnorth that would bring extra North-West jobs and milk production has farmers and the Greens on a collision course.
"We must ask, how is this development in the national interest?" Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said yesterday.
"How will it benefit Aussie farmers and our wider community, and what consequences will it have on our natural environment?"
The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers' Association was bullish about the idea of China's sovereign wealth fund buying into Tasmanian dairying, saying farming needed foreign investment.
"Foreign investment is seen by many as Australia selling off the farm," CEO Jan Davis said.
"The TFGA does not share that view.
"Our role in life is to help feed the world.
"By allowing foreign investment in our land and processing enterprises we are helping to achieve just that. Farmers must enjoy the same rights as all other Australian citizens, to expect the highest price for their assets."
China's sovereign wealth fund may buy into Woolnorth, potentially investing million.
The big Circular Head dairy property's operator, the Van Diemen's Land Company, is working towards major equity raising with a view to expanding milk production.
New Zealand company Tasman Farms owns the vast majority of VDL.
Any "Chinese takeaway" would need Foreign Investment Review Board approval.
Treasurer Wayne Swan said the national interest would be considered, although he was yet to consider such a proposal.
State shadow primary industries minister Jeremy Rockliff said the Greens would not stop until they had completely crippled Tasmania.
"They've shut down our forestry industry, they are attacking our mining industry and today they've made it clear they oppose foreign investment in our dairy industry." | <urn:uuid:4839eb7e-b61f-4571-8036-4a38e042e5f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/356319/row-flares-as-chinese-eye-woolnorth/?src=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966508 | 358 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The Czech Cabinet meets today to begin discussing a state funeral for Vaclav Havel as the European Union plans tributes for the anti-communist dissident playwright who became president.
Prime Minister Petr Necas’s government meets in Prague at 4 p.m., while all EU sessions in Brussels will start with a minute of silence to honor Havel as a freedom fighter and the first post-communist Czech head of state. Thousands of Czechs yesterday poured onto Wenceslas Square, the center of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, to light candles and leave flowers.
“I am personally affected because he was the symbol of what happened here in November 1989, he did a lot for the Czech Republic, for its transition to democracy, to the structures of the European Union,” said Necas. “His departure is a big loss because he still had a lot to offer in politics as well as society.”
Havel, who died in his sleep yesterday after a long illness, was an international icon for opposing totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the country to democracy. He was president for almost 13 years and counted figures including Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa as friends.
Around the world, leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama, EU Commission President Jose Barroso and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent condolences and noted his prominent place in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the spread of democracy into eastern Europe.
“His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon,” said Obama in a statement yesterday from the White House. “He also embodied the aspirations of half a continent that had been cut off by the Iron Curtain, and helped unleash tides of history that led to a united and democratic Europe.”
Black flags fluttered under gray skies at Prague’s Hradcany Castle, the seat of the president’s offices overlooking the capital. Havel’s coffin will be displayed in the Vladislavsky Hall in the castle beginning on Dec. 21.
A crowd in Wenceslas Square observed a minute of silence as men wrapped the statue of St. Wenceslas in black fabric. Some shook keys and shouted “Long Live Havel.” Others sang the Czech national anthem as the crowd followed a Czech flag down the street toward the center of the city.
“Vaclav Havel is dead but his legacy will live on,” one of the speakers at the event, told the crowd. Wenceslas is English for Vaclav.
Czechs also gathered at National Boulevard, where a bronze tribute to the Velvet Revolution hangs on a passage wall, well- wishers burned candles to show their respect.
Two girls laid a packet of cigarettes at the monument, a symbol of of Havel’s long-time smoking habit that was a cause of much of his illness. An accordion player stood nearby playing a slow and mournful version of “Wasted Love.”
“It’s a great loss, though we expected it because he was so sick,” said Miloslava Ticha, 64, who came with her husband Frantisek. “He was a real personality. He doesn’t have a worthy successor. There’s nobody of his stature on the Czech political scene.”
Officials will also open a book of condolences for citizens to sign beginning today. Havel served as president of Czechoslovakia from the end of 1989 until 1992. In 1993, he became president of the Czech Republic, which was founded after the split of Czechoslovakia into two countries, a move he opposed.
While his official authority as president was limited by the Czech constitution, Havel used the presidency as a platform for building what he called a “civil society.”
As one of history’s only philosopher-presidents, he sought to educate his fellow citizens in speeches and regular radio addresses about how a democracy was supposed to function.
“I remember him with deep gratefulness,” Miroslava Nemcova, the speaker of the Czech lower house of parliament, said by phone. “He was at the wheel when we proceeded from communism to democracy and I will always be grateful to him personally because he changed my life with this.”
Nemcova recalled Havel’s habit of signing his name with a little heart on his personal documents and called him a “man who was a mixture of modesty and moral authority.”
The former Czech leader, whose motto during the transition to democracy was “love will triumph over lies and hatred,” was frail and leaned on a cane in his last public appearance on Dec. 10 when he greeted the Dalai Lama in Prague.
State television and radio switched to broadcasting highlights of Havel’s life and playing music often associated with him, including songs by singer Suzanne Vega and Frank Zappa. Politicians and former advisers also began the process of contextualizing Havel’s place in modern European history.
In the years after the fall of communism in 1989, Havel’s reputation and his ideas brought international renown to his new country. He was a strong advocate for expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. Under his presidency, the Czech Republic became a NATO member in March 1999 and joined the EU in 2004.
Havel’s dwindling popularity at home at the end of his terms in office may now be re-evaluated by citizens, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said in an interview on Czech state-run television.
Schwarzenberg noted Havel’s “humbleness” and “honorability” and “courage” and said citizens will “feel this loss” for a long time as Czechs recall Havel’s importance.
Havel, who won more than a dozen international prizes for his political and peacemaking efforts as well as his writings, was imprisoned three times for opposing the communist regime in Czechoslovakia and altogether spent almost five years behind bars.
He was one of the first three spokesmen of a 1977 movement known as Charter 77, in which a group of Czech intellectuals called on the communist government to respect human rights.
Petr Uhl, a fellow-dissident and political activist who served time in jail with Havel remembered sitting with Havel in court waiting to be sentenced. Though he disagreed with Havel over the president’s support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Havel’s friendship with George W. Bush, they remained friends, he said in a phone interview yesterday.
“For all 20 years I appreciated that Havel was the representative of a civic society, that he was against consumerism and technocraticsm,” Uhl said.
Havel was born into a prominent Prague family. The communist regime kept him from studying where he wanted to, so he attended a technical university. He left his studies in 1957 and became a propsman in a Prague theater after completing his military service.
He was eventually accepted to the Prague DAMU theater academy. After the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Havel worked various jobs, including as a laborer in a brewery, a job that went on to inspire his play “Audience.”
From 1960 to 1988, Havel wrote 17 plays, many of which were performed on stages around the world. During the same period, Havel became known for his political essays, which included “The Power of the Powerless” and “Politics and Conscience.”
His final years were dominated by “Leaving,” a play about a politician who finds difficulty relinquishing the power he had come to enjoy. A film based on the play was released on March 22, 2011, and Havel attended the premier in Prague.
He also worked on assembling his personal papers for a library, which is in the planning stages in a building near the castle he used to occupy as president.
--With assistance from Douglas Lytle in Prague. Editors: James M. Gomez, Alan Crosby
To contact the reporters on this story: Lenka Ponikelska in Prague at email@example.com; Ladka Bauerova in Prague at firstname.lastname@example.org; Krystof Chamonikolas in Prague at email@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:eb49c1d8-ee10-4bf9-b219-a62b43a41d94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-19/czech-cabinet-plans-havel-funeral-as-eu-holds-minute-of-silence.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97841 | 1,836 | 1.554688 | 2 |
One of the things that drives me crazy during these debates about illegal immigration is people running around say that “the immigration system is broken”. Why are they saying this? Because they want to legalize illegal aliens. This is a bipartisan problem: it’s not just Democrats like Obama, Pelosi, Reid, La Raza, Media Matters, and so many others who say it and want it. There are Republicans like Lindsay Graham, John McCain, Jeff Flake, Marco Rubio, and George Bush….yes, Bush. The last time amnesty was being pushed I had photoshops such as
and others, having also feature Bush in my old Surrender Monkey Friday posts regarding amnesty multiple times.
These same people love to claim that the immigration system is broken. It’s not. It’s cumbersome, burdensome, and/or costly for those who want to come to this country legally and either be citizens, work towards citizenship, or simply work.
What’s broken is Government. It’s the elected official (ie, servants of the People), appointed officials, and civil servants (ie, government employees) who are the problem. It’s how they respond to illegal aliens that’s broken. Not all, mind you, but enough. Plus all the citizens and groups who want to legalize and/or ignore the problem of illegal immigration. The law is quite specific: illegals are breaking federal law:
Under Title 8 Section 1325 of the U.S. Code, “Improper Entry by Alien,” any citizen of any country other than the United States who:
- Enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers; or
- Eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers; or
- Attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact;
has committed a federal crime.
Violations are punishable by criminal fines and imprisonment for up to six months. Repeat offenses can bring up to two years in prison. Additional civil fines may be imposed at the discretion of immigration judges, but civil fines do not negate the criminal sanctions or nature of the offense.
What is not understood by the Political Class? They are the ones who are broken by failing to uphold the law. Elected officials, political appointees, and many civil servants, particularly those in law enforcement and the criminal justice system, take oaths to uphold the law and the Constitution. Government employees who do not take oaths still have “codes of conduct” and rules to follow The Law. Yet, we have places like sanctuary cities. We have law enforcement told to ignore people who are illegals. We have catch and release when it comes to illegals. We spend months, if not years, adjudicating the disposition of caught illegals before maybe, possibly deporting them.
The system is not broken. The system is about legal immigration. That system is mostly OK. The closest it comes to being broken is for people who fail leave when their visas expire. That’s right, approximately one third of all illegals are people who overstayed their visas, and are still living in the USA, using our services, draining our cash. Not every illegal comes across the border from Canada and Mexico or on a boat or plane.
And these people are breaking federal law every day they are here. It is not a victimless crime. They are a vast drain on public funds. They take jobs away from American citizens. They cause our emergency rooms to close. They waste the time of law enforcement. They fill our jails, particularly since some illegals are not “good people just looking for a better life.” They cause a depression in wages.
And the political class fails us. Instead of pushing for legalizing them, we should be looking for ways to push them out the door and make sure that they, and others, do not come back. We should be securing the border and slapping companies that knowingly hire them or failing to properly perform background checks with massive fines along with civil and criminal penalties that would discourage hiring illegals. We should refuse to provide illegals with any government funded services. And we should force our Government to uphold existing law.
In fact, it could be argued that providing illegals with a pathway to citizenship breaks the Constitutional provision against passing ex post facto laws (Article I, Section 9, Clause 3). States are also restricted from passing ex post facto laws. EPF is not just about making something that was legal illegal in retrospect: it is also about making what was illegal now legal, depending on the circumstances. Congress could certainly pass a law saying “if you enter the US after the date this law is passed, you can no longer be considered illegal”, but, for those who are already here illegal, you can’t say that they are now legal.
Increase the available slots for temporary and migrant workers. Make the companies that hire them responsible for providing health insurance (formatted to cover potential issues in that industry), and they do not get to use public services. Implant subcutaneous tracking devices in all here on temporary work visas.
Children of illegals? Sorry, mom and dad are getting deported. If you want to go with them, great. They’re going. Period. They want to stay? OK. They are Constitutional US citizens. But the parents can’t stay. Phones and email are great. Try Skype. Harsh? Well, the law can be harsh. No one complains about children being separated from their parents when the parents are sent to the Big House. Perhaps illegal aliens should have considered the consequences of their actions beforehand.
Illegals get caught? They immediately see a judge (there are a very small number who would be approved to stay for a few reasons) and are put on a bus or plane out of the country. If they have a bank account, the money will be seized to pay for the transportation costs.
The political class that supports amnesty is turning this country into a nation of Men, instead of a nation of law. They are the ones who are broken. | <urn:uuid:d6ea9e06-2b69-4407-981f-1f9a12cc2590> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rightwingnews.com/illegal-immigration-2/the-immigration-system-is-not-broken-its-government-thats-broken/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958485 | 1,280 | 1.664063 | 2 |
You could use pack/unpack as well. Try that, its untested, seems to work okay in my head.
Also, to adjust a timezone, you may use date_default_timezone_set if you want it to change, otherwise it will attempt to find the closest timezone the server is in. You can never base this on a client; to do that you'd need to determine the times data was written, which would be doable in a database.
You are combining both filesystem and database. Is there a reason for you doing this?
If you are using a database, you can simply record the date of a hit. SQL can then issue a COUNT for the date with a GROUP BY and a WHERE clause to determine the hits for a day. You don't even need to add a counter if you don't want, just an insert would work fine. Then a simple SELECT count(date_counter) AS count FROM counter WHERE date_counter = CURRENT_DATE() for example. You can use group by if you want to list multiple dates.
I'd prune them out regularly though. Whether you choose to use a single insert per hit (which will grow fast), or execute an UPDATE instead, chances are you don't need to keep everything for an extended period. If you have no intention of tracking unique entries, then an UPDATE may make more sense. If you want to track unique, then a single entry is the way to go. If its for esthetics only, I'd make it a MEMORY table type as well. It'll disappear on a MySQL restart, but its faster for accessing. | <urn:uuid:c0b3a761-b287-467d-ab3b-eb16092da8cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?t=243333 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939656 | 338 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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The Wild Horse Rescue Center (WHRC) rescues, rehabilitates, and finds new homes for mustangs and burros. Based in in Mims, Florida, the organization intervenes when mustangs are taken from the wild and up in neglectful or abusive situations.
At the Center, the staff nurse horses back to health, tames, and correctly trains them so they have a chance at being adopted in to a loving home.
Diane Delano, the founder of WHRC, also provides a permanent home to those mustangs remain as "wild at heart" and would not be happy living as domestic horse. These mustangs live out their days at the center.
You can support GreaterGood.org's latest animal rescue partner through the Gifts That Give More [tm] program at The Animal Rescue Site. | <urn:uuid:c7b34e0f-bb09-408f-a8d7-e235d307229d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/clickToGive/ars/article/Saving-Americas-mustangs147 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937143 | 175 | 1.5 | 2 |
Because of these ties, Margaret has inherited information and photographs of this LANCHBURY family, and I gratefully thank her for sharing them with me. Details are each under picture...
This is Fred LANCHBURY with his wife Dorothy nee BATCHELOR. 'Fred' was Richard Frederick LANCHBURY, 20th Sep 1885, Dumbleton, Gloucestershire, to 26th Jan 1965, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England.
Margaret tells me "Fred worked on the land mostly as a Waggoner. He was in charge of all horses and the carts, carriages, pony traps and farm waggons belonging to the estate or farm. My husband used to help with the shire horses at harvest time and always travelled to the market town with his 'grandfather' to pick up supplies.
After their early days in Gloucestershire the family moved to Wootten Wawaen in Warwickshire and then to Guy's Cliffe Farm at Warwick. When I first met him in 1955 he was the miller at Guys Cliffe Mill just outside Warwick. This was owned by the Earl of Warwick and the Dower House of Warwick Castle was next to the Mill. I think that Fred's wife worked in the Dower house as a Lady's maid for a time. Guys Cliffe Mill was sold c1956 and then Fred and Dorothy went to live in Leamington Spa.
The back of this photo is noted with "Fred's nieces's wedding. His brother Jack's daughter."
'Jack' was probably his brother John, as this was a very common nickname for the name John in this era.
I can not do better than print here what Margaret had to say about this photograph. I was totally amazed at her insight and wisdom.
"As regards the wedding photo, you can see that a lot of the men have white foreheads. This means they usually wear caps to work so they must be agricultural workers. I guess the time of year is June/July time, as there are beansticks behind the group in the garden but no signs of the beans growing up them yet. The group could be posed with the Grooms family on the left side and the Brides on the right. The lady third from left favours the groom in looks and the two large men are definitely related. The man on the back row in a black suit could be the Brides father; he looks like the Lanchburys."
I have since had contact with one of this couple's descendants who have confirmed that it is indeed Emily Elizabeth LANCHBURY and Frank Alfred MACE. They were married in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, on 10th July, 1926.
Susan Pollard, a granddaughter of Emily and Frank, made contact with me on 28th Oct, 2005 and has very kindly shared information from one of her aunts who gives the following very valuable information.
The Man standing immediately to the Groom's right is Tom Kendall.
The Bridesmaid seated next to the Groom is May Kendall (Bride's step sister)
The Man on the back row third from the right is John (Jack) Packer Lanchbury 1872-19?? (Bride's Father)
The Bridesmaid seated next to the Bride is Mabel Lanchbury (Bride's sister)
The lady seated next to Mabel is Edith Lanchbury (Bride's stepmother, Jack's 2nd wife)
Thank you very much Susan - and to your Aunt too.
If you can identify anyone else in the photo, please email me
This lady is Hannah LANCHBURY
nee PACKER. She was mother to
Fred LANCHBURY, her 8th of 9
children that I know of.
Her husband was Robert LANCHBURY.
Sisters Emily and Mabel, grand-daughters of Hannah LANCHBURY
both married men named Frank MACE.
If you know anything further of these families, please do email
me on the address below. I have researchers keen to learn more. | <urn:uuid:83961954-589b-41fb-a698-8a158319f6bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lanchbury.id.au/genealogy/margaret.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978487 | 852 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Smaller cities in Pennsylvania are collaborating with Pittsburgh International Airport to rebuild air service in the state -- with an added spark from shale drilling.
Pittsburgh International has explored lots of strategies in the past seven years to recapture flights after US Airways' bombshell in 2004 that it was dismantling its hub there.
The quest led to a tentative deal with Cape Air, which flies nine-seat turboprops, but that fell through in 2009. Soon after, Gulfstream International Airlines grounded plans to fly between Pittsburgh and a half dozen cities, and later filed for bankruptcy.
Now the airport is pitching a strategy that involves joining up with airports at 13 would-be destinations in Pennsylvania, including Allentown, Erie, Johnstown, Latrobe, Harrisburg and Wilkes Barre/Scranton. Instead of waiting for a major airline to launch flights to them on a regional partner airline, Pittsburgh and the other airports are going after the business themselves.
All the cities fell off Pittsburgh's nonstop route map when US Airways slashed service.
To get the plan aloft, the Allegheny County Airport Authority, overseer of Pittsburgh's airport, is seeking a consultant that would develop route and schedule plans, pricing, and traffic and revenue forecasts to present to commuter airlines. The idea calls for twin-engine propeller plane that burn less fuel than small jets.
"It's communities banding together saying collectively 'This is what we think we need, and we're reorganizing ourselves so we can have more control over what we think our air service should be,' " airport spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny said. The strategy is a departure from airports' typical go-it-alone approach to marketing.
"A lot of people are waiting to see what happens," she added.
Northeast Ohio had its own downsizing, on a much smaller scale, when the recession and high fuel prices squeezed Continental Airlines in 2008 to drop nonstop flights to 24 towns out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Todd Payne, Hopkins manager of air service development, said Cleveland is fortunate to have retained many small markets with nonstops: Bradford, Dubois, Erie, Franklin and Harrisburg in Pennsylvania; Flint and Grand Rapids, Mich.; Jamestown and Rochester, N.Y.; Lewisburg and Parkersburg, W.Va.; Green Bay and Madison, Wis.; South Bend, Ind.; and Columbus, Cincinnati and Dayton.
Still, Hopkins works constantly to woo service to places that are unserved or underserved, he said. "Ultimately it comes down to the airlines' decision to fly or the federal government's willingness to offer small-city air service subsidies."
Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association, said Pittsburgh's tactic is promising. And turboprop planes are best for short-haul routes even though they are tagged with an image -- outdated, Cohen said -- as cramped, noisy and hot.
"These are not your grandfather's turboprops. Not even your older brother's. They're modern, and passengers love them."
Deborah McElroy, an officer with Airports Council International - North America, said the decision by large airlines to drop less profitable flights to small and mid-sized cities has airports grappling for ways to rewire routes.
"If working with the airlines doesn't succeed, then they have to look at other creative solutions," McElroy said.
George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting in Fairfax, Va., said without all the nonstops to big cities that used to be part of the network radiating from Pittsburgh, "some of these new destinations are going to be very difficult."
But Pennsylvania officials figure they have an ace in the hole -- or oil in the ground, as it were. They say the boom in Marcellus shale drilling makes air connections more vital and viable, because drill operators won't want to commute back and forth over winding, hilly roads.
Jenny, at the Pittsburgh airport, said many of the targeted cities are near shale fields, while the companies involved have bases in Pittsburgh.
That gives a risky proposition a better shake, said William Swelbar, an aviation analyst at MIT.
"Building it around a strong economic base certainly improves the chance of success," he said.
And then there's the prospect of some of those shale business fliers continuing on from their Pittsburgh operations to home offices in Houston and Dallas. That would give Pittsburgh a bigger taste of the flow-through traffic it once had as a US Airways hub.
"I give them a lot of credit for being innovative and trying new things to bolster service," said Akron-Canton Airport spokeswoman Kristie VanAuken. "They want a little piece of that magic back." | <urn:uuid:70d3744c-cb78-427d-a38b-ed9ee38df967> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/12/pittsburgh_airport_says_region.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954053 | 968 | 1.757813 | 2 |
My last post generated a few comments from readers out there who disagreed with some of my assessments, and I wanted to start off today by mentioning that I appreciate hearing other people’s opinions on these things, and that I hope you will all continue to weigh in whether you agree with me or not. On further reflection, I think I was perhaps unfair in some elements of my critique last week. But, I have been ill for the past while, and so I’ll just pretend that my condition impaired my judgment. Of course, I’m still a bit ill now, but we’ll try to avoid a repeat.
Today’s map was submitted by my colleague Tim Wallace, who is responsible for naming this blog. We work in a building that also houses the Arthur Robinson Map Library, which occasionally gives away unwanted materials. Tim found this one on the free map table:
The provenance is unknown – it’s printed on thin magazine paper with a torn edge, and the reverse side contains portions of two articles which don’t identify the publication, though the corner reads “September 1979.” On the off chance you happen to know where it comes from, please write to me at firstname.lastname@example.org.
I found the logic behind the legend confusing for a good while until I noticed the numbers. It appears that we have a map here which shows seismic risk for various tectonic plate boundaries. Red is the highest seismic potential. A fine-grain black-and-white checkered pattern is the lowest. Peach and yellow are in-between. This seems to come up every week on this blog, but I’ll say it again: if you’re showing ordered data, like high-to-low seismic potential, use an ordered set of symbols (colors, in this case). This is one reason why the legend threw me. Areas marked “Plate motion subparallel to arc” are apparently of a moderate-to-low seismic potential. But, because of the fact that they use a checkerboard pattern, and because I hadn’t the damnedest what that phrase meant, I couldn’t tell that item #4 on the legend was part of a larger scheme. This is worse than just misuse of colors; patterns are being thrown in needlessly now, too.
I could, in fact, still be reading this whole legend wrong, and reflecting poorly on the institution that agreed to award me a bachelor’s degree a few years ago. Feel free to comment if you think you’ve got a more sensible interpretation than my idea of items 1-6 being part of an ordered scheme of seismic potential.
One final note on the colors/patterns: The legend does not explain what the white bands are.
On to the point features. The symbols for successful forecast (presumably explained in the article) and active volcano are overprinted directly on top of the other colors. Look again at the colored bands. The red or yellow appear no different when they are on land vs. on water. The printer simply put these colors directly onto the white paper. But look now at those two point symbols – notice how their color changes based on whether they’re sitting on land or water or on top of something else. The printer put purple ink on top of green or blue or whatever was already there, instead of leaving a white space, as they did for the bands. Not sure what happened there, though there may be a reasonable explanation that someone more familiar with late 1970s printing technology can give. It does make the points very hard to see in some areas – I originally counted four stars, but now I can find eight. It also means that the point features shown in the legend do not match the color found on the map.
I’m hoping the magazine article makes the meaning of the Tsunami symbol clearer. Is this map showing Tsunamis that happened in the last decade? Ones happening right now? Not sure.
Note that the legend refers to various filled areas as being “sites” of earthquakes. Why are these not point features? Earthquakes have an epicenter, and move more in a circular outward fashion than a wide lateral band fashion. There may be more going on, as far as data processing goes (and, again, I wish I had the article that accompanies this), but it’s perplexing. Maybe the author(s) went with bands because it’s easier to see the bands than to dig out information out of scattered points? I’ll not be too hard on this, because it’s more mysterious than bad, without information to help understand why the map author(s) may have done this.
There are exactly two labels on the main map: Oaxaca, and Gulf of Alaska. Maybe those are both significant in the article, but it seems very strange to see just those two. They should probably be set in different type, at least, so that Oaxaca doesn’t look like the name of a sea off the Mexican coast. As a general guideline, cities and bodies of water ought to look different. One of the reasons for labeling things is to help readers who don’t already know what or where these features are. It’s entirely possible that a reader out there actually did look at this and, never having heard of Oaxaca, thought it was a water feature.
A similar problem comes up in the inset. Mexico is set in the same type as Central America. Central America is not (and was not), last I knew, a country. I’m reasonably sure Mexico is, however. But look at how they’re labeled – as though the text symbols mean the same thing in each case: country. And, of course, the tectonic plates are also set in the same type as everything else. Perhaps the mapmaker had a sponsorship deal from the makers of the typeface (I am having trouble identifying exactly which it is, on account of the scan resolution looking at the actual physical document, it appears to be Helvetica). If you are a typeface designer and want to pay me more than I deserve to use your glyphs on my maps, please contact me.
The inset would be better off having some kind of marker to show where exactly it corresponds to on the main map. Perhaps this might explain why Mexico was labeled: to help the reader locate the inset.
The water on the inset is jarring -the white makes it stand out far too much, calling your eye away from the main map. Best make it blue.
Boy, sure would be nice to have a legend to explain what’s going on with the inset. Are those blue triangles historical volcanic eruptions, or maybe earthquakes? Maybe they’re places less interesting than the Cheese Factory. And what are the little round-ish zones drawn in blue, which makes them hard to notice?
If you run this map through a filter which simulates how it might look to a person with the common red-green color vision impairment, you may notice that the green for the land and the orange for seismic potential level 2 end up looking very similar, which is rather problematic if you want to know which areas are plain land, and which areas might kill you in an earthquake.
A final reiteration of the main caveat to these criticisms – the original context for the map is missing, and the magazine article which I hope accompanied it may have helped this whole thing make more sense, and explained some things which seem out of place.
One Nice Thing: Some may disagree with me and say it’s overgeneralized, but I kind of like the simplicity of the linework. I think it works here, giving it an accessible, non-technical aesthetic. Michigan is misshapen, but I’ll live.
Another Nice Thing: Tim thinks it has a nice Schoolhouse Rock sort of feeling to it. Which is another way of getting at what I was saying above. | <urn:uuid:da199079-0fca-47fe-8a3c-594fefd269d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cartastrophe.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/tectonic-junction-whats-your-function/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ea0388e61b | 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 | 0.95617 | 1,669 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has taken his wrangle with finance minister P Chidambaram and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar over the Centre's job guarantee programme to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's court.
Stung by their repeated assertions that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) schemes were having a negative impact on the availability of farm labour, Ramesh shot a note to the PM to "respond to the concerns raised by both senior ministers".
In another note to the PM, he tried to allay Chidambaram's concerns that MGNREGA was facing a decline in employment.
Narrating how the job scheme's focus on irrigation and water conservation has had a positive impact on agricultural production, he argued that "there was no definite data to suggest this shortfall" and "MGNREGA wage rates provide the Centre with an opportunity to uniformly enforce minimum wages and set a reservation wage to prevent the exploitation of poor workers".
Ramesh also brought up National Sample Survey Organisation data to show that the agriculture labour force has been
seeing a negative trend since 2004-05-much before NREGA was rolled out.
Ramesh said that as the average workday under NREGA never exceeded 54 days, "it is hardly likely that such a small proportion of person-days per household would be substituting agriculture employment for the entire year".
Ramesh and Pawar had earlier locked horns over GM crops. As their tussle enters a new turf, the rural minister has also told the PM how a panel is working for greater synergy between agriculture and MGNREGA. | <urn:uuid:29f1e040-45e1-4af5-b5d8-26a6bbbc0288> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/newdelhi/Jairam-Ramesh-takes-NREGA-dispute-to-PM-s-court/Article1-1011357.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9673 | 342 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Hunting Skills Seminars Offered
As the fall hunting seasons draw near, the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) with Partners in the Field is offering the Hunter Skills Seminar Series. The classes, on deer, elk, waterfowl and grouse, offer tips and techniques to help hunters improve their success in the upcoming seasons. The first class, on deer hunting, will be held Wednesday, July 23.
“We got great feedback from hunters last year,” said Jim Bulger, the DOW’s hunting outreach coordinator. “They were thrilled with what they learned and said the classes definitely improved their hunting success.”
Preparing for the hunt and effective techniques are just some of the skills hunters will take with them. Classes also cover habits and habitat, laws and filling out tags. The waterfowl class is a three-day series, which also will feature instruction on decoys and calling. Hunters will have a chance to mingle and listen to hunting experts and DOW biologists.
The grouse class is on Aug. 9 and elk is on Sept. 10. The waterfowl series will be held on Aug. 12, 19 and 26.
All Denver seminars are free, but reservations are required for the deer and elk seminars and requested for waterfowl. For more about the classes or to register, call the Hunter Outreach Information line at (303) 291-7545, or visit the DOW’s Web site at www.wildlife.state.co.us, click on “Hunting” on the lefthand side and choose “Hunter Outreach.” | <urn:uuid:348f43f1-42b2-406c-9a1e-1d57c9c04bda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biggamehunt.net/news/hunting-skills-seminars-offered | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938434 | 344 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Atlanta is a city of resurgence. The latest catalyst for growth was spurred by Atlanta’s hosting of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. With the eyes of the world looking on, it rose in status as the capital of the New South to a city of international significance.
Today this former railroad town is home to one of the nation’s highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies--13 in all with Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS and Delta Airlines among them. Its economic engine is fueled by a diverse economy and a solid infrastructure that includes the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International. One survey named the region a top metro pick for entrepreneurial activity. Atlanta is also a “brain gain” city. Young, college-educated professionals are moving in and making their mark here.
Atlanta is noted for its low cost of living as well as its low cost of doing business compared other major metropolitan areas. Foreign investors are taking notice and increasingly seeing this gateway city as a safe haven for their real estate dollars.
This is a dynamic city that balances development with a reverence for the past, especially when it comes to historic architecture. Dozens of distinct neighborhoods make up Atlanta’s core. Its cultural attractions are vast, from the landmark Fox Theatre and the High Museum to sites like Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and the Margaret Mitchell House, where the author wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Gone with the Wind.”
Located at the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains, Atlanta enjoys a mild four-season climate. Locals take advantage. Parks, hiking trails and bike paths are busy year round. It is also golf-friendly with more than 100 public and private courses in the region including ones with skyline views.
Homes here are traditional as well as contemporary takes on Georgian, Federalist, Victorian and neo-Mediterranean styles. The destruction of Atlanta during the Civil War left a dearth of authentic antebellum architecture. Luxury real estate close to the action, or “intown” as locals call it, are in high demand. Many members of Atlanta’s established elite make their homes in Buckhead. Tuxedo Park is Buckhead’s most prestigious neighborhood. Estates selling in the eight-figure range are routine. The area of Brookhaven is Atlanta’s first country club community. Pretty Druid Hills is noted for its early 1900s estates and small vest-pocket parks. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, as is the impeccable neighborhood of Ansley. Brookwood Hills was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, best known for New York's Central Park.
Newcomers to Atlanta are cautioned to bring a GPS. No fewer than 65 streets have Peachtree incorporated into their name.
View All Atlanta, Georgia Luxury Real Estate
from Sotheby's International Realty
Content Producer Iyna Bort Caruso | <urn:uuid:5a4408e9-7b0b-4acc-bdf4-c7d32e515431> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sothebysrealty.com/rus/article/copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-copy-of-manhattan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954631 | 613 | 1.625 | 2 |
First task was to cover a A1 sheet of white paper with charcoal, make it dense black and then erase to create a rectangle. Inspired by Richard Serra. It was quite interesting to observe how the blackness rubs outs and creates a soft-edged shape.
Then next day we had to do charcoal again, now rubbing out a specific picture of light and dark. Too much charcoal. Sick of it now.
Today was the worst one: drawing a flower………… The task set sounded so complicated but in the end it was just a boring observational drawing of a plant, bleh. At least mine looks like a pineapple, would be better if it produced pineapples as well.
For all of these we had to think about boundaries, where the drawing starts and ends, didn’t really get it though.
Not very exciting start. | <urn:uuid:ab5e37ac-febb-4949-bfed-fd780c3e7f80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dacekregere.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/uni-first-week-in-studio/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974786 | 174 | 1.664063 | 2 |
HUSTLIN’ HEALTHCARE is a fun new boardgame that brings the thrill of being a large insurance company into your home! Deny claims, jack up your premiums, and undercut the competition. But be careful, if too many of your patients die, then you can’t collect their payments and you’ll go out of business. The game is a thesis project by Clay Ewing. It uses real Medicare claims data to form the prices.
I asked Clay why he started this project.
He says, “My impetus stems from people around my age (I’m 29) not knowing much about the system in general.
Before attending Parsons, I worked for a corporate law firm and I was told I had really good health benefits. I never really used them. I went to the doctor for checkups now and then because I felt like I needed to. I still had to pay a bit of money for the visit which I thought was weird. I don’t mind paying a doctor for their services. In fact, I think they should make more money. However, I was paying a lot in insurance premiums and I began questioning the value. I know that you can’t run an insurance company with only sick people, you’d go bankrupt. If you want healthy people to support the system, it needs to be a good deal. I was really curious at this point, “if I had this particular ailment, what would it cost me?” If I knew all of those particular prices and I knew what the usual ailments were, would I be more inclined to buy insurance? Or less so? Would I comparison shop if I could?
There was a lot of debate over “the system” and now we have legislation to reform it. I’m still skeptical though because as much as we’ve forced people into buying insurance, the issue of the cost keeps being ignored. The cost is already crazy and it’s inflating fast. When I started to uncover prices, I noticed a huge disparity between hospitals in the same area. Talking to people in the industry though, it could mean a lot of things. Cost shifting, different techniques, different approaches, etc. There’s such a lack of transparency that it’s impossible for a free market to exist. This is not a capitalist v. socialist thing, merely an observation. If a system is privatized, it needs active and engaged consumers. Our current system is supposed to be, so I think we need to create informed consumers if we want to start fixing the problems.
The game is a method to bring the issue to light. I want the players to shift their focus to the business side of health care, grounded in real world data and then have a conversation. I think that if more people looked at the issue from multiple angles, we might come up with some great ideas.” | <urn:uuid:d83fd5ff-da3d-4844-a0e8-9112ead70bcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://consumerist.com/2010/05/12/hustlin-healthcare-the-board-game/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980112 | 603 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The Wider Quaker Fellowship is an association of persons of diverse backgrounds who wish to have ties with the Religious Society of Friends without necessarily being in its membership. Born in the mind of Rufus M. Jones, Quaker mystic and teacher, it came into being in 1936. Now one of the programs of the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas, it has more than three thousand members in some 80 countries.
The Fellowship periodically mails to its members packets of selected literature reflecting Quaker thought, service, and spiritual search.
To join this Fellowship one has only to write a letter asking for association and sharing some explanation of how he or she is acquainted with the Society of Friends. There are no criteria for membership. The program is supported by the donations of members. While many members are unable to contribute financially, the generous contributions of others enable the work to continue.
FWCC, Section of the Americas, 1506 Race Street, Philadelpha, PA 19102 USA
Submitted by Andrea Palmer at the request of her daughter, Sara Palmer.Telephone number for WQF: 215-241-7293
Click here to return to the
Quaker Electronic Archive's Main Page. | <urn:uuid:28d3c7af-e262-4177-92c7-dc3a25f96d35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qis.net/~daruma/wqf-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932455 | 249 | 1.765625 | 2 |
SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
SHAUN STANLEY/Durango Herald
Call him an observer of history. An up-close observer.
Jim Bowra has seen a lot in his 87 years. From the battles of World War II to the protests and espionage of the Cold War, he’s been around a few of the 20th century’s most important world events.
He traveled an estimated hundreds of thousands of miles on a ship in the South Pacific, and lived in Europe when U.S. nuclear missiles were placed there. He drove a truck loaded with unstable explosives.
But these days, the hard working Four Corners native leads a simpler life. You’ll find him at Durango Community Recreation Center three mornings each week. He calls it his social life. He may chat a bit during his hour or two, but he doesn’t leave without breaking a sweat.
He gets some ribbing from the regulars at the rec center.
“All he does is clog the machines,” jokes Bill Palmer as he passes Bowra and heads downstairs.
His friend, Mike McGuire, is jealous because the girls talk to Bowra but won’t talk to him. Kidding aside, there’s a deep, underlying respect.
“A real inspiration,” McGuire said. “A neat, neat guy. He has lots of stories.”
Bowra was born in Aztec, the son of a Brit who emigrated to the United States in 1903 and a mother who was an Aztec native.
His father owned a weekly newspaper in Aztec, which leads Bowra to explain why he’s not that fond of turkey. Back in the 1920s and ’30s, subscribers would pay their bills with poultry. “One year, we got seven turkeys” during Christmas.
He played sports and after returning from the war tried to walk on to the New Mexico Highlands football team.
“God, that’s a rough sport. I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had,” he said during a break in his routine on the rec center’s second-floor machines. Bowra determined quickly it wasn’t for him. “It became real obvious I was the tackling dummy.”
Before college came his military stint. At 17, before graduating from high school, in February 1943, he joined the Navy Armed Guard. He served as a gunner on a “Liberty” ship, one of 2,700 built quickly during America’s frenetic war buildup. The 441-foot-long Liberty ships were used to transport food and materiel to soldiers, and were manned by 40 merchant mariners and 30 Navy gunners. The range was 21,000 miles, and by Bowra’s account, some of their cross-Pacific trips along the equator approached that distance.
On one trip, an enemy submarine torpedoed a tanker traveling alongside. The tanker, with 7 million gallons of fuel, sank in 30 seconds, Bowra recalls. All the men aboard perished. It took the slow-maneuvering Robert J. Walker an hour to turn around and reach the site.
“We couldn’t even find the wreckage from it,” Bowra said.
Trips during his 33 months of service took him to New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, Saipan, the Admiralty Islands and Guam, to name a few spots. It was in Guam, where his ship had just delivered a load of fuel, where he saw something that later made him realize his role in history.
“It was down at the end of the hangars,” Bowra recalls. “Nobody was allowed down there. They had the (military police) thick. And nobody knew what it was.”
The B-29 bomber Enola Gay spent about three weeks on Guam, undergoing modifications before flying to Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands. On Aug. 6, 1945, it was used to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
“I think we took the fuel for the Enola Gay,” Bowra said.
A few days after the atomic bombs were detonated, Bowra’s ship was north of Iwo Jima, heading toward Okinawa, and he was performing maintenance on his gun. An officer told him to take a break and go listen to the radio.
“No, I’ve gotta get this gun back on the firing line,” Bowra replied.
“Well, do I have to order you?” the officer asked.
He would need the gun no longer. The war was over.
Before college, Bowra worked in the oil fields for a year, drilling holes and dropping in explosives for seismograph tests that would determine whether oil might be found.
“I got 75 cents an hour to drive around in a truck with nitroglycerin,” he said with a hearty laugh.
Bowra used a degree in printing to help run the family paper. He left the business in the 1960s, returned to college and earned a counseling degree. That eventually led him to jobs with the Department of Defense at U.S. bases in Korea and Europe. His role as senior education officer was to operate high school and college programs for the soldiers.
He and his wife, Bernice, moved to Germany in 1980, just when the U.S. was establishing nuclear missiles there. The missiles’ presence upset many Germans, and some caused a ruckus.
“We had protesters, up over 5,000 daily,” Bowra said. “I had to go to work in a convoy. And these protesters would stand there and kick your car. ... Almost every night we lost a jeep. They set fire to it or poured blood on it or something of that nature.”
A group of left-wing Germany terrorists, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, tried unsuccessfully in 1981 to assassinate Gen. Frederick Kroesen with a bazooka as he drove past in an armed Mercedes.
“I never felt safe,” during the time in Europe, Bowra said. He still feels badly that Bernice was tear-gassed on a couple of occasions.
His day-to-day existence isn’t so hair-raising these days. There are no submarines sneaking up, no kamikaze pilots targeting him, no terrorist gangs kicking his car. Just his fellow rec center iron-pumpers, bombarding him with equal parts caustic wit and admiration.
firstname.lastname@example.org. John Peel writes a weekly human-interest column. | <urn:uuid:266a5fac-3497-4636-b222-a2eb882b0fb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://durangoherald.com/article/20130120/COLUMNISTS04/130129958/0/Elders-embrace-young-tribal-vets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980017 | 1,421 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Specializing in pediatric speech therapy, Northern Virginia’s Children’s Speech Therapy Center (CSTC Therapies) provides diagnostic and therapeutic services for children of all ages. The ability to communicate and perform basic daily living skills are the foundation for successful participation in family, social, and academic activities.
Children’s Speech Therapy Center’s staff of ASHA certified therapists have extensive training and experience working with children. They all complete yearly continuing education classes including; PROMPT, ABLC, HANEN, HWT and other topics specfic to child development.
CSTC's individual therapy programs are customized to each child. Therapy includes a range of fun activities from exploration and play to tabletop work and specialized skill building.
Children’s Speech Therapy Center believes that families play a critical role in their child's development. Parents and caregivers are provided training and activities specific to their child's needs. These powerful strategies and tools aid in their child’s progress.
Children’s Speech Therapy Center takes pride in its ‘early intervention program’ that provides the early identification, evaluation and treatment of developmental delays or disorders in infants through preschoolers.
To learn more about CSTC and what makes it so special please read this interview of our Director, Dani Waters. | <urn:uuid:f365806e-4dde-4ca9-92b8-2d5ab92c0024> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrens-speech.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937309 | 267 | 1.828125 | 2 |
New Teacher Diaries contributor Mr. Foteah writes that a positive change in his attitude toward a difficult student quickly resulted in a positive change in the student’s attitude in the classroom.
I thought about the majority of my interactions with this student and realized just how negative they were. So, I’ve gone in completely the other direction with this guy and have turned on the happy, bubbly positiveness.
Every day when he walks in, I tell him how thrilled I am to see him, saying things like, “I am SO happy to see you!” I always make sure to give him a high-five or fist-bump when he comes in. (Originally, I thought I might choke on the words. Now, I am genuinely excited for him and his Angry Birds hat to walk in each morning). In exchange he might give me a salute or a, “Yeah!” He comes in now and gets right down to business. Instead of being among the last to unpack, he is among the first.
In one week, he has gone from frequently being angry to frequently being happy. He is more invested in his work and more receptive to what I say. He seems to be focusing more, and I’ve noticed him looking to me in times of distress, finally understanding that I care and want to help him. | <urn:uuid:48ae7821-4eb9-4436-9e95-62ba7a692b68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edwize.org/a-different-kind-of-turnaround | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985327 | 282 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Chapter VI.—Of the election of Ambrosius, the Bishop of Milan.
Thus spoke the emperor, and then the council begged him, being a wise and devout prince, to make the choice. He then replied, “The responsibility is too great for us. You who have been dignified with divine grace, and have received illumination from above, will make a better choice.” So they left the imperial presence and began to deliberate apart. In the meanwhile the people of Milan were torn by factions, some eager that one, some that another, should be promoted. They who had been infected with the unsoundness of Auxentius were for choosing men of like opinions, while they of the orthodox party were in their turn anxious to have a bishop of like sentiments with themselves. When Ambrosius, who held the chief civil magistracy 679 of the district, p. 111 was apprised of the contention, being afraid lest some seditious violence should be attempted he hurried to the church; at once there was a lull in the strife. The people cried with one voice “Make Ambrose our pastor,”—although up to this time he was still 680 unbaptized. News of what was being done was brought to the emperor, and he at once ordered the admirable man to be baptized and ordained, for he knew that his judgment was straight and true as the rule of the carpenter and his sentence more exact than the beam of the balance. Moreover he concluded from the agreement come to by men of opposite sentiments that the selection was divine. Ambrose then received the divine gift of holy baptism, and the grace of the archiepiscopal office. The most excellent emperor was present on the occasion and is said to have offered the following hymn of praise to his Lord and Saviour. “We thank thee, Almighty Lord and Saviour; I have committed to this mans keeping mens bodies; Thou hast entrusted to him their souls, and hast shown my choice to be righteous.”
Not many days after the divine Ambrosius addressed the emperor with the utmost freedom, and found fault with certain proceedings of the magistrates as improper. Valentinian remarked that this freedom was no novelty to him, and that, well acquainted with it as he was, he had not merely offered no opposition to, but had gladly concurred in, the appointment to the bishopric. “Go on,” continued the emperor, “as Gods law bids you, healing the errors of our souls.”
Such were the deeds and words of Valentinian at Milan.
By the constitution of Constantine, beneath the governors of the twelve dioceses of the Empire were the provincial governors of 116 provinces, rectores, correctores, præsides, and consulares. Ambrosius had been appointed by Probus Consularis of Liguria and Æmilia. Probus, in giving him the appointment, was believed to have “prophesied,” and said “Vade; age non ut judex, sed ut episcopus.” Paulinus S.111:680 | <urn:uuid:5563b5bc-e615-44f5-962d-8a819887e7e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030112.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985233 | 644 | 1.796875 | 2 |
A federal appeals court will issue its long-awaited decision Tuesday on the constitutionality of a 2008 ballot initiative in California banning same-sex marriages in the state.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to issue its decision on Proposition 8, which just over 52 percent of California voters approved during the 2008 election.
The case, Perry v. Brown, has been closely monitored for its possible implications not just in California, but nationwide as well. A bipartisan pair of prominent attorneys, Theodore Olson and David Boies, have represented the opponents of Prop. 8, raising speculation that the case may eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If the U.S. Supreme Court were to hear the case, the decision could possibly have a wide-ranging impact on marriage law due to any precedent established in that case.
msnbc.com's Michael O'Brien contribued | <urn:uuid:99415600-03ea-41f6-9a1e-3694ac8609b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/06/10332508-federal-appeals-court-set-to-rule-on-same-sex-marriage-case | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967492 | 183 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The MCC announced the release of Joshua Love's new book, Uncommon Hope
, yesterday on World AIDS Day.
Love is quoted in the announcement as saying:
Uncommon Hope unveils a strategy to end the silence and inaction by people of faith, in and out of organized religious communities, and other nonprofit agencies who feel called to partner in the work of bringing an end to HIV and AIDS. This step-by-step curriculum allows them to engage volunteers and employees in advocacy, public action, and social support of people living with and affected by HIV and AIDS.
We can do a lot to diminish the suffering of people living with HIV and AIDS and the unnecessary deaths caused by limited access to healthcare and support services. Local churches and faith-based organizations are often the support system of last resort for vulnerable people. We need to be equipped to act.
Read the whole announcement here | <urn:uuid:26fadb5d-ca86-43c6-b8c0-0c104d175a5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6800 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965894 | 178 | 1.601563 | 2 |
In addition to its functional mandate, design has also always had the job of touching people. Design should make objects and graphics attractive, make people feel they would like to touch them, make people want to have them around. In this relationship, surfaces constitute the interface between object and user. This is especially true of digital interfaces, which nowadays really are in permanent contact with the user via touch screens, which render the relationship between person and digital appliance a particularly intimate one. TYPO Touch is dedicated to the touching aspects of design. | <urn:uuid:d195a52f-6418-4b6f-bf8c-9f180c706433> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://typotalks.com/berlin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98007 | 105 | 1.804688 | 2 |
by Kelsey Sheehy, Medill News Service
Washington (UPI) Jun 8, 2011
When Cheryl Arredondo realized her husband, Salvador, would be deported to Mexico and barred from entering the United States for 10 years, she left her home, business and 19 year-old daughter in Waukegan, Ill., and drove 1,600 miles to Monterrey, Mexico.
She didn't speak Spanish. She had no friends outside of her husband and two dogs, Heidi and Lizzard, and the danger of drug cartel violence confined her to her home.
Living among 3 million people in Mexico's third largest city, Arredondo said she felt isolated -- so she opened her laptop and started typing.
"Google, if it could drink coffee and smoke Marlboro Lights, would be my best buddy," Arredondo wrote in her first blog post on Nov. 5, 2010, two months after she uprooted her life to save her marriage.
Arredondo is part of a growing online demographic: American-born wives of deported immigrants who are using blogs, forums and Facebook to find support and sanity. Their spouses entered the country illegally and, when the immigration system caught up with them, their wives relocated to Mexico to keep the family together.
Venting frustrations and feelings online offers a level of support and safety not available through journals or support groups, said John Grohol, a psychologist and the publisher of psychcentral.com.
"Putting something down on Facebook and Twitter or a blog, you have the ability to get feedback on those thoughts and feelings," Grohol said. "You can't get that in a diary."
Blogs and forums also allow people to reach a wider audience, increasing the odds of finding someone who can empathize with unique situation.
Arredondo's blog -- "Monterrey, What the Hell?" -- was a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone, who could relate to her situation.
"Somebody else has to be in my shoes. Hello, is there anybody in there?" Arredondo pleaded at the end of her first blog post.
The responses flooded in and Arredondo realized she wasn't alone.
"I was shocked to discover not only were there other people living this life but there were thousands more asking the same questions as me. What do I do? How do I survive?" Arredondo wrote. "I felt a kindred spirit in many of the women I was in contact with. We all complained, we all cried, we were all at least a little scared. And now, we were not alone."
One woman Arredondo connected with was Giselle Stern Hernandez. Living in Mexico since August 2001, Hernandez was a seasoned veteran of the life as a deported man's wife.
Hernandez's husband, Roberto, was deported April 27, 2001 -- 10 days after their wedding -- and banned from re-entering the United States for 20 years. She joined him in Mexico four months later but didn't start blogging about living as a deported man's wife until 2009.
Already adjusted to her circumstances and life in Mexico, Hernandez turned to blogging after a three-month U.S. tour in 2009 for her one-woman show, "The Deportee's Wife."
Confronted with an immigration climate vastly different from the one she knew pre-Sept. 11, Hernandez said she felt compelled to call attention to her immigration realities.
"Something snapped," she said in a telephone interview.
"There's this whole invisible community -- When you say deported man's wife, I'm not usually who pops into mind. English being my first language, being born and raised in the U.S., having a master's, being half Mexican and also half white. That's what really pushed me to starting speaking out more."
Arredondo and Hernandez's virtual friendship expanded into a web of support and mutual friendships.
Emily Cruz, a U.S. citizen and Arizona native, is one of those shared connections. Cruz moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico with her husband in August 2010. He has a lifetime ban from entering the United States.
In February Arredondo and her husband moved from Monterrey to Ciudad Juarez. Relocating from one city marred by drug cartel violence to another, Arredondo turned to her online connections.
"If it weren't for my blog, I don't know how we would have processed the whole move to Juarez, because it's through my blog that I met three American women that also live here and were extremely helpful through that process," she said.
Once in Juarez, their virtual connection developed into flesh-and-blood friendships -- the kind that has cookouts and commiserates about the daily commute across the bridge to El Paso, Texas, for work.
As Arredondo's life evolved into a new sense of normalcy in Juarez, her virtual life evolved as well.
She visits immigration forums and Facebook groups less frequently. She's moved from a place of bitterness and anger to acceptance. She's happy with where she is and who she's there with -- her husband.
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Australia back-tracks on asylum kids
Canberra, Australia (UPI) Jun 8, 2011
Australia has backtracked partially on its hard-line policy of sending young asylum seekers to Malaysia as part of a controversial exchange deal. Last week the Labor government said there would be no exemption for unaccompanied minors arriving illegally in Australian waters by boat. As with adult asylum seekers, the children will be sent to Malaysia to be kept in detention centers until ... read more
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Alpha Lambda Delta National Academic Honor Society for Freshmen
Founded in 1924, Alpha Lambda Delta (ALD) is a national academic honor society for freshmen. ALD’s mission is to “encourage superior academic achievement, to promote intelligent living and a continued high standard of learning, and to assist students in recognizing and developing meaningful goals for their unique roles in society.”
In order to be eligible for membership in ALD, students must have earned a GPA of 3.50 grade point average or be in the top 20% of their class during their first semester at Morgan and have been enrolled on a full-time basis while pursuing a Bachelor’s degree.
Freshman transfer students from an institution without an ALD chapter must have earned the required ALD grade point average in courses taken during their first semester at Morgan. In addition, the average of the grades from the student’s transfer credits, combined with the grades earned from courses taken at Morgan, must equal the ALD academic GPA requirement.
Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Scholastic Honor Society
Phi Eta Sigma (PES) was established on March 22, 1923 and is the oldest and largest freshman honor society in the nation. PES’s goal is to encourage and reward academic excellence among freshmen in institutions of higher learning. At Morgan, the PES mission is to “promote academic excellence, enhance student life, and support the community at large.”
Dedicated to service and leadership, Morgan’s PES chapter activities include an annual New Member’s Luncheon, annual participation in the Homecoming Decorate-a-Building Contest, and the Give-a-Gift Drive for the Agape House in Baltimore.
Students invited for induction into PES must be full-time students with a minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.50 and rank in the upper 20% of their class.
Grant-Brett Promethean Kappa Tau
The Promethean Kappa Tau Freshman Honor Society was founded at Morgan State University (then Morgan State College) in 1957 by the late Dr. George C. Grant, who served as Dean of the College. The Society was named by Dr. Sandye J. McIntyre, late Distinguished Professor of Foreign Languages. Dr. Ruth Brett Quarles, late Director of the Counseling Center, served as the advisor to the Society during its first twenty-three years of existence.
In recognition of the outstanding service and contributions of Dean Grant and Dr. Brett, Dr. Clayton Stansbury, emeritus Director of the University Honors Program, renamed the Society to include the names of Dean Grant and Dr. Brett: the Grant-Brett Promethean Kappa Tau Freshman Honor Society. However, it is better known to its members as PKT.
The purpose of PKT is to motivate new freshmen of above average ability to become scholars and to develop personal habits and qualities that will enable them to promote a campus climate that nourishes academic life at Morgan.
In order to be eligible for membership in PKT, students must have 1) earned at least 15 computable semester hours with a semester GPA of at least 3.40 or 2) earned between 12 and 14 computable semester hours with a semester GPA of at least 3.50.DEMIC
National Society of Collegiate Scholars
The National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) is a national nonprofit academic honor society founded in 1994 by Steve Loflin. It has chapters at over 300 institutions across the US, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia with nearly one million lifetime members. The Morgan State University Chapter of NSCS was chartered in Spring 2012. For more information about NSCS, click on the following link: NSCS.
Golden Key International Honour Society
The Golden Key International Honour Society (GK) is an internationally recognized, non-profit organization with over 375 chapters throughout the United States and across the globe. As the world’s leading and most active collegiate honor society, Golden Key distinguishes and rewards students by providing a lifetime of benefits through membership.
Each year nearly $600,000 is awarded in scholarships to GK members. In addition, GK offers career assistance through its Corporate Partners, leadership development and community service opportunities, and a chance to network with nearly 2 million members from over 190 countries.
Students qualify for membership if they are ranked in the top 15% of the combined junior and senior classes at Morgan, have earned at least 25 credits at Morgan, and have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.40 while having NEVER earned more than two (2) grades less than “C”. | <urn:uuid:aaa5092b-6a00-44bc-996d-079ed399e106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://morgan.edu/Academics/University_Honors_Program/Honor_Societies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95264 | 963 | 1.6875 | 2 |
“Débris is a surprising double-exposure that I made quite by accident in March 2011. One simple error destroyed all my work from that journey. This great personal tragedy came to represent a sort of threshold in my life and work. It formed an epiphany in which I realized that I must return to Congo and persevere with Infra, which has been an exhausting struggle, in a remarkably difficult environment, against my own practice and my best instincts. Débris pushed me to embrace failure and let go of certain ways of seeing. As Samuel Beckett said, ‘Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’” —Richard Mosse
This limited-edition photograph from Richard Mosse’s first monograph, Infra (Aperture, 2012), offers a radical rethinking of how to depict a conflict as complex and intractable as that of the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. For centuries, the Congo has repeatedly compelled and defied the Western imagination. Mosse brings to this subject the use of a discontinued aerial surveillance film, a type of color infrared film called Kodak Aerochrome. The film, originally developed for military reconnaissance, registers an invisible spectrum of infrared light, rendering the green landscape in vivid hues of lavender, crimson, and hot pink. The results offer a fevered inflation of the traditional reportage document, underlining the growing tension between art, fiction, and photojournalism.
Laumont in New York printed each digital C-print in this edition in October 2011, under the supervision of the artist. Each print is presented in a cloth folio made from unique Congolese fabric procured by the artist
Richard Mosse (b. 1980, Ireland) received an MFA in photography from Yale University School of Art and a postgraduate diploma in fine art from Goldsmiths, London. He also holds a first-class BA in English literature from King’s College London and a master’s in cultural studies from the London Consortium (ICA, AA, Tate, Birkbeck). His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Barbican Art Gallery, London; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Dublin Gallery of Photography; and SFMOMA Artists Gallery. In 2011, Mosse was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, with a supplemental stipend from the Leon Levy Foundation. In 2006, he received a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts. Mosse is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. | <urn:uuid:11ab2f87-c387-4dd6-8bad-fbd016a77f74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aperture.org/shop/prints/contemporary-photographs/debris-north-kivu-eastern-congo-2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937433 | 546 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on January 24th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
Controversy and opposition has dogged the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project for many years. That controversy — along with a daunting price tag estimated at $4 billion — has made it extremely difficult for politicians to vote in support of funding the five-mile freeway widening and interchange building mega-project.
Now, with increasing pressure to move forward after several years and over $100 million spent on planning, Oregon Governor Kitzhaber has teed up a bill (H.B. 2260) in in the legislature that would make the project an official state priority and would give the state authority to raise revenue through tolling (something they'll desperately need to come up with Oregon's $450 million (without interest on bonds or cost overruns) share of the project). But, as the Willamette Week pointed out yesterday, there's one thing missing from the bill: the Columbia River Crossing.
Instead of the name the project has been known by since Day One, the Governor refers to the project in the bill text as, "The Interstate 5 Bridge Replacement Program." Here's more on the name change from the Willamette Week:
"The rebranding surfaced at the Oregon Leadership Summit in December, when the Oregon Department of Transportation handed out buttons with an I-5 highway sign and the motto “Build That Bridge.”
Rep. Tobias Read (D-Beaverton), chairman of the House Transportation and Economic Development Committee and a strong supporter of the project, says the new name is aimed at clarity, not shaking off controversy.
“What I’ve found is, that name ‘CRC’ doesn’t necessarily mean anything to people,” Read says."
(Interestingly, Metro also used the "replacement Interstate 5 bridge" term in a story about the project on January 7th. That wording earned them some quick criticism from several people via Twitter.)
This name change is troubling to me on several levels. First, it seems like an obvious move to confuse the public and cleanse some of the toxicity around this project. I'm not sure who Rep. Read talks to, but I think the vast majority of people in this region are aware of what the "CRC" is and that moniker is arguably more descriptive than "The Interstate 5 Bridge Replacement Program." And secondly, the new name is simply (purposefully?) misleading.
While project staff and boosters want everyone to think this is just about replacing an old bridge, the reality is that the bridge is a relatively minor portion of the project. Estimates put the cost of the bridge replacement at just $800 million. The real money is in the massive new highway interchanges that must be renovated and/or built. Estimates put the highway elements of the project at $3 billion. The highway expansion and new interchanges on the Vancouver side alone will cost about $800 million.
Project backers seem to understand that selling the public, politicians, and the media on "a new bridge" is much more palatable then selling five miles of wider and louder freeway expansions that will lead to even more tailpipe emissions right in our backyards. If this was just a bridge replacement project, it would likely have been done by now. It's the massive highway and interchange elements that will cost the most money and do the most damage to our way of life.
It's a point activists have been trying to hammer home for years...
Regardless of what CRC supporters in Salem call the project, it's future looks no brighter than it has in recent months. The outlook for the project from Washington is getting worse by the day. And, even with a sense of urgency to move forward this session, activists are heating up to make sure it goes nowhere.
On Friday, February 1st, political action committee Bike Walk Vote (who supported mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith in large part because of his opposition to the CRC) is hosting an event dubbed, We Can Do Better: A night of information & democratic action to stop the CRC. The event will be a chance to learn more about "the realities of the CRC," get an update on where it stand in the legislature and take action. Volunteers plans to kick-off a statewide letter-writing campaign aimed at "flooding the mailboxes of our representatives."
The forces working to push the CRC along are powerful; but there are also many forces pushing back. 2013 will likely be defined as the year we find out which side is stronger.Email This Post Possibly related posts | <urn:uuid:97b2fb43-316e-4b59-8ee4-427cac7d55b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bikeportland.org/2013/01/24/crc-update-kitzhaber-drops-crc-project-moniker-activists-heat-up-82214 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961914 | 938 | 1.625 | 2 |
Viva La Reformacion
we are allowed to say—and it doesn’t work anyhow.
The Sin of the Revolutionary Mind
by Tim Nichols
We worship in heaven, and we are unified with those who join us there in worship—including those believers in other nations, and those who died long before us. This unity surpasses any earthly tie, including ties of where you were born—or when.
The saints of every age and place are Our People, and we should hear the voices of those who have gone before us. They are sinners, and they can be wrong. But so can we, and so we listen to their wise counsel, and—as always—measure everything by Scripture. We cannot be revolutionaries, because we belong to a long line of people from whom we cannot separate, even though we may want to.
“Behold, I make all things new” is not something that we are allowed to say—and it doesn’t work anyhow. If we cannot remake our church, or our society, or our world at a stroke, through revolution, then what are we to do?
In Eden, the river that flows from the sanctuary waters the world. In the New Jerusalem, the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the leaves of the trees beside it are for the healing of the nations. In between, Jesus says “He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”
The life of the world flows from God through the sanctuary, through our worship; this is our first and most powerful agent of cultural change. Worship is a weapon by which we may battle God’s enemies and serve the people of the World at the same time. When we resort to carnal weapons, there is always collateral damage, but worship harms no one except those who insist on remaining enemies of God.
The charge therefore is this: Every change in your life, every difficulty, every new situation, should come first into your worship. Praise God, thank Him, ask for what you need. Situate your life in God-honoring heavenly worship before the throne of Grace. Then, having done that, pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven—and watch as God answers your prayers.
Why do you think Jesus was executed with the connivance of the then in power ecclesiastical establishment in Palestine 2000 years ago?
Because his (then) revolutionary ideas were completely unacceptable, and a threat to the worldly power and privileges of the then ecclesiastical establishment.
Would you even recognize Jesus if he happened to appear unannounced at your local church? He most probably would not be dressed in a buttoned down Sunday suit (with tie in place).
Jesus was not a revolutionary. He was a reformer, calling God’s people back to what God’s Word had always taught, so they would be ready for the next step. There’s a difference.
It’s true that genuine reformers are often a threat to established power and privilege. But one can also be a threat to established power and privilege by being an anarchist, a thief, or a well-placed nincompoop. Some people are fools for the sake of Christ, but many more are just fools.
If Jesus showed up in my local church, I would recognize Him for the same reason that Nathaniel did — I already know Him. The suit and tie wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other. I’d ask you the same question a little differently — suppose Jesus did show up in your church, dressed up like a banker. Would you say to yourself, “That can’t be Jesus! Lookit what he’s wearing!” | <urn:uuid:9262df0a-2439-4e97-81c8-eb80df90d9af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2010/05/15/viva-la-reformacion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968792 | 797 | 1.6875 | 2 |
If you happen to have a teenager in your home who has tons of assignments to print over an inkjet printer, surely you would have realized by now that you have spent a fortune on ink refills, never mind that they are third party solutions which the manufacturer tends to ask us to shun. Well, for those who are no longer warm towards expensive ink and toner cartridges, there might be a way out of this predicament – sign up for a paperless university or school, or look to PretonSaver Home, where the latter promises to reduce such consumable costs by up to 70% – for free, yo!
Too bad this is a Windows-only utility, where it will be able to help your printer save ink thanks to the removal of overlapping pixels from the printed page. This results in a reduction of ink consumption, and is compatible with just about all programs and printers.
Tests have proved that there are savings made when you use PretonSaver Home without any noticeable loss in quality for text and graphics, but when dealing with photo prints alone, PretonSaver images tend to look a bit lighter, but at least it does not sacrifice on sharpness.
No idea on just how far such programs will go in this day and age. I suppose in such tough economic times, it makes perfect sense to do whatever you can to help you save and scrimp for a brighter tomorrow.Follow:Generalhome-tagpretonsaverpretonsaver home | <urn:uuid:6b712e01-7087-4c25-883f-540e85ffc5a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/05/pretonsaver-home-helps-reduce-printing-costs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95584 | 299 | 1.679688 | 2 |
From CHALMERS JOHNSON
However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.
According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there — 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.
These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive. According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony — that is, control or dominance – over as many nations on the planet as possible.
We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past — including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example. (Alas, they are currently backsliding and following our example by assisting us in the war in Afghanistan.)
Here are three basic reasons why we must liquidate our empire or else watch it liquidate us…
Full story here ~~ | <urn:uuid:a8f1205d-a896-49ac-8a9c-c3b6652224bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/three-good-reasons-to-liquidate-our-empire-and-ten-steps-to-take-to-do-so/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965402 | 563 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Am bit confused about what I need. I have moved into a new flat and it is an odd shape so I cant get wifi in the front rooms (well a very weak signal). It is not a big flat and it is all on one level it is just an odd shape, Is sort of 'L' shaped. I can get a good signal all along the long edge of the 'L' but not on the short bit and that is where the front rooms are (2 bedrooms and a studio).
What is the best way to get a better signal? I was thinking of putting a wifi router or repeater in front room (the studio) that can get the wifi from back of flat and then 'repeat' this signal. One of the computers in studio does not have an antenna so would be helpful if the 'router/repeater' could also connect via a LAN cable to the computer and then it can connect to network that way.
The network I would like to set up would be able to handle media streaming, render farming and internet all throughout the flat.
The internet is provided by BT (not sure if peeps in states or UK will be reading this but is a UK provider).
I do not want to spend any more the £50 on a router/repeater, what would do the job? I was looking at this one: ZyXEL WAP3205 Wireless Dual LAN Access Point. Will this receive and broadcast or do I need to wire it up to access point? This is what I find confusing. I ZyXEL WAP3205 Wireless Dual LAN Access Point what to have to connect it to access point as that would mean I would need to run wires and I hate running wires around living space!
Not sure if I'm making sense, please ask me questions if I'm not being clear and i will try to clarify my meaning. | <urn:uuid:2d04a5ea-7b25-4a38-8e1b-c9925585e8dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wirelessforums.org/wireless-networking-discussion/repeater-extender-router-127373.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969961 | 384 | 1.742188 | 2 |
22 September 2006
David Rooks' black and white photographs were shown at Platform in September alongside Bridget Radomski's large photographic portraits. David's work documents his scale models of people and landscapes at night with bolts of light that bring to mind alien visitation and otherworldly scenes. Entitled 'Things Will Never Be The Same' the works were boldly contrasted by Bridget's quiet but emotional portraits of people alone with their thoughts in a world that doesn't seem to care.
Posted by Din Heagney AKA Art Pimp at 9/22/2006 02:28:00 pm
Grace McQuilten's large-scale photographs, presented at Majorca Building during September, are based on a Japanese story of a young girl who was ill and set out to make 1000 paper origami cranes. When the girl died before completing the cranes, her village came together to finish the project in honour of her short life. Grace adopted the origami action when her mother became ill with cancer and made 1000 cranes made from prints of human skin. She then layered photographs of her cranes with imagery that explores the invasive nature of the medical gaze.
Posted by Din Heagney AKA Art Pimp at 9/22/2006 02:14:00 pm
21 September 2006
Stripping consumerism back to reveal the emptyness within, Ash Keating continues to deconstruct everyday reality, be it free newspapers or vinyl advertising thinly disguised as art. Ash's work is magpie-meticulous and obsessive having used newspapers a number of times in previous exhibitions, creating sculptures and wallpaper from thousands of identical layered images. The Platform work was an intervention of free MX newspapers that were diverted last year and shown on the same days 12 months later to demonstrate the environmental and mental waste generated via commuters in a 5-day period.
Posted by Din Heagney AKA Art Pimp at 9/21/2006 03:50:00 am | <urn:uuid:b8e0adcd-4efb-435b-9366-ff7075137bfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://platformartistsgroup.blogspot.com.au/2006_09_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963449 | 398 | 1.609375 | 2 |
prestigious professional actors' workshop in New York City whose members have been among the most influential performers in American theatre and film since World War II. It is one of the leading centres for the Stanislavsky method of dramatic training.
Founded in New York City in 1947 by directors Cheryl Crawford, Elia Kazan, and Robert Lewis, it provides a place where actors can work together without the pressures of commercial production. Actors Studio membership, which is for life, is by invitation; from 1,000 auditions, six or seven new members are chosen each year. Lee Strasberg was director from 1948 to 1982. Strasberg extended the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky and developed method acting, in which actors used their own emotional memory for the purpose of dramatic motivation. Its noted alumni include Al Pacino, Paul Newman, and Ellen Burstyn. In 1962 a production company was added to its activities, and later a western workshop was opened in Los Angeles. In 1963 the studio opened a short-lived theatre on Broadway. | <urn:uuid:34e23d4a-b544-434c-97ee-a6faa6d98f5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://britannica.com/oscar/article-9003622 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967324 | 212 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Nutrition & Feeding
We’re having trouble with baby’s nighttime feeding schedule
Q: My 10-month-old son goes to sleep at 8 p.m. If we don’t wake him up at 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. for a bottle, he wakes up around 2 a.m. wanting one. How can we get him out of this routine?
Submitted by Patti in Lexington, Ky.
A:Susan M. Leisner, RD, IBCLC, RLC
You can always go back to feeding him at 11 again, Patti. Otherwise, he probably wakes at 2 because he’s hungry.
Sometimes children wake during the night for other reasons, too. You may try just to soothe him and put him back to bed without a bottle, especially because his teeth are forming below the gum and you don’t want him to develop early tooth decay. If he is truly hungry, he won’t settle and you’ll have to feed him. If you do, please wipe his gums off after he finishes his bottle. | <urn:uuid:50c7cdea-6d89-46e6-8b80-349fe92b78ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=255973&e=article&content=301167&pcat=bg_feed&mcat=bg_feed&mtype=prepare_thumb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969578 | 236 | 1.78125 | 2 |
City scares man
Haunted-garage dream turns into nightmare of red tape
The maze in Beau Bayliss’ Walking Dead Mansion doesn’t scare him as much as the maze of permits he faced when he tried to build the haunted house in his garage. The spook house is a fundraiser for the Vassor Village Civic Association.
Want to hear a scary story?
It’s about a haunted house Beau Bayliss was creating in the garage at his South Side house.
The scary part is not about the house itself. It’s about the bureaucracy that stalked Bayliss at every turn like a zombie.
He started building props in June to convert his garage. He planned to charge visitors $3 in the days leading up to Halloween. Bayliss wanted to raise $1,500 for the Vassor Village Civic Association to clean up trash and remove graffiti in the neighborhood.
Then he found out he would have to pay $1,660 for city permits and inspections.
Now, Bayliss is scrambling to convert the tiny yard between his E. Jenkins Avenue house and garage into a terrifying trail for visitors.
“I never thought a haunted garage would need (so) many permits,” Bayliss said. “When he told me the cost, I was dumbfounded,” said Linda Henry, a member of the civic association. “All he was going to do was bring something good to the neighborhood.”
Linda LaCloche, a spokeswoman for Columbus’ Building and Zoning Services Department, said she’s never heard of anyone who has tried to create a haunted house — or garage — in a residential neighborhood. And if anyone did, there would be plenty of hoops to jump through.
Spread out on Bayliss’ dining-room table this week were permit applications he would have had to file if he had carried out plans for the garage. One was for the sign outside his house. Another was for a temporary commercial permit. Yet another would allow him to convert his garage.
Bayliss, a 30-year-old nutritional aide at the Ohio State University Medical Center, said the first he heard of the permits was when a code-enforcement officer left a notice last month that he needed a permit for the sign in his front yard advertising the “Walking Dead Mansion.”
He went to the city’s building department to ask about it and found out he needed the others permits as well.
LaCloche said Bayliss does not need zoning clearance for the haunted yard, because under the city’s code, the event is considered a temporary seasonal celebration.
A fire inspection isn’t necessary for the yard because it is less than 1,000 square feet, said William Ehrgood, a spokesman for the Columbus fire division.
Last fall, Bayliss created a free “claustrophobic maze” in his backyard. About 120 people made it through.
The sign in his front yard advertising his haunted yard will come down so he doesn’t have to pay $160 for a permit.
It’s cheaper, he said, to distribute 1,000 fliers in the neighborhoods.
For more information, go to www.walkingdeadmansion.webs.com. | <urn:uuid:ee8e9ce5-aea3-49d9-ac7c-1774cea15257> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/10/14/city-scares-man.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973814 | 693 | 1.507813 | 2 |
We've all seen ads for diet programs that make losing lots of weight seem as quick and easy as posing for the "before and after" photos. But as anyone who has tried to lose weight knows, it can be a struggle.
It's easy to feel frustrated when we set a weight-loss goal and then don't drop all the pounds we planned to lose. That's why the best way to lose weight — and keep it off — is not to go on a diet. (Yes, you read that right!) Instead, make being healthy your ultimate goal, not a specific number on the scale.
The ideal approach to losing weight is to focus on making small, specific changes that are easy to stick with in the long run — like not eating while watching TV, replacing a lunchtime soda with water, or walking to the bus instead of getting a ride.
So instead of going on an all-out diet or exercising until your knees shake, try making one small change. Use our personal plan to guide you.
When you're finished, you can print a goal sheet to inspire you as you work to turn your change into something that feels like a natural part of your life. This personal plan tool also offers examples of how other people started their own small-change transformations.
When you've worked on your first change long enough that it has become a habit, make another change. Then another. These small changes all add up to a more successful way to lose weight. | <urn:uuid:62bfa05d-6c66-4341-a60f-7783028c1064> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/PageManager.jsp?dn=BlankChildrensHospital&lic=145&cat_id=20635&article_set=63231&ps=204 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966662 | 301 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Google Streetview Copping Some UK Privacy Stick
Google cars have been spotted in the UK filming 360 degree views of roads in London according to Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC.
The premise behind the technology is to offer a detailed picture of road mapping from street level. The idea being that if you know what the building your visiting looks like it’ll be easier to find it.
It is a pretty cool concept, but has come in for criticism because in the US some photos of actual people have been displayed in some uncompromising situations, giving rise to privacy concerns.
Question is does it really matter? Google have said they will blur out faces and car registration numbers but is that far enough?
How far can technology of this sort go before it’s a step too far?
Microsoft is working on its Photosynth technology which stitches photos together having recognised unique “DNA” in their make up. Similar questions are asked of me when I demo it, and I know that privacy is one thing they’ll be working on very closely before it gets released to the public.
How far should this stuff be policed to the “enth” degree? | <urn:uuid:9b5cf10e-4e69-4097-86b5-63b409bc0f21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mediablogged.mediaweek.co.uk/2008/07/11/google-streetview-copping-some-uk-privacy-stick/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957128 | 244 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil has revealed that “a number” of the thousands involved in protests near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo were getting paid to participate.
Kandil made this remark on the state-run Middle East News Agency, although he pointed out that not all protestors were illegitimate. It is not known who paid the protesters or if the Egyptian government has identified any suspects.
The protests near the U.S. Embassy and Tahrir Square began Tuesday, and Egyptian authorities did not stop protesters from scaling the embassy fence and raising a black jihadi flag. A few protesters were later arrested.
Protesters were forced back by riot police on Saturday. CNN reported that, “this action gave crews the opportunity, finally, to clear debris-strewn streets, local businesses to assess damages and traffic to begin crawling back to normal.”
The trailer for the film “Innocence of Muslim” — allegedly the catalyst for the violent demonstrations — was shown on Egyptian media just days before the protests began on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks. American Muslim activist Dr. Zuhdi Jasser declared the Egyptian airing of the little-known movie “deliberate” and characterized the film as a “complete distraction” from the real issues at work behind the attacks. (RELATED: Zuhdi Jasser: America in ‘Cold War 2.0 with an Islamic flavor’)
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi originally denounced the anti-Islam film. By Thursday, he redirected criticism at the violence. | <urn:uuid:266a9c6c-513b-4d63-9d69-c44c3dc2be71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/17/astroturf-protesters-paid-to-demonstrate-in-egypt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969607 | 324 | 1.617188 | 2 |
However, many are concerned that Comcast’s actions with regards to BitTorrent traffic – that is, impersonating users’ computers – may not entirely be legal as many states have laws regarding impersonation. In the state of New York, for example, section 190.25 of the penal code describes the crime of “criminal impersonation in the second degree,” in which one may not “[pretend] to be a representative of some person or organization and does an act … with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another.”
While legal grounds may be shaky at this point, the EFF has reported that it has received numerous calls from various firms that are considering legal action.
Meanwhile, Comcast has adjusted its response. The original response, says Brad Stone of The New York Times, seems to have caught Comcast’s PR department off-guard. The new response reads, “Comcast does not block access to any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent … we have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications.”
The reality, however, is more complicated says Stone. Speaking on anonymity, a Comcast internet executive told The New York Times that Comcast was indeed manipulating traffic, through data management technologies designed to conserve bandwidth. As part of that process, the company will attempt to delay P2P traffic to preserve other users’ quality of service. He described the process as being akin to the busy signal in a phone call: users are perfectly able to hang up and try again later.“In cases where peer to peer file transfers are interrupted,” writes Stone, “the software automatically tries again, so the user may not even know Comcast is interfering.” | <urn:uuid:ea100e4d-5d6d-4a00-8348-410e7e1f0a77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9381&commentid=202742&threshhold=1&red=4627 | 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 | 0.959406 | 386 | 1.773438 | 2 |
|David H. Welles|
|July 10, 1948|
|Former Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals Judge|
| Assumed office|
| Term ends|
|Legal counsel to the Governor|
| In office|
1987 - 1994
David H. Welles is a former judge on the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals. He was appointed to this position in February of 1994 and was elected the following August. He was re-elected in August of 1998 and 2006. His current term would have ended in 2014, but he retired on June 30, 2011.
Judge Welles was born on July 10, 1948 in Memphis, Tennessee. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1971 and his J.D. degree from U.T. College of Law in 1974. He is now married and has two children.
Judge Welles began his legal career in 1974 as a lawyer in Dresden. He worked in this capacity until 1987. During this time, he also worked as a part-time assistant district attorney general (1976-1987) and the chief clerk to the Tennessee House of Representatives (1977-1982). He worked as Governor McWherter's legal counsel from 1987 to 1994. He was then appointed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. | <urn:uuid:db320e3c-1235-489c-8fda-5400d6d08ce7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://judgepedia.org/index.php/David_Welles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991244 | 266 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Wondering what to do with those aluminum cans after you get finished with that refreshing drink? Well, now you can put them to good use instead of throwing them out in the trash. You can now help the local school systems by gathering up those cans and taking them to one of the several recycling bins located at each school or just drop them by the front of the parking lot at Gate 1 at Logan Aluminum.
Tom Walpole, President of Novelis North America, one of the owners of Logan Aluminum, has announced that Novelis will be holding its Can Recycling Challenge in 2012. Collection of aluminum drinking cans has been going on since October of last year, however, September is the month Logan Aluminum is targeting for collection, from not only students, but the community as a whole.
There are caged aluminum can containers at each one of the school’s parking lots in Logan County/Russellville, with the exception of Lewisburg. But this doesn’t mean Logan Aluminum doesn’t want Lewisburg’s cans, they do. Logan Aluminum is located close to the city of Lewisburg, so that is why they have a recyclable can bin at the first gate of the company for people to use.
“Recycling helps our industry, the local economy and our environment,” said Jason Goodwin, Team Leader at Logan Aluminum. “This challenge will also help the local kids,” added Goodwin, who serves on a committee at Logan helping kick off the challenge.
Each U.S. location competes for the most aluminum beverage cans collected per employee as well. The winner will receive $5,000. Each location also competes for the best internal and external promotion, a $1,000 prize for each. The awards will be donated to the charity chosen by the winning site. Additionally, each location’s results will be submitted to the Great American Can Roundup Industry Challenge, a can collection campaign organized by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI).
If a Novelis location collects the most cans per employee in the contest, it will win an additional $2,000 from CMI to donate to the charity of its choice.
Logan Aluminum has decided to divide evenly the proceeds of the collected cans as well as any awards from the Challenge among the schools in Logan County and Russellville City School systems. TriArrows Aluminum has also agreed to match Logan’s contribution based on cans collected.
So, this is where the community comes in. “We need your cans,” said Goodwin.
“The goal is to collect 1,600 pounds,” said Annie E. Williams, Environmental Engineer at Logan Aluminum and chair of the Cans for Schools committee. “This will benefit the community and all the money will be evenly donated to each school,” said Williams, so each student in all areas of the county will benefit as well.
Recycling aluminum cans saves precious natural resources, energy, time and money – all for a good cause – helping out the earth, as well as the economy and local communities.
Aluminum was discovered in the 1820’s and was found to be the most abundant metal on the earth. Since then, aluminum has been used to manufacture many items such as aluminum cans, gutters, aluminum foil, and many other items. In 1972, approximately 26,500 tons of aluminum cans were recycled and today that number is estimated to be as high as 800,000 tons. Over 100,000 Aluminum cans are recycled every minute in the U.S. alone. Every can that is recycled means more resources that are available at a lesser cost. Even though the economic benefits are straightforward, there are still many hundreds of thousands of tons of aluminum cans every year that are being disposed of alongside roadways, in dumpsters, and in office trash cans.
The average employee consumes 2.5 aluminum cans worth of beverages per day. Because of this, places of employment have implemented recycling programs by placing bins in break rooms, hallways, and offices. This helps prevents aluminum cans from landing in landfills and diverts them to the recycling centers like they should be (so that they can be recycled and back on store shelves within sixty days). It only takes about 6 weeks to manufacture, fill, sell, recycle and then re-manufacture a beverage can. | <urn:uuid:c9ff662f-9d7d-49da-971b-84003a7062ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsdemocratleader.com/view/full_story/19963170/article-Logan-Aluminum-challenges-community-to-collect-cans-and-help-the-schools | 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 | 0.967647 | 897 | 1.75 | 2 |
Camping with Kids
RVing is nothing if not kid-friendly. Think of all the “extras” sported by recreation vehicles. Comfortable beds. Fully stocked, on-board snack center. The kids’ favorite toys, games, books and videos – all within arm’s reach. And because of these comforts, there are certain things you’ll be able to do without – like the sound of “Are we there yet?” Check out some of the on-the-road games to make travel time more fun.
The nation’s commercial campgrounds and resorts catering to RV travelers feel like small, friendly towns. Your children will find plenty of other children eager to make friends. And in a safe environment, you’ll feel comfortable letting them explore the campground where they’ll find amenities and activities galore, like mini-golf, arts and crafts, swimming, movies under the stars and organized kids programs.
Kids Love to Help. Get them involved in preparing for the trip by following the basic packing list under What to Bring. Have them add their personal favorites so everyone will arrive at the final destination with their most prized and important possessions.
Thrilling Rides. Take a trip to an amusement park. Most parks allow you to exit during the day, and you can head to the RV for a refreshing lunch away from the crowds, saving money and empty calories of typical restaurant meals. Best of all, the kids will have their own beds to collapse in after a long, exciting day.
Panoramic Drives. Head out on one of the many National Scenic Byways. Travel in style and comfort, while taking time to enjoy some of the country’s best scenery through large picture windows. Be sure to make stops at scenic overlooks and plan to have a picnic at one of the breathtaking sites along the way.
Be Starstruck. Take your RV to the next solar or lunar eclipse or meteor shower. Head outside the city limits to where the sky is clear of ambient light, get a blanket, sit outside your RV, listen to your favorite tunes and enjoy the sky show. And when the show’s over, tuck the kids into their own beds.
A Classroom on Wheels. The number of historical sites, national monuments, museums, art galleries and cultural festivals in the U.S. is endless. Your RV allows you to experience it all without ever feeling like you’ve left the comforts of home behind. And who said learning had to be boring? RVs help make everyday excursions more exciting and special events, moments to be remembered. Best of all, with kids, they’ll just think they’re having fun. | <urn:uuid:44c1dbea-ca84-470e-9e6a-83b083e4f74c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gorving.com/what-to-do/activities/for-kids | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937836 | 569 | 1.5 | 2 |
Chelsea Community Hospital participates in numerous community health initaitives, among those:
- Osteoporosis Education
- Faith Community Nursing (contact Elaine O'Neill at firstname.lastname@example.org)
- Public Lectures and Speakers Bureau
- Move Forward: Healthy Choices for Kids and Families
- Healthy Communities Walking Program
The Healthy Communities Walking Program is designed to motivate and support people who want to get moving toward better health.
- Farmer's Market
The Bushel Basket Farmer's Market is held Wednesdays from 2:30 -6 pm on the CCH campus, adjacent to the U-M Family Practice Building. The market is open to the public and features locally grown, fresh produce.
- Health Improvement Plan of Washtenaw County
The Washtenaw County Health Improvement Plan partners--including CCH, Washtenaw County Public Health, the University of Michigan Health System, Saint Joseph Mercy Health System, and the United Way of Washtenaw County--established public health targets that focus community efforts and provide an avenue for measuring success. Health objectives are designed for "healthy kids," "adults," "older adults," and "healthy communities."
The Coghlan Family Foundation, co-founded by Michael and Suzanne Coghlan of Saline, has brought to life a long-time vision of preventing youth substance abuse in Chelsea. Because of the Foundation's generous support and creative efforts, a new coalition has been launched that is aimed at reducing high-risk behavior in 10-15-year-olds in Chelsea. The coalition, known as SRSLY ("seriously" as it is spelled in text messages), is a result of the Coghlan's strong interest in preventing teen substance abuse. For more information about SRSLY, visit their website or contact Reiley Curran, MPH, at email@example.com.
Community Health Needs Assessment
To download and view the Chelsea Community Hospital Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA), please click here. For more information about the CHNA, please contact Reiley Curran, Director of Community Health Improvement, at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:b6364e64-b0a9-4a75-a2ae-61193fd715e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cch.org/community-health-improvement-programs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932594 | 446 | 1.765625 | 2 |
May 18, 2013 — Fed up with working for free, some interns are suing their employers. Last week, a judge ruled that interns could not sue the Hearst Corp. as a class action, which could be a legal setback for young workers tired of exploitative unpaid internships.
May 18, 2013 — Afghanistan is believed to be home to world-class mineral deposits, valued at up to $3 trillion and offering hope for the country's economic future. But in the current environment of uncertainty, investors are nervous and it could be many years before Afghanistan strikes pay dirt.
May 18, 2013 — With the death of a possible suspect in one notorious case, activists are weighing the FBI's efforts to tackle cases from the 1950s and '60s. Some are calling for a congressional hearing to see whether the FBI has done enough investigating.
May 18, 2013 — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the tiny town of Newtok, Alaska, could be completely underwater by 2017. Its 350 residents must relocate or stay to face the floods, but a move is easier said than done.
May 18, 2013 — More than 5 million Americans currently have Alzheimer's disease, and the number is only going to increase — in part, due to aging baby boomers. But researchers say increased awareness and early detection is helping patients live with the disease. | <urn:uuid:8fa2afc9-12b7-4e02-b760-d07129239fa3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/164673936/npr-bestsellers-hardcover-fiction-week-of-november-8-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965482 | 275 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Ecole Chocolat's intensive chocolate making programs and Chocolatier classes prepare you to find your place in the retail or wholesale chocolate industry. Whether you aspire to work for yourself or in a professional organization, our chocolate school's specialized curriculum is just what you need.
* How do we teach chocolate making online?
* Read about our instructors
* Student testimonials
Although the Professional Chocolate Making Program is online, you won't be out there all by yourself. You'll be working with the instructor while interacting with your classmates - sharing information, accomplishments and expertise. Our 9 years of experience in award winning university-level online education ensures that your learning experience is comprehensive and enjoyable.
The artistic part is what you, yourself add after studying and refining good basic techniques. The techniques are taught by Callebaut Academy, Ecole Chocolat in their Masters courses, Notter School, CIA in NY, ICE and various workshops with people like Andrew Schotts, Jin Caldwell or a host of other accomplished chocolatiers. I personally see more "artistic" chocolate being done in the US. Many of the schools, such as Callebaut have international instructors so I wouldn't presume Europe is better. A Good solid foundation is required no matter what.
I agree that practice will take you wherever you want to go, but there is nothing like a real school experience. So much trial and error is shaved off; and watching how things are made is invaluable (especially if this is your first time working with chocolate).
Jeff, don't make it sound like working with chocolate is that piece of (chocolate) cake - it gets complicated once you get to the "whys" behind it :-)
I didnt mean to belittle the school experience. By all means, take classes if they are what you can afford. My comment is one one based on personal experience. Trial and error are part an parcel of the game., even with school. I have never taken a class. I built my business from the ground up through experimentation. I probably SHOULD have taken classes. Alas that is not to be for me; old dog, new tricks. | <urn:uuid:1606abdd-82a7-4f24-9b16-aee2ed4b92f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thechocolatelife.com/forum/topics/best-chocolate-school?id=1978963%3ATopic%3A27544&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956111 | 441 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Dan Nelson was in eighth grade when his band director charged him with putting together a musical ensemble. The experience led to an “ah-ha” moment when he realized that music education was his dream career.
He would go on to earn a Ph.D in music and play a key role in building the band and instrumental program at Point Loma Nazarene University where he taught for nearly 20 years. The professor and band director also mentored many music educators who are now teaching throughout the county.
In recent years, Dr. Nelson led mission groups to Rwanda and became involved in supporting an orphanage there, including fundraising efforts for a clinic and school buildings.
Dr. Nelson died Nov. 1 in San Diego of complications due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 57.
“He was the ultimate supporter of music education,” said John Dally, former PLNU student and current band director at Mira Mesa High School. “He was there for anyone and everyone. He was always just a phone call away for anyone who had a question or needed help with a particular situation.”
In addition to teaching about music, Dr. Nelson stressed the importance of positive relationships. A favorite quote of his was “It’s all relational,” Dally said.
Jannifer Nelson said her husband made a conscious decision to live in the community where he taught. “He had kids (from school) here all the time. His door was always open,” she said. “If they needed to come talk about love or life or whatever … It was an open house here for students, friends, colleagues and former students.”
Colleague Paul Kenyon said Dr. Nelson “was always about teaching and relationships.”
“The (school) band was very small when he arrived. he recruited students and built it into a very vibrant program,” said Kenyon, who is head of the university’s music department. Dr. Nelson started the school’s jazz band and was instrumental in strengthening and retooling the music education program.
“He had an infectious sense of humor and could make anybody laugh,” Kenyon said. In 2005, Dr. Nelson traveled to Cuba with the university jazz band to attend the Havana International Jazz Festival. He has also toured Europe as part of the La Jolla Presbyterian Church Choir.
Daniel Craig Nelson was born Feb. 12, 1953, in Minneapolis, Minn. He grew up in Minnesota and graduated from Mid-America Nazarene University in Kansas in 1974. He earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota and taught music at the junior high and high school level before joining the Point Loma university in 1991.
He and his first wife had a daughter together and divorced after more than 20 years of marriage. He remarried two years ago.
Dr. Nelson became involved with the Point Loma Nazarene University’s LoveWorks mission program a few years ago after seeing the impact it had on his daughter when she returned from a trip to Tanzania. He volunteered to be a faculty leader and was part of a team that visited Rwanda in the summer of 2007 and again in 2009. When he returned the second time, after raising $25,000 for a Rwanda orphanage, he also brought trumpets and trombones for the children.
In addition to his wife, Jannifer, he is survived by a daughter, Lauren of Point Loma; his parents, Elmer and Barbara Nelson of San Diego; two brothers, David of Northampton, Mass. and Dean of San Diego.
Services were held Wednesday.
firstname.lastname@example.org • (619) 542-4559 | <urn:uuid:d87c3286-9def-401c-82d2-02102a876db6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/12/point-loma-nazarene-professor-dies-at-57/ | 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 | 0.984943 | 796 | 1.507813 | 2 |
From GENE LOGSDON
The Contrary Farmer
This is supposed to be good news. Our dear government has finally recognized that organic farmers are at least as deserving of bribery as all those sinful chemical farmers. After all, industrial agriculture gets $17.2 billion dollars in direct payments every year so surely a little bit of money ought also to go to holy, humble, horse and hoe husbandmen who also help keep the world from starvation. In fact, organic farmers now have their very own farm subsidy program under the Environmental Quality Incentive Program to the tune of $50 million bucks. Ain’t that wonderful?
I will go as far out on the end of my bucket loader as I can and bet even money that this is the beginning of the end of organic farming. Government learned a long time ago that farmers, like everyone else, can be persuaded to do what the government wants done by handing out money. The result? Since government subsidy programs got serious about 70 years ago, the number of commercial farmers has plummeted from over 12 million to something less that one million. That’s how helpful the payments have been. Then along came small organic farmers who although unsubsidized for the most part, began doubling and tripling in number with each passing year. Whoa. Can’t have that, for heaven’s sake. That might mean that government subsidies don’t really help farmers. Maybe, perish the thought, government doesn’t know how to help farmers. Or, perish two thoughts, maybe government doesn’t really want to help farmers but just wants cheap food so the people can afford to buy more SUVs. Any trend toward farmers becoming successful without government subsidies has to be stopped. Uncle knows how to do that. Offer them money.
Full article here→ | <urn:uuid:f6c72006-27ff-4c2d-9952-7eb82d58561e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/how-to-ruin-organic-farming/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969081 | 371 | 1.53125 | 2 |
State Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) announced support last week for Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to raise taxes. At a town hall meeting in Lafayette on February 24, DeSaulnier said that he supports the governor’s plan to raise California’s sales tax by one-half percentage point. Currently, California has the highest statutory state sales tax rate in the nation, and will get worse with even higher tax proposals.
If the governor’s plan, which is expected to be on California’s November 2012 ballot, passes, the sales tax in Concord will go from 8.75 percent to 9.25 percent. In much of the rest of Contra Costa County, the sales tax will go from 8.25 percent to 8.75 percent.
The governor’s plan would also raise California’s personal income tax rate on individuals and families earning over $200,000 per year.
In the area of state personal income taxes, California has the second highest top-bracket tax rate west of the Mississippi River. The state’s top tax bracket starts at an income level of $48,029. Currently, incomes above the $48,029 level are taxed at 9.3 percent. Only Hawaii has a top bracket that is higher than California’s. Hawaii’s top bracket is 11 percent.
The Web site www.taxadmin.org contains information on state tax levels.
Sen. DeSaulnier represents much of Contra Costa County. | <urn:uuid:9a897734-c6ea-45a9-b297-dcf71b3fc1dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.halfwaytoconcord.com/state-senator-desaulnier-supports-governor-browns-tax-increase-proposals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937831 | 319 | 1.632813 | 2 |
U.S. small business employment increased slightly in February, with
employees earning more money and working more hours. Small business
revenues continue to drop, with the retail industry seeing the largest
Those are among the findings of the monthly Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) Small Business Employment and Revenue Indexes. The report found that:
Employment increased by 0.07 percent in February, adding 15,000 new jobs at an annualized growth rate of 0.8 percent.
Average monthly compensation grew by 0.4 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis, or $12, compared to the $6 decrease reported in January.
Average monthly hours worked increased by 0.17 percent, or 12 minutes, compared to the decrease of almost one hour reported in January.
The employment index is based on data from Intuit Online Payroll and QuickBooks Online Payroll, covering the period from Jan. 24 through Feb. 23.
"Small business employment has risen by 75,000 jobs from this same time last year," said Susan Woodward, the economist who worked with Intuit to create the indexes. "However, if small business employment were growing at its usual proportionate rate of 15 percent of national employment, that number would be 300,000 -- a 400 percent difference.
"The housing bust that was at the center of the economic collapse hurt small business much more than it did big business. In non-recession times, construction industry jobs make up about five percent of all employment, but it comprises nearly 20 percent of jobs in the small business and self-employed segment. Single-family home construction, which was at 2 million houses per year in 2006, is now below 900,000 per year. Until construction truly recovers, we will not see robust recovery in small business employment."
Increase in Hours Worked, Compensation
Small business hourly employees worked an average of 109.4 hours in February, up slightly from the revised figure of 109.2 hours in January, making for a 25.3-hour workweek.
Average monthly pay for small business employees increased to $2,745 in January, up 0.4 percent from the January revised figure of $2,733 per month. The equivalent annual wages would be about $32,900 per year, which is part-time work for almost half of small business employees.
Small Business Employment by Geography
A state-by-state breakdown of employment growth showed mixed results in February. Among the 34 states tracked by Intuit's Small Business Employment Index, employment increased in 13, remained flat in three and declined in 18. Continuing a trend seen in January's findings, Utah and Nevada saw the largest increases. Alabama, Indiana and Kentucky showed the greatest declines.
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- Why So Many Top 'Car Guys' Are Actually Women | <urn:uuid:06b0ef78-fc75-4d47-88fe-95fd7cd79988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2013/3/4/smallbusiness_employment_continues_slow_growth.htm | 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 | 0.946754 | 709 | 1.726563 | 2 |
How does one live a balanced life? How does one live a perfect life?
I’ve tried to be balanced and “do it all” and it hasn’t worked. I don’t even have kids. Could you imagine trying to pull that off with kids!?? Ha!
This is what I was trying to do in “perfect” balance:
- Work a full-time day job, and also be a highly productive artist.
- Submit to every possible exhibition and show my work as much as possible.
- Maintain an active online presence.
- Be active in other art pursuits: curating, volunteerism, artist talks, and so on.
- Maintain this blog.
- Maintain social relationships both online, in NY, and with my loved ones in Iowa and other states.
- Be a great wife.
- Keep a pleasant home, keep up with chores.
- Cook healthy meals.
- Exercise or do yoga as much as possible.
- Keep up with four magazine subscriptions and read online articles, blogs, books, and keep up with over eight weekly or daily podcasts, including the news.
- Save money and be thrifty.
And this is how I tried to pull it off: lists.
The list would never end. As soon as I crossed something off there was something to be added. I would spend too much time re-organizing my lists, re-listing and prioritizing my to-do items. The lists would populate into little reminder slips, bits of paper listing important art project ideas, or new blog topics. Charts organizing my time so I could fit exercise into a regimented schedule would be made over the course of hours, only to be immediately ignored. Databases tracking information on my computer so I don’t possibly forget something that might come of use in the future populate my hard drives. Torn out magazine articles and links emailed to myself pile up on my work spaces, to the point where I spend too much of my time organizing my lists rather than doing my work. I store long-term to-do’s on a separate list app, which is constantly nagging at me while I am inundated with my self-prescribed short-term to-do lists.
Then came the realization: I spend more time trying to manage my time populated by too many tasks, and not enough time doing those tasks. So I keep fewer lists. But it isn’t enough. Because I want to live some fabled “balanced” existence where I can “have it all” and “do it all.” I still feel like I have to choose between desires if I am going to do any of those things well. In my mind, I couldn’t possibly exercise and make art and do both well… or perfectly, which is my mind’s natural expectation. So rather than “fail” (a.k.a. doing something half-assed or doing something “good enough” or “just a bit”) I choose not to do it at all. And in making that choice of “not choosing” I feel even more like a failure. I expect myself to do it all and do it perfectly, and when I can’t pull it off I fail. It’s a lose-lose situation.
I am trying to balance things that don’t give me joy with things that do give me joy. Because I have so many tasks, things that normally give me joy (like making art or visiting friends) become points of stress due to the number of goals I set for myself and my perfectionist nature. My mind prioritizes the less joyful tasks because they give me hard-copy evidence that I am “worth” something. I don’t enjoy applying to show my work in galleries. But I do it, because I like to show my art and because that is a physical accomplishment that can be measured by myself and others. Doing yoga? Even though my body loves and desperately needs it? Well. That is a sensation. My mind doesn’t trust sensations. Because after all – sensations cannot be measured by others to determine my worth. So I forgo the physical nurturing of exercise and force myself to sit in front of a computer and be an “achiever.” See how this works?
I took an R & R day at Kripalu (a yoga haven in Massachusetts that I now love love LOVE) last month and have since been coming to a very important understanding. I need to feel joy as much as possible. This joy must be self-measured by sensation (emotion and spiritual satisfaction) rather than externally measured by achievement. Constantly working toward some sort of theoretical professional accomplishment won’t bring me joy. It will just be a line I check off on a very long list; a list that never comes to an end. But doing things that bring me joy? Doing things that nurture my body, intellect and spirit? Those are things that make a life worth living.
One of the best lessons I learned that day at Kripalu is that my mind lies to me. If I desperately need to stretch, my mind will ignore that sensation because I need to get that blog done, I need to get that application out, I need to get my list crossed-off. By the end of the day, my mind has created a situation where I no longer have time to do the stretching because my mind tells me I’m too tired. It tells me relaxing in front of the TV or having a brownie will do better than the physical exertion of yoga for my well-being. And because my goal has been to do it all, I feel like a failure since I didn’t get my tasks done quickly enough to have the energy to do yoga too. I do what my mind says because it shows me concrete results of success. Theoretically that should make me feel good, but it never does. It is never enough, because I always must choose, and historically that choice has not been my physical and emotional well-being. (Choosing to live a healthy life is difficult for me – it is “new” and challenging. Naturally, then, I create a reality populated by lists to avoid these needs. Confronting this habit is the scariest of all.)
I’m going to do the best I can, from now on, to choose sensation over thought. I’m choosing to try to be imperfect rather than to be perfect and balanced. I’m choosing to stop pushing myself, to quit driving myself toward my goals so blindly that I forget to live my life with the zeal I desire – the enthusiasm I foolishly believe I will access by accomplishing things, rather than connecting to things. I know now that I will always have to choose. The point is not to attain a life where I don’t have to give up anything. The point is to live a life where I simply choose well. Choose happiness and joy, not reward and prestige. Choose health and wellness, not money and measured accomplishment. Choose joy within the moment, rather than planned events and tasks. Choose improvisation, not regimented structure.
This weekend I have done what sounded good. Normally I would call myself lazy, but I’ve gotten things done. But I haven’t spent the whole weekend in front of the computer, or tethered to my work. This is what I did yesterday: I went to breakfast with my husband and had a great surprise encounter with one of his very cool bosses. We ventured into a bookstore, where I bought a few baby books for some expectant friends of mine. I met a man named Stanley in this store, Market Block Books in Troy, who had the most wonderful mustache and shared a love of bacon with me. He introduced me to an amazing magnet all about bacon – is there anything better?!
Then I wandered with Jake through the market. It was like being in a small town – everyone smiling and friendly, vendors sharing their passions much more than simply selling their wares. We met a man who makes his own pickles – we got the kind with Habanero peppers! Then after a few errands, I returned home and popped in to see my wonderful downstairs neighbor with whom I visited for over an hour. Usually I feel too overwhelmed to make time for visiting, but isn’t that silly? I did some chores and then Jake suggested we walk out on Peebles Island nearby. On a normal weekend I would feel stressed by such an offer, calculating the hours left in the day subtracted from the time the hike would take, but not now. Now I choose my wellness – and walking in a small forest is the epitome of a healthy activity! Here are some pictures from my day:
(Somehow my lists are making it into this dumb slideshow – sorry! Lists were not a big part of my stellar day!)
On a normal weekend I might feel pressed for time today, but I don’t. I will simply get done what must be done and the rest can wait. I had a great day. I felt happy, and fulfilled; productive and connected with my community. It was the perfect day and I felt the best version of myself. It’s been a long time since I haven’t felt the fear of failure that results in the lack of achievement. And that is the gift I am trying to give myself now. And the funnest part? I actually got a lot done!
Happy spring, all. | <urn:uuid:467a72c8-cb05-4fdf-b809-e9398af0ed6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beniceproject.com/2012/05/06/a-life-without-a-list/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967364 | 2,002 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The English Major
Students who major in English at SMU explore the richness of literary expression, as well as the relationships between literature and its cultural and historical contexts.
English majors have the opportunity to work with renowned scholars in a wide variety of fields. With a range of courses in literary history, literary theory, and creative writing, the English Department offers something for everyone.
The major requires a minimum of 33 semester hours of English courses, including no more than 12 hours at the 2000-level and below (with no more than 3 of these hours at the 1000-level) and at least 12 hours of 4000-level literature courses. Specific requirements are listed below. You may not repeat a course that is the equivalent in content of one you have already taken even if the numbers differ.
Learn more ...more
The Creative Writing Specialization
The English Department offers a Creative Writing Specialization within the English Major. All students pursuing this version of the major should speak with the director, Professor David Haynes.
Students pursuing a Creative Writing Specialization within the English Department must fulfill all departmental requirements for the major ...more
The English Minor
Students who nave formally elected the English minor after the beginning of the Fall 2006 semester must pursue the following requirements. Students who elected the minor before the beginning of the Fall 2006 also have the option of pursuing this set of requirements. Students electing this version of the minor must fulfill all of the following requirements ...more
Program for Departmental Distinction in English
To be eligible to enter the program for Departmental Distinction, a student must ordinarily show an overall grade point average of at least 3.0 by the middle of the junior year, and a 3.5 average or better in courses fulfilling requirements for the English major ...more
Students planning to go on to graduate study—a plan that should be discussed with one’s advisor, the DUS, and/or the department chair—should be aware that admission to graduate programs requires a more extensive background in literature than the minimum English Department requirement. They should also know that a reading knowledge of a foreign language is usually a requirement for a graduate degree, and that doctoral degree programs may require a reading knowledge of at least two foreign languages. Students should anticipate these requirements by electing courses in foreign languages and literatures, and by electing more than the minimum number of hours in English. ...more
In conjunction with the Teacher Training Center, the English Department supports two pathways leading to teacher certification. Students should understand the differences between them ...more | <urn:uuid:20a6ae28-2709-4286-87f2-7b6131cedca9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smu.edu/Dedman/Academics/Departments/English/UndergraduateStudies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943596 | 512 | 1.554688 | 2 |
You Ask. We Investigate.
Should there be more punishment after a pit bull attacks?
Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- Aggressive, vicious, kill dogs. That's the way some people describe pit bulls. After a Valley woman's daughter was attacked by one she says there needs to be harsher punishments for not only the dog, but their owners too.
But is this breed just getting a bad rap?
"The dog came out of nowhere, she didn't even see the dog," explained April Gates.
The scars on April's 9-year-old daughter are still very visible after a pit bull attacked her in December. April says her daughter, Alexis, was walking near their home near Washington Avenue and Rancho Drive when the dog came running towards her.
"It was an unprovoked attack," said April.
She took pictures of the puncture wounds left on Alexis' lip and leg. An ambulance rushed Alexis to University Medical Center and more than two months later she is still undergoing physical therapy. She says they lived just a few doors down from April's home. She called Animal Control and an officer took a report.
Days after the incidents, April says she was shocked to see the very same dog that attacked her daughter running loose in the neighborhood. She says she called Animal Control but when officers got there they couldn't find the animal.
"If I go out and harm a dog I can be held accountable which is fair but what about so the dog has more value than my daughter this is how I feel," explained April.
Frustrated, April emailed Action News. We called the City of Las Vegas who told us because it was a first-time bite report for that pit bull, the dog was home quarantined for 13 days and the owner was cited for not spaying or neutering. But April thinks the dog should have been taken out of the home.
"You can't predict what they're going to do," said April.
Lisa Kirk, President of Bullie Buddies of Las Vegas, says any dog can bite, no matter the breed. Kirk runs a non-profit organization that aims to educate people about the stereotypes associated with pit bulls.
"Pit bulls are generally very sweet, loving, happy, dogs they make great family pets," explained Lisa.
So is it a myth that pit bulls attack more than other dogs? No matter what you think, here are the numbers.
Last year in the City of Las Vegas, there were 364 reports of bites by pit bulls, the most of any breed. Next on the list was Chihuahuas with 122 reports, followed by domestic short hairs. But in the County, Pit Bulls account for 26% of all animal report bites.
It's not just people who are being bitten. Marlene Huderski's Jack Russell Terrier, Wilbur, died a few days after he was attacked near Rancho and Cheyenne Avenue. Wilbur was on a leash but Marlene says a pit bull wasn't and escaped out of an unlocked neighbor's gate.
"That's what I can't forget because I couldn't help him," said Marlene Huderski.
Several apartment complexes and homeowner's associations around the Valley put restrictions on what type of breeds residents can have. Clark County doesn't have any breed specific ordinances or bans, but other states do. In Denver, Colorado, it is against city ordinance to keep a pit bull. Some animal advocates say that's not the answer.
"You're really not doing any justice by banning the breed. Just educate yourself and make sure responsible people own the dogs," said Lisa.
April says her daughter still has flashbacks of the attack and she is looking at getting her into counseling. She just wishes there was some way to make sure this doesn't happen to another child.
"I get that they're animals and things like that but there has to be some kind of regulation," said April.
April says she has a lawyer and is considering legal action. We tried calling the owner of that pit bull who attacked her daughter but never heard back. Lisa Kirk says about 65% of all dogs in local shelters are Pit Bulls because it's so hard to find homes for them because of the stigma and restrictions homeowners face.
What do you think? Do pit bulls get a bad rap? Leave a comment below. | <urn:uuid:eb3589c3-0eab-40c7-bbf8-097f814bd0a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/139865353.html?viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&action=quotecomment&cid=81945854&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986494 | 896 | 1.828125 | 2 |
‘Fine Gael gain but the Collinsﾒ dynasty survives’
More or less the old Limerick West, having gained some territory in the east from Limerick East and lost some in the west to Kerry North. It made the constituency representative of most of rural county Limerick, excluding the western parts.
Since its creation as a 3-seater in 1948, it had been one of the most stable constituencies in the country, returning 2 Fianna Fail TDs at every election bar 1997.
Fianna Failﾒs decision to run just one candidate, following the last-minute retirement of John Cregan, therefore showed how much things had changed. However, some things remain the same: the Collins family has won a seat here at every election since grandfather James was first elected in 1948, and incumbent Niall maintained this family tradition. Moreover, he headed the poll, the only Fianna Fail candidate apart from party leader Miche￡l Martin to do this.
Fine Gael was assured of two seats. Incumbent Dan Neville was re-elected, and Fine Gaelﾒs second seat was taken by the youthful Patrick OﾒDonovan, a former President of Young Fine Gael, from Newcastle West, who won more than twice as many votes as Bill OﾒDonnell, nephew of former minister Tom. OﾒDonnell and OﾒDonovan had publicly clashed with each other on Limerick County Council prior to the election over cuts to the minimum wage. OﾒDonnell had refused to back a motion calling for a reversal of the reduction to the pay rate saying the cut could save businesses and jobs.
Labourﾒs James Heffernan trebled the partyﾒs vote share, but despite his impressive performance he was 700 votes behind Niall Collins on the last count. There were three other constituencies where the party won a seat with less than the 17.6 per cent that Heffernan garnered.
Former IFA president John Dillon polled respectably but was never in contention for a seat. | <urn:uuid:901ca21c-dc74-4708-9b53-a29815bd1a0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://electionsireland.org/result.cfm?election=2011&cons=5005 | 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 | 0.980547 | 429 | 1.53125 | 2 |
NEW YORK (AP) - For many in the Northeast, the warnings were eerily familiar: Stock up on food and water. Stay off the roads. Be prepared to lose power.
The snowstorm sweeping through the region brought with it echoes of Superstorm Sandy, if not in intensity, in the dread of residents waiting to see what a new storm would bring.
The snowy, windy system that bore down on the Northeast on Friday was expected to drop 8 to 16 inches on the areas hardest hit by Sandy, a swath including New Jersey, New York City, Long Island and Connecticut.
A moderate storm surge was possible, too - but nothing like the waves that drowned much of the region in late October. Still, the prospect frightened Eddie Malone, a resident of Lindenhurst on Long Island whose house has been under renovation since Sandy's flooding wiped out his first floor.
"I'm not afraid of the snow - instead, the sea surge, it may be 7 feet," Malone said. "I think Sandy was 12 or 13 feet, but 7 feet scares me. â?¦ We had no power for two weeks, and now I'm afraid we are going to lose it again."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought to reassure folks, saying nothing like Sandy's surge was expected and stressing that no evacuations were being ordered, as they were before the superstorm.
"Sandy was a big storm that was devastating to a lot of people," he said. "I don't think this storm is going to do that."
In Fairfield, Conn., 65-year-old teacher Kathy Niznansky braced for potential flooding just about a month after she was able to return to her house near the beach. She worried about her sump pump failing if she loses power around high tide.
"If we have another one, sometimes I think maybe you should move," she said. "I think if I got water in my house from this storm, I think it would really do me in."
Hemlock Hardware in Fairfield did a brisk business on shovels, batteries, firewood, salt, sand and sleds. The store was getting a lot of calls for generators, too.
"There's definitely a change in response to storms now," said owner Scott Pesavento. "Power outages, I guess, is the first concern now when they hear 'storm.' "
Al Terrile, a 69-year-old retired Southport resident, stocked up on batteries, a box of firewood and a light at the hardware store. He lost power for four days during Sandy.
"Maybe nothing will happen but just in case," he said. "It seems like our electrical system has suddenly turned fragile."
At the Jersey Shore, where waves of 12 feet and moderate flooding were possible, Brick Township and Toms River issued voluntary evacuation orders for areas still recovering from Sandy.
"We're telling people, if they can, find shelter elsewhere," said Edward Moroney, a Brick Township spokesman.
In New York City's Staten Island, at a tent shelter set up for superstorm victims still living without power, volunteers used tarps and a makeshift drain to keep the bad weather out. Manager Donna Graziano said she feared the new storm would keep her regulars away.
"A lot of residents don't have the means to cook anything," she said. "I'm sure for tonight they'll make arrangements, but it's heartbreaking to me because I hear their cries every day. I give them their hugs."
Douglas Beman, 30, of Greenburgh in the northern New York suburbs, was thinking of Sandy - and the long gas lines that followed it - as he filled his Chevy Tahoe and a 5-gallon gas can at a Mobil station.
"Sandy taught me this lesson: Stock up on gasoline," he said.
In coastal areas of Queens and Long Island, not nearly recovered yet from Sandy, memories were easily stirred.
"A little snow doesn't scare me," said Leeann Rivera, 43, stocking up at the only major grocery store still open in the Sandy-ravaged Far Rockaway section of Queens. "But if we were talking about the type of damage that Sandy did, I'd be gone. I would leave New York right now."
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read the original story: Sandy in back of Easterners' minds as snow falls | <urn:uuid:9d0131fb-3b24-4f97-9aaa-470c0b9b4fdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com/usatoday/article/1904445 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980535 | 930 | 1.679688 | 2 |
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta sharply criticized the book written by a former Navy SEAL that provides a first-hand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, saying it jeopardizes future missions and is being investigated by the Pentagon to determine whether it includes classified information.
Matt Bissonnette wrote "No Easy Day," his firsthand account of the CIA/SEAL raid that killed bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town in May 2011, under the pen name Mark Owen, and has since been denounced by armed forces officials and the tightly-knit SEAL community.
There is "no question" that the American people have a right to know about the operation, which is why President Obama addressed them when it did happen, Mr. Panetta said in an interview broadcast on "CBS This Morning."
"But people who are part of that operation, who commit themselves to the promise that they will not reveal the sensitive operations and not publish anything without bringing it through the Pentagon so that we can ensure that it doesn't reveal sensitive information — when they fail to do that, we have got to make sure that they stand by the promise they made to this country," he said.
The Pentagon is reviewing the book to determine what's classified information and what is not. Mr. Panetta said that he cannot send a signal to SEALs that they can help conduct such operations and then write a book about it or "sell your story to The New York Times."
"How the hell can we run sensitive operations here that go after enemies if people are allowed to do that?" he said.
Mr. Panetta also said he thinks a book like "No Easy Day" jeopardizes other operations.
"It tells our enemies, essentially, how we operate, what we do to go after them, and when you do that, you tip them off," he said.
Mr. Panetta said that information about the raid being released to reporters and movie producers working on a film about it was a different situation.
"There's a fundamental difference," he said. "The people that presented some of the details of the operation were authorized to do that by the President of the United States who has that authority to do that and inform the American people as to what happened. In this case, that was not the case, and that's the difference.
"I think we have to take steps to make clear to [Mr. Bissonnette] and to the American people that we're not going to accept this kind of behavior, because if we don't, then everybody else who pledges to ensure that that doesn't happen is going to get the wrong signal that, somehow, they can do it without any penalty," he continued.
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
David Sherfinski covers politics for The Washington Times. He can be reached at email@example.com.
By Douglas Holtz-Eakin
The young drop coverage to avoid higher premiums
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A look at what’s new and what’s worth driving, no matter the budget.
Finding health and health care is not easy. It is changing. Know what's on the rise.
Television commentary, reviews, news and nonstop DVR catch-up.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
NRA kicks off annual convention
California wildfires wreak havoc | <urn:uuid:9a415826-5ee3-4bfe-9b8a-a0466e5c2f28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/11/panetta-slams-ex-seal-book-how-hell-can-we-run-sen/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969824 | 722 | 1.5 | 2 |
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Mexico today, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies had been a failure and contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border but despite taking responsibility for the insatiable demand from the U.S. and admitting that 30 years of failed policy have made things worse, still there was no clear solution.
“Clearly what we’ve been doing has not worked,” Clinton told reporters on her plane at the start of her two-day trip. “It is unfair for our incapacity to have effective policies” on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns “to be creating a situation where people are holding the Mexican government and people responsible. That’s not right.”
Later in the Washington Post article Hillary Clinton goes on to contradict herself:
“Neither interdiction [of drugs] nor reducing demand have been successful,” Clinton said, noting that “we have been pursuing these strategies for 30 years.”
“We’ve got to take a hard look at what we can do” to cut off the supply of drugs and “stop the bad guys,” the secretary added. “The amount of violence going on because of these drug wars in Mexico is horrific.”
Yes, the drug wars in Mexico is horrific! But you just said that the old method didn’t work, so now you want to cut off the supply of drugs and “stop the bad guys”? What are you smoking?
Continue reading: Clinton: U.S. Drug Policies Failed, Fueled Mexico’s Drug War | <urn:uuid:02adff91-dd79-4f38-9443-b1d27c26749f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reefersmoke.com/2009/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963657 | 352 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Tara Crow/Heal the Bay
Mark Gold (in navy windbreaker at far right) got Dodgers to clean up beaches.
Woah. Mark Gold was Heal the Bay’s first employee in the late 19-eighties, a staff scientist who went on to take an engineering doctorate from UCLA. He became executive director for 12 years, then president of the group for more than 5. Under his leadership, Heal the Bay has acted as an aggressive watchdog at regulatory hearings, pushing for lower impact coastal development, limits on how coastal power plants can use sea water, and improved water quality in the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers watersheds. Gold has lobbied lawmakers aggressively too, criticizing legislators recently for failing to pass a statewide plastic bag ban. Gold will now run a coastal center at UCLA’s Institute for the Environment and Sustainability. Heal the Bay’s executive director Karen Hall and assistant director Alix Hobbs will run the place while the group’s board of directors considers the next president.
[CORRECTION, 12:03: HtB spokesman Matt King says they might not get a new president. Stay tuned. Bottom line, Hall & Hobbs are running the place.]
Here's some of the release:
“Everyone who lives in or visits Southern California has benefited from Mark Gold’s tireless efforts to keep our waters safe and clean,” said Matt Hart, chairman of Heal the Bay’s board of directors. “He has also built a great organization of smart, dedicated professionals that will sustain the legacy he and Dorothy Green started over 25 years ago.
“On behalf of our Board of Directors, our Board of Governors and the thousands of Heal the Bay volunteers, I want to thank Mark Gold for his leadership and service to Heal the Bay and wish him the best of luck in his new career at UCLA.”
While working on his doctorate in Environmental Science and Engineering from UCLA, Gold joined Heal the Bay as staff scientist in 1988, making him the organization’s first employee. Guided by his mentor and Heal the Bay founding president Dorothy Green, Gold was named executive director of the organization in 1994 and president in 2006.
He has worked extensively over the last 25 years in the field of coastal protection and water pollution and is recognized as one of California’s leading environmental advocates. He has authored or co-authored numerous California coastal protection, water quality and environmental education bills.
“I have been lucky to be part of an environmental organization that has achieved so much to better Southern California,” said Gold. “I’ve had the privilege to work with many incredible leaders, staff members and volunteers that have shared a common vision of clean water and protected watersheds. I am confident that the senior management team we’ve spent years developing will continue to move the organization forward. Heal the Bay will always be an important part of me, but I look forward to new challenges at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment.”
As for what Hall and Hobbs and folks still at Heal the Bay will be paying attention to? More of the same, they say. Marine protected areas, bag bans (city by city, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, now, it would seem). Leave your comments for us below...and anything you might want to ask Mark Gold. | <urn:uuid:624ba82e-64a5-428c-af65-a84e528b3181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/blogs/environment/2012/01/10/4210/heal-bay-get-new-president-mark-gold-stepping-down/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96732 | 690 | 1.515625 | 2 |
About eight months ago, the Bureaus of Planning and Sustainability and Development Services began looking at a proposal to rework some of the city's codes after residents complained that living in the special districts meant more time and money for basic home changes.
"It bubbled up from the community," said Eden Dabbs, the spokeswoman for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. "Often times these quick fix code amendments are the result of people in the community saying this isn't working for us."
With 20 such districts covering 1,500 acres and containing more than 3,500 properties, the code changes are hardly insignificant. They'll impact areas like Irvington, Kenton, Mississippi Avenue, Ladd's Addition, New Chinatown and Piedmont, among others.
The bureaus worked with the homeowners, remodelers and historic resource advocates to come up with the set of amendments. The idea was to make the code quicker and easier-to-understand while also making the review process more predictable.
The changes may also mean that the historic review fees for smaller projects could drop in the future, according to the planning bureau.
The City Council has set aside an hour at the top of Wednesday's agenda for its first hearing on the matter. A final vote could follow a week later.
The Oregonian: Columbia River Crossing barrels toward Salem
Willamette Week: Portland's not the only city with a controversial tram
Willamette Week: City orders work stopped on no-parking apartment complex
-- Ryan Kost; on Twitter | <urn:uuid:27abe1b5-a588-4bf3-97c9-1270eba5635d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2013/02/commissioners_set_to_hold_firs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946833 | 320 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Free Money! How to Make Pretax Deductions Work for You
Most people looking to save money in their household budgets take one of two routes: Either they cut back on discretionary purchases, or they use coupons and discounts to make those discretionary expenditures cost less. Neither of those techniques, though, touches the part of the budget dedicated to necessities -- the expenses that absolutely have to be paid. But what if there was a way to slash spending on non-negotiable costs like child care, dental work and transportation?
Well, there is: Most employers allow workers to deduct money for basic expenses before they pay taxes on them. Some of these pretax withdrawals -- like deposits into 401(K) accounts and health insurance programs -- are well known. However, there are a lot of less-discussed withholding options that you can use to cut your tax bill. For example, you may be able to deduct money for child care, transportation expenses, parking permits, dental care, eye care and even tuition. You can even pay for long-term care insurance that will provide for you in case of disability.
The immediate value of these deductions is obvious: By pre-allocating funds to those basic necessities, you can avoid paying taxes on money that you were going to spend anyway. Even better, pretax deductions can also cut the state, federal and FICA taxes that you pay on the rest of your money. Depending upon the amount that you set aside, it's possible that you could shift yourself into a lower tax bracket, greatly reducing your tax burden.
That's exactly how it worked for one person to whom I talked about this topic. Her decision to set aside $160 per paycheck in pretax deductions slid her down into a lower tax bracket. Ultimately, the lower rate, combined with the money that she saved on the deductions themselves, meant that the actual reduction in her bi-weekly paycheck was only $70. Given that she was already committed to spending the $160 that she withheld, this translated into an effective savings of $90 every two weeks, or $2,340 per year.
Obviously, the potential savings vary greatly, depending upon the amount of money that you deduct and the size of your salary. But with thousands of dollars potentially at stake, it can't hurt to talk to someone in your company's human resources office about what pretax deductions might be right for you. | <urn:uuid:28ac6822-b486-4ed0-ad12-71c034e77717> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/12/free-money-pretax-deductions/ | 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 | 0.971679 | 486 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Neben der Kapelle
Kurt Brunner, Italy
This project can be found in a hamlet above the town of Sterzing in South Tyrol at an altitude of 1,400 metres. The aim was to turn a derelict farmhouse with an old stone oven into a holiday home, creating, together with a historic chapel, a harmonious entity on the mountain. The first priority was to integrate the living area, sauna, garage and hencoop into the landscape. The remains of the farmhouse, for example its stone wall, or traditional materials such as the roof tiles from the church, together with the landscape, served as design tools.
Statement by the jury
»The result is a successful symbiosis of old and new. Available materials are rediscovered and creatively reused. All the new buildings blend gently and harmoniously with the landscape.« | <urn:uuid:e832d354-7146-4367-aa83-43a60466a2e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://red-dot.de/pd/online-exhibition/work/?lang=en&code=2012-12-3543&y=2012&c=172&a=1000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934345 | 177 | 1.53125 | 2 |
30 August 2012Early findings from a University of Bristol study that investigated school, college and club connections in the boardrooms of the UK’s top companies has found that social connections – through membership of elite private members’ clubs and golf clubs – may still play a role in boardroom appointments.
The study, led by researchers in the University’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation, examined these informal networks and the role played by social ties in board appointments and the careers of company executives. The study’s interim findings imply that reduced reliance on such networks will be necessary to increase board diversity.
In 2011, the independent review of Women on Boards led by Lord Davies recommended that FTSE 100 boards should aim for 25 per cent female membership by 2015. In examining low levels of female representation, the Review found that ‘the informal networks influential in board appointments, the lack of transparency around selection criteria and the way in which executive search firms operate, were together considered to make up a significant barrier to women reaching boards.’1
The team analysed data on around 1,700 UK listed companies, all of which made new appointments to their boards over the period from 1998 to 2008, and looked at whom was chosen for each board position among a set of potential candidates comprising around 2,600 directors.
Using data on executives’ educational and employment backgrounds, positions on boards of trustees and affiliations to private members’ clubs and golf clubs, the researchers investigated whether the likelihood of senior executives getting further corporate board appointments is related to their educational and social connections, and whether an individual is more likely to be appointed to a specific company board if he has a link with an existing board member – for example, through membership of the same golf club, such as Wentworth or Sunningdale, or the same private members’ club such as White’s or the Reform Club.
Early findings show that before taking account of individuals’ other characteristics, those who are appointed to a board are much more likely to share an educational or social connection with current board members than those not appointed. Furthermore, the research suggests that social connections through private members’ clubs and golf clubs – as well as networks of contacts established through existing boardroom positions – may play a role in shaping who gains a seat on a board.
The research also suggests that educational connections with current board members – through attending an elite school, such as Eton, or being educated at the same Oxbridge college – appear to play less of a role than social connections. But clearly these connections may well have had a prior influence on social club memberships.
The research uses data on individuals who had already gained their first boardroom position. Interestingly, for this group with existing board experience, women actually seem more likely to gain additional board positions than men. But if social connections are also important for gaining a first board appointment, then the findings imply that the role of networks formed through male-dominated or exclusively male social clubs is likely to prove a barrier to increasing female representation on boards.
In relation to this, one recommendation from Lord Davies’ review is that firms should make more information available about the appointments process and the work of the nomination committee. The aim would be to improve transparency in recruitment and subsequent board diversity.
The final stages of the research will examine the split between executive and non-executive board appointments. The research team will also look at potential appointees’ connections with the members of a board’s nomination committee, which is tasked with identifying suitable candidates for board positions. | <urn:uuid:cb804a39-989e-4e67-b911-b8dd2a02fc60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2012/8750.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969292 | 724 | 1.570313 | 2 |
From NCPR Blogs:
For a long time, opponents of same-sex marriage — and gay rights in general — have managed to put a friendly face on their efforts. With the exception of a few zany whackos, like the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, the message has...
Ask anyone, even those deemed most popular, and there will be a memory of some incident proving a sad reality: kids can be cruel. Kids can also be kind, stunningly so. But, even well-intentioned people (of all ages) often feel pressured to mock...
The ruling Conservatives wasted little time trying to douse a firestorm of concern over the legality of same-sex marriages for foreign couples who married in Canada. According to this Globe and Mail article: All same sex marriages performed in...
The Globe and Mail is reporting that thousands of non-Canadian gay couples who flocked to Canada to get married, may not be legally wed after all. Why? Well, a federal government lawyer’s submission in a same-sex divorce case being heard in...
This Sunday is the first day same sex couples will be able to marry legally in New York State. Some couples are already preparing to get hitched and celebrate just after midnight Sunday morning. New York’s famous I Love NY campaign is...
Sexual Identity and Rights
May 13, 2013 — Minnesota is poised to become the 12th state to legalize gay marriage. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton is expected to sign the bill on Tuesday, making Minnesota the second state in the Midwest to allow same sex couples to marry. Iowa's Supreme Court legalized it in 2009. Minnesota's embrace of gay marriage caps a dramatic political story that's dominated state politics for two years.
May 6, 2013 — When Americans marry noncitizens, their spouses become eligible for green cards and many of the benefits of citizenship — unless the couples are gay or lesbian. Some Democrats are hoping to extend the same benefits to same-sex couples by amending the immigration bill before the Senate.
May 5, 2013 — Glenn Burke was an outfielder with the LA Dodgers in the 1970s. He was also gay — something that many of his teammates knew at the time though the general public did not. Documentary filmmaker Doug Harris discusses how Burke's sexuality sat with his teammates and the Dodgers' front office.
May 3, 2013 — A lot of people have called basketball player Jason Collins a hero for coming out as the first openly gay male athlete in a major American sport. But the Barbershop guys ask if it's heroism or hype.
Apr 30, 2013 — NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay in Sports Illustrated this week. Reaction to his announcement has been largely positive. Melissa Block speaks with former tennis great Martina Navratilova about Collin's decision to come out, and Navratilova's own experience after she came out over 30 years ago.
Freedom to Marry Forum in Canton
Nearly 100 people gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton for the "Freedom to Marry" forum in April 2004. St. Lawrence County gay and lesbian couples, supporters of same-sex marriage and clergy shared their experiences.
PFLAG, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
The Prism, Gay & Lesbian Concerns Group of Northern New York | <urn:uuid:eb5f0dae-6c60-4745-9cfb-d1a852dae597> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/pages/sexual-identity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955914 | 680 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Jul 19, 2011
Author: SBC Test Test
Choosing your new twin-tip board can be a daunting task given the many choices available today. It’s a challenge because many of the boards, at first glance, seem similar in build and design. Production methods are comparable with the familiar ABS sidewalls, and a wood or foam core combination wrapped in various glass or carbon laminate combinations. The nice thing is that over the last few years there has been a drop in the number of boards we have tested that don’t work that well in certain conditions or for certain skill levels.
Overall, performance has become standardized, to a point. R and D teams have discovered some of the magic patterns of flex, outline and bottom shape and translated that magic into to each evolved model. Construction methods and materials have improved and most board companies are making fantastic products that can also last a long time and withstand a ton of abuse. Today’s boards are also well designed for their specific range of use and rider skill level. It’s advisable to buy a board that is slightly above your skill levels that will last and easily carry you into higher levels of riding. Each company has a range of models that suit the newbie or progressing rider, the weekend freerider, the aggressive freestyle rider and more recently the booted up, wakestyle rider. Boards do differ in the materials, cores, and laminates they are constructed with and bottom shaping used by different companies that endear each model board to their end user. Here are a few examples to help you decipher the full gamut of performance provided by the modern twin-tip.
Sizing: Length and width
The length and width of the board is usually the first decision a rider makes when choosing twin-tip. The width is the biggest determinant of how much power a board can generate. The wider a board is the through the centre and the tips will determine how much surface area you are edging water against. Thus a centimetre of width makes much more difference than a single centimetre of length. In fact, a board that is narrow in the tips and centre but with a longer length, may be easier from edge to edge, but not as quick to plane as a shorter but wider shaped board. The Progressive Trigger is the most extreme example of this, although at 130 cm it starts to lose some low end. The Axon Pulse and North Jaime 137 are good examples of this with normal lengths but more width. These shapes are designed for bigger riders or lighter winds with more width than length to get there. Generally the average sized riders are 160 to 185 lbs and are using 132 to 139 cm length boards that range between 39-41 cm in width. Larger riders can add 1 to 2 cm on both length and/or width and smaller riders can minus.
There are two types of flex that are generally analyzed when looking at a modern twin. The centered or overall flex and the flex in tips. The stiffer in either results in more aggressive and faster riding, with more pop for jumps and usually more acceleration when you drive the kite across the wind and put the pedal down. Flex and reflex response is also important as boards with more carbon or other stiffening agents also rebound after flexing much faster. The stiffest and most aggressive boards of this test include the Axon NYC, the Airush FS and the Nobile 2HD. All three of these shapes have stiffer central flex with reactive tips and are snappy with fast reflex throughout. They drive with the most power and give the most kick for more advanced riders. More moderate flexing boards are easier through messy water conditions and are more comfortable for freeriding. Boards like the Progressive Bonefish, the Axon Pulse, and the North Jaime are moderate flexing boards that excel at freeride but can still throw down for advanced freestyle.
Rocker lines are a key factor in performance even though twin-tip kiteboards tend to have fairly flat and continuous rocker lines. Some manufacturers have gone from continuous to three-stage rocker setups, which for the wakestyle rider gives more aggressive pop with less effort. The new Airush FS has a three-stage rocker in this test and is one of the more aggressive freestyle boards we tried this round. More rocker, whether continuous or three-staged, can also make the board more forgiving on landings with less nose diving and through chop. The more pronounced rocker in combination with some bottom shaping gave a unique feel and chop-eating prowess, to the new Wainman Joke, tested this round.
Too much rocker or curve in the bottom can hinder upwind ability and planing power. Some boards like the Nobile 2HD use one rocker line for the rail areas and more aggressive curve in the centre. This gives the best of both worlds, looseness while flat and speed while edging.
The outline of the board can determine much in terms of both turning ability and amount of pop. The more aggressive freestyle boards are square tipped with straighter parallel rail outline. The Axon NYC shows this trait with more parallel rails and super squared tips. This generates huge pop when edged and then carved into the air when jumping. Most of the twins tested in this issue have a more classic freestyle outline but not necessarily the top pro freestyle, aggressive model. These step downs from the freestyle shape give the rider a better combination of pop and control. The Slingshot Misfit, Cabrinha Prodigy Naish Momentum, Best Armada and Epic Spartan are all freestyle shapes that are designed for awesome freestyle performance with less aggressive stiffness than their full-on, pro-model freestyle counterparts. They give plenty of pop, can be ridden booted up in the Park and are more versatile but still very freestyle focused. As tails get narrower, the boards have less pop but can stay under control through chop and at higher speeds. A wider tailed board can tend to flatten out the faster you go. Companies use different methods to ensure that their tips are reactive enough with the proper flex. Carbon stingers and stiffening laminates are used to get the perfect tip flex. Tip flex and width and shape also determine how easily a board can carve. Rounded tip outlines and more narrow overall tips, will carve and hold into turns with less effort. The tail outline, in conjunction with bottom shape, also mitigate a board’s turnability. The most extreme example of this is the round tail and deep concave of a board like the Ocean Rodeo Mako (tested Issue 10.2). Freeride boards like the Mako have a narrow tail outline and they don’t generate the freestyle pop but can carve and turn, are better through bumpy water than the flatter bottomed and wider rivals.
The most popular type of bottom shape is the centred concave. Many of the boards tested here have slight one-half to one centimetre of concave. In the past few years some designers are using V bottom shaping or the opposite of concave or combinations of both. The most complicated shaping there is is the Wainman Joke with its channels and V centre.
Most companies have adopted minimal amounts of bottom shape in their snowboard style constructed boards. These production boards rely more on the flex than the bottom shaping to push through chop and grip on edge. The custom shapes from Rogue Wave and the production shapes from Jimmy Lewis take a different approach to bottom shape and use deeper concave that bleeds into flat along the rounder shaped rails. For shapers like Jimmy Lewis and Lee Brittian of Rogue Wave, the hydrodynamics this bottom shape offers is the only way to deliver a smoother ride and better grip and control through any type of chop. Named the Dominatrix bottom shape, Jimmy Lewis and Rogue boards continue to deliver the most popular alternative to flatter bottomed, snowboard-style production boards. | <urn:uuid:389f1069-f68c-4902-9f2c-c513ce7d88dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sbckiteboard.com/reviews_display?news_id=1732 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944092 | 1,637 | 1.726563 | 2 |
(Photo credit by AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE: American actress Natalie Wood poses in a Yves Saint Laurent costume,19 September 1964 in Paris. Wood, the daughter of Russian Immigrants, was born Natasha Gurdin on July 20, 1938 in San Francisco, California. She got her first role at the age of four in a movie called "Happy Land" (1943). She continued playing roles of young girls until the age of 17, where she landed the role of "Judy" in the film "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955). Natalie Wood married Robert Wagner 28 December 1957, divorced in 1962 and later remarried in 1972. She was nominated for two Academy Awards for her roles in "Splendor in the Grass" and "Love With a Proper Stranger". She acted in "West Side Story", a movie which won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Direction, Best Supporting Actors, Best Supporting Actress. Natalie Wood had made 56 films for Tv and the silver screen. She died drowning 29 November 1981. | <urn:uuid:5d901b69-6432-4fa8-b5ba-c3415c86fb90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/photo-galleries/2011/11/18/natalie-wood/photo-130232/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972742 | 218 | 1.648438 | 2 |
“What about people’s rights?” Kaman said Thursday on his radio show on 104.1 The Ticket in Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News. “At one point we started letting women vote. OK, it changed people’s rights. Now we’re letting gay—we’re letting homosexuals get married. They’re making more rights for more people. So why all of the sudden are we taking away the right for people to own guns?”
The proposals announced this week from the White House came in reaction to the massacre last month at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
President Obama’s proposals didn’t suggest that people won’t be allowed to own guns, but that certain assault-style weapons be banned, along with other initiatives he says are aimed at curtailing gun violence, such as implementing background checks and banning high-capacity magazines.
Kaman did acknowledge that some of the changes would be acceptable.
“I think it’s important,” he said. “You can’t just sell anything to anybody. There’s got to be some kind of rules. There’s got to be better background checks. I agree with all that. The magazine thing, I’m OK with them changing the magazines, down to even five rounds (the White House proposal calls for a 10-round maximum). But to outrightly just ban the whole setup? You know how many people have assault rifles in this world? It’s unbelievable.” | <urn:uuid:5262d044-6e2a-4cc4-9a17-ef3c08ff53ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2013-01-18/chris-kaman-gun-control-assault-weapons-dallas-mavericks-obama-newtown | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949993 | 328 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Behavioral Health Nursing Careers at Penn Medicine
Behavioral health nurses at Penn Medicine work with health care professionals in the surrounding community and from around the world to establish long-term, collaborative relationships. Penn's behavioral health nurses are committed to being reliable and trustworthy resources for helping provide most advanced treatment options to meet the needs of patients with behavioral health diseases. They strive to maintain open lines of communication with physicians and their patients to ensure that each patient's care is as seamless as possible.
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center's Behavioral Health Program allows nurses to utilize a variety of treatment modalities within a structured team environment. Units include inpatient detoxification and rehabilitation and inpatient adult acute psychiatry and dual diagnosis.
Working alongside world-renowned clinicians, behavioral health nurses at Pennsylvania Hospital participate in pharmacotherapy and psychodynamic treatment modalities. The psychiatric inpatient unit treats both voluntary and involuntary patients. Nurses, physicians, social workers and occupational and recreational therapists are members of a highly regarded, multidisciplinary team that works to improve the mental health of patients.
The Crisis Response Center at Pennsylvania Hospital is one of five centers in Philadelphia that offers 24-hour, emergency evaluation and treatment for psychiatric patients. Each month, an estimated 500 to 600 patients are treated by the clinical staff. | <urn:uuid:433fb8b2-a186-4053-a0c4-f0aba3aedddb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pennmedicine.org/careers/employment-opportunities/nursing/specialties/behavioral-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935927 | 263 | 1.546875 | 2 |
1. FAAWait - During a creeping weather delay a flight attendant who also works part time as an air traffic controller told me about FAAWait. It’s his favorite app. One click and we knew which airports across the country were also experiencing delays, how long the delays were averaging, and what had caused the delays.
2. MyRadar: Recently a fearful flier on board one of my flights spent three hours watching the weather light up his iPad screen: blue, green, red – wow, so much red! He knew exactly when to expect turbulence, how bad it might get, and how long it would last. Knowing this kept him calm. At one point he even turned around in his seat to let the crew know it would be smooth flying from here on out. Two seconds later the captain called to tell us the exact same thing, it was safe to get up and finish the service. Since then I’ve been recommending the app to anyone who mentions they’re afraid to fly.
3. WhatsApp: An Emirate’s flight attendant from Bosnia based in Saudi Arabia told me about this app on a flight from Miami to New York. WhatsApp makes it possible to send text messages to friends and family out of the country free of charge. There is virtually no cost to stay in touch with loved ones. You can even share audio and video messages.
4. Twitter: Still the best way to get breaking news! You don’t need to “get it.” Just learn how to use the hashtags to find information as it’s happening. For instance, not too long ago I was at an airport that was being evacuated and no one knew why. That was my cue to search the airport code – #DFW. That’s how I found out there was a bomb threat on an incoming flight. I learned this from passengers who were actually on board the flight and tweeting about it as they taxied to the gate.
5. HappyHourFinder: Flight attendants don’t make a lot of money. In fact new hires start out making less than $18,000 a year. And yet we’re subjected to overpriced hotel and airport food on a regular basis. This is why we take advantage of happy hour specials, particularly ones that include half priced appetizers, which might explain how I ended up at Vince Neil’s Bar, Tres Rios, in Las Vegas two hours after learning about the app in the crew van on our way from the airport to the layover hotel. | <urn:uuid:7a53c784-5260-4ee4-86f0-9d27ae7efb73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hpoole.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/the-10-best-travel-apps-for-flight-attendants-and-frequent-fliers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973678 | 527 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The measure grants President Barack Obama the power to impose sanctions against any country or company that enters into a joint venture or offers technology to assist Iran's uranium or oil industries.
Both the White House and Congress are committed to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability, said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the bill's chief architect, according to Agence-France Presse.
Iran can either come to Baghdad with a real plan...or we'll make our own plan -- through sanctions or other necessary measures -- to ensure that Iran fails to achieve its nuclear ambitions, he added.
The move is aimed at hurting Iran's national oil and tanker firms, and for the first time extends sanctions to punish those who work on a joint venture with Iranian companies anywhere in the world.
The legislation also calls for a travel ban and the freezing of U.S. assets for any individuals or firms who provide Tehran with a range of weapons or surveillance equipment used to repress its people.
The Senate has worked hard to improve our sanctions toward Iran, added Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., according to AFP.
And this effort, combined with the sanctions of the European Union, should strengthen the hand of our own negotiators.
The Senate bill must be reconciled with a similar House-passed measure before going to the president.
The European Union has enacted its own set of sanctions, including banning EU-based ship insurers and re-insurers -- who cover 90 percent of the world's tankers -- from covering vessels carrying Iranian crude.
The EU is also set to ban the import of Iranian oil from July 1.
On Wednesday, diplomats from the P5 + 1 group -- the U.S, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- are to meet with the Iranians in Baghdad for talks about the country's suspected nuclear weapons and uranium enrichment programs.
It is hoped a successful outcome during the Baghdad talks will diffuse growing tensions in the region which has led to stiff economic sanctions on Iran and fears of a new Middle East war. | <urn:uuid:f136475b-c001-4d0d-a047-b254ab6bda83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibtimes.com/senate-backs-tougher-iran-sanctions-ahead-baghdad-talks-699440 | 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 | 0.946719 | 419 | 1.835938 | 2 |
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