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Fire danger remains high in northern Michigan today and we’re expecting to see sun and low humidity throughout the day.
Several fires burned over the weekend, including two large fires east of Roscommon, in Ogemaw County. Officials with the U.S. Forest Service say those fires are contained, but together they’ve burned 400 acres.
A barn was lost in another, smaller fire in the Manistee Forest.
Fire danger is expected to remain for Tuesday. Forecasts from the National Weather Service predict more humidity, but with variable winds and thunderstorms, which could bring lightening strikes. | <urn:uuid:17eb1cc4-cf5b-4df0-b003-b50b66c49c27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ipr.interlochen.org/ipr-news-features/episode/fire-season-danger-continues/2012-05-14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947207 | 125 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Sasan gir Experience: The seven major perennial rivers of the Gir region are Hiran, Shetrunji, Datardi, Shingoda, Machhundri, Godavari and Raval.,More than 400 plant species;The Asiatic Lions habitat is dry scrub land and open deciduous forest.Gir National Park and Sanctuary does not have a designated area for tourists. However, to reduce the tourism hazard to the wildlife and to promote nature education, an Interpretation Zone has been created at Devalia within the sanctuary. Within its chained fences, it covers all habitat types and wildlife of Gir with its feeding-cum-living cages for the carnivores and a double-gate entry system.about 100 spotted deer, about 100 Nilgai (or Bluebull), about 15 wild boars, about half a dozen sambars and blackbucks, and other mammal and reptilian species along with birds. In addition limited number of tourists are allowed into the sanctuary on designated routes. The best time to visit the area is outside the monsoon season.
Food, sight-seeing and shopping: Sasan Gir is for the asiatic lions & other willdlife. There is no other activity here.The place survives only on tourists.
The gateway hotel, gir resort by Taj. for accomodation. Needless to say.. Taj is Taj! best facilities offered & good healthy food.
Activities & things to do: Girnar trekking , situated near Junagadh, at a distance of 6 km situated Mount Girnar which is considered holy by Hindus and Jains.
Girnar has five principal peaks Ambaji, Gorakhnath, Guru Dattatraya, Oghad Ansuya and Kalka. Out of these five Gorakhnath is the highest and is 3666 ft. above sea level and the lowest peak is 648 ft. above sea level. The area of Girnar hills is 70 miles. . To climb the hill, a step way is built up of wide and convenient steps and on the either side of the way there are waiting spots, water places and devasthans (prayer place). The Jain temples are very old and ancient, the foundations and the plans are unchanged.
Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc: The weather conditions here are very extreme as summers here are hot and dry with temperatures reaching a maximum of 44⁰ Celsius. The summer here ranges from the months of March to June. The region receives monsoon in the months of July, August and September in form of moderate rainfall. The best time to visit Girnar is during winters, in the months of October to January with a minimum temperature of 10⁰ Celsius.Reaching there is easy by train /bus /air.
HolidayIQ.com is a premier holiday information portal powered by India's first & biggest travel community; enabling travellers to first discover numerous vacation choices, then plan holiday trips in full detail and finally, share holiday experiences with millions of other travellers. | <urn:uuid:c9ed78c0-ea1f-4b57-880c-5fdff65793ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.holidayiq.com/destinations/reviews/panthera-leo-persica-15399.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939178 | 624 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Article "Strategic Plan for WNY Economic Development Unveiled" Is Not Available At This Time.
Strategic Plan for WNY Economic Development Unveiled
Please enter your comments below.
I think that anything adding new jobs to WNY is a good idea.
Lots of people, Baby boomers were trained to do hard labor jobs or jobs requiring standing for long periods of time working with welding, sewing, or Making things with their hands. I would like to see them gain skills necessary to work in office jobs, and medical positions due to the fact that they can no longer do the jobs that they were trained for due to physical ailments and need something where they won't have to be inhaling things that can cause cancer or doing hard labor. Research assistants, Medical Technicians, Bio-Technicians and other Medical workers, Like Nurses and Doctors, Medical Assistants, Medical Secretary, Pharmacists, est. will be needed for those new jobs in place. How will older Americans learn about the training opportunities, will there be job fairs, or educational fairs to make the public aware of the training available or jobs available. The funding for the training is there I say it is a good idea and will greatly affect the income status and the self worth and satisfaction of people living in the area. With more jobs/people working, the markets should increase locally, people will spend more money because they will have more money. There will be increase in sales of everything, and maybe new stores coming to the area due to prosperity. I am hoping that people from the downtown area, will benefit from the new opportunities and business expansion in their area. When I was little there was a bus to take to get to about anywhere. If not cab fare was cheap. I think that transportation will not be an issue because that Medical Campus is located near the main transit system, bus routes and has ample parking spaces for people that drive. People living downtown may be able to walk to work. There is a parking ramp bldg across from Roswell Park and a van that takes people to their cars from Roswell to where they parked at. People can park at UB and ride the train to work, or just drive downtown. There is cures for diseases, new medicines and treatments, and research on conditions that may make modern medical miracles that could be discovered in the new medical campus. I am experimenting with natural cures for conditions like Vitamin E, Fish Oil, Vitamin D3, Vitamin C, est. Medications don't agree with me, but if I had something wrong I would be treated with medications, or natural remedies. Children's Hospital downtown, would always give patients 7 up and ginger ale to drink after surgeries and would quickly heal patients of conditions, by hiring the best medical staff. Adult health care in WNY needs to improve greatly. Training of these care professionals would be to treat conditions immediately rather than too late, early detection of conditions such as cancer can mean the difference between life and death. Left untreated even a minor infection can kill someone. I think that it is important for medical professionals to have bedside manners, like previous doctors had. They have to have a heart, care about what they are doing and have a certain character to practice medicine. Looking at the future here, part of the education for these people should be people skills, and as the woman who lost her mom because the doctors prescibed her the wrong medication's all of them should be trained on how to better recognize symptoms and treat them, not just put every patient into the same category. Some doctors have admitted to not even looking at a patients chart before writing prescriptions or making a diagnosis, or recomending treatment. Train the new people coming in on how to be more responsible for the people they care for. They will possibly have case study groups to test new medications if they are better trained they will be able to see the ill effects of the medications when they first began and not wait until permanent or fatal damage is done. I thought about health care inventions, I have 1, I just need to patent it, the new biometics Center could be the place that does the reasearch on my new creation. Down south people are dying in their homes and not offered services to make them comfortable like at Roswell or Hospice, A hospital may be far away, and they wont treat without insurance. Here we have access to good health care, free clinics and are treated with or without insurance. A lot of people who left Buffalo, came back, because they were in need of medical services not offered down south. It is big and getting better here. | <urn:uuid:fd1ef231-dfb3-4ca3-86b8-999b559934ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wben.com/pages/11424274.php?poll117237ViewResults=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975394 | 938 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Director-General meets Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs
During a meeting between UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova and the Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Nasser Judeh, the Minister thanked the Director-General for ensuring the effective implementation of the Reinforced Monitoring Mechanism applied to the World Heritage site of the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as its related Reports to the World Heritage Committee.
He recalled the role of Jordan and the Awqaf religious Authority in the preservation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy sites in the city, and underlined the need for dialogue "to avoid confrontation" in protecting the integrity and authenticity of the sites.
"We are very cognizant of UNESCO's responsibility for protecting the cultural heritage in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site that has a sacred meaning to the monotheistic religions", said the Director-General.
The Minister underscored the need for increased cooperation with Israel on the preservation of the Old City of Jerusalem according to UNESCO's international technical standards of integrity and authenticity and said that "any deviation from these is likely to have very critical repercussions on stability in the region".
The Minister expressed his satisfaction for the convening by UNESCO of a technical meeting between concerned parties on reaching a consensus for the design of the Mughrabi Ascent in March this year and reiterated that "both designs should be examined on equal footing" in the spirit of dialogue that animates UNESCO.
The Minister discussed the challenges faced by Jordan from the increasing refugee population from Iraq, and recently from Syria.
"UNESCO's role as an international platform for dialogue is ever more relevant at a time when calls for social transformations are increasingly vocal" concluded the Director-General, referring to the multi-faceted wealth of Jordan's society. | <urn:uuid:b7e792e5-8b68-431c-9a9c-05d0cfd83729> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/about-us/who-we-are/director-general/singleview-dg/news/the_director_general_meets_jordanian_minister_of_foreign_affairs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940738 | 364 | 1.703125 | 2 |
To mark Veterans Day, we asked some of our volunteers who have served in America’s armed forces to share why they give their time to today’s troops by helping the USO. Here is one of their stories.
I have experienced the gamut of deployments and welcome home ceremonies, both as a veteran as well as the parent of two sons who served their country. I am a former Army helicopter pilot having served two tours in Vietnam (1966-67, and 1969). I know firsthand the emotions of leaving a new bride after only a few months of marriage, and then a year later departing again to a combat zone. I’ve felt the elation of returning home to only a “Welcome” by family, and the sting and bitterness of an unsupportive nation during an unpopular war.
As a father, I’ve also experienced the anxiousness of sending off my oldest son—a Marine—and my youngest son—a sailor—to war during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Being a parent in this situation, the worry and concern for sending off children into harm’s way was more difficult to deal with than being sent to combat myself. After enduring the anticipation of their return from overseas, it is an indescribable feeling when they finally step off the plane or ship and are safe at home.
I’ve always said war is a young man’s game played with rules made by old men. Now, at the age of 66, I can give something back to the young men and women who are spouses, sons, daughters and maybe even parents themselves of our brave troops. I can empathize with almost every aspect of what it means for someone to serve our nation in the armed forces.
This is my reward for volunteering at the USO. It pays my heart in full.
USO Las Vegas Volunteer | <urn:uuid:2fe0d609-026f-4961-a906-34b868766174> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.uso.org/2012/11/09/service-after-service-ron-corbin/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=9233933e84 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974249 | 384 | 1.5625 | 2 |
CINCINNATI - When a deal to turn Cincinnati parking over to the Port Authority was announced earlier in the week, one point stressed was that rates couldn’t increase above a set maximum amount.
But city officials confirmed Thursday there is a way around the cap.
An advisory board that would oversee the city’s parking system if City Council turns its operation over to the Port Authority could increase rates above the maximum amount publicized, city officials acknowledged.
The board could only do so, however, under limited circumstances that require multiple layers of approval, officials added.
Critics of the plan dislike that the board could potentially raise parking rates higher than a 3 percent annual cap, calling it a major loophole.
City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. unveiled a proposal Tuesday to lease the system to the Port Authority. The lease would last for 30 years for metered parking, and up to 50 years for city-owned garages and lots.
In return, the city would get $92 million in an upfront payment, along with annual payments of $3 million that would gradually increase over time.
“Parking is not a core city function,” Dohoney said, adding the money could be used to jumpstart various development projects in downtown and around the city.
One of the plan’s key aspects is it retains a measure of public control, Dohoney said. Also, it would limit rate hikes to either 3 percent annually or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher.
An advisory board would be created to make recommendations on rates and hours of operation. Details of the board’s makeup and powers, however, weren’t released publicly.
WCPO Digital has learned it would be possible to circumvent the rate increase cap under a complicated process.
The advisory board would be composed of five members, said city spokeswoman Meg Olberding. The Port Authority’s board of directors would appoint four members, and the city manager would appoint one member.
The parking advisory board would need a majority vote for issues involving day-to-day operations, and a unanimous vote for issues involving raising rates or changing hours beyond what is included in the agreement.
Even with the unanimous vote, any recommended rate increase must still go to the city manager for approval and -- if the manager OKs it -- then the Port Authority board would vote on it.
City administrators said it provides protection for residents because it requires three layers of review and approval. The structure is similar to existing groups like the Urban Design Review Board and the Planning Commission, which make recommendations to the city manager, Olberding said.
“We have dozens of these groups in the city,” Olberding said. “It’s a good way to get citizen involvement in the decision-making process.”
Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls emphasized the arrangement isn’t unusual.
“Throughout city government, we have boards and commissions comprised of unelected citizens who are responsible for overseeing city operations and approving changes in operations,” said Qualls, who is running for mayor in this fall’s election.
“Three notable examples are the Park Board, the Recreation Commission, and the Health Commission --mayor appoints, City Council approves,” Qualls said. “Externally, there are numerous boards comprised of unelected individuals appointed by the mayor and approved by City Council who oversee taxpayer dollars and are responsible for overseeing operations. SORTA and the Port Authority come to mind.”
Opponents of the parking deal remain skeptical.
“The city has misled the public on several elements of this proposal, the fee structure being just one of many,” said John Cranley, an ex-city councilman who also is running for mayor.
“The city said publicly that it would control the rates, but this is not true. Right now, rates are completely controlled by City Council, which they can keep the same, increase, or most importantly, decrease,” he said.
Plan supporters dispute this point, noting the city manager currently decides on rate increases, not City Council.
Opponents counter the manager is hired and fired by the mayor, with the consent of council, providing some public oversight.
If the deal is approved, the Port Authority will issue bonds backed by Guggenheim Partners, a New York-based investment bank.
The deal is attractive for the Port because it will get a lower interest rate than otherwise. Also, Guggenheim can write off its interest as a tax deduction over the term of the agreement.
Councilman P.G. Sittenfield isn’t convinced the deal is in the public’s best interest.
“The bottom line is this: A $170 billion New York City investment bank is going to get its $92 million investment back -- and then some,” Sittenfield said.
“Right now, the public is only being given the rosiest of pictures,” he said. “But if for a variety of reasons current projections are not meant, you can bet this advisory board is going to push through a more dramatic expansion of enforcement hours and additional | <urn:uuid:b232a165-3a16-4665-a392-bcf4f6db1765> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/local_news/officials-confirm-the-cap-on-cincinnatis-parking-rates-can-be-circumvented-in-new-parking-proposal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959833 | 1,075 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Last night, March 19, was the unveiling of what about 140 eighth-graders at Royal Oak Middle School had worked on for the past six weeks: a gigantic roller coaster.
The coaster, as well as large annual projects like an archaeological dig and a Rube Goldberg machine, seem to be well-known features of the school’s Odyssey Program.
However, there’s much more to the program than that. Charter Oak School District assistant superintendent Mike Hendricks said The Odyssey Program is a core designed to enhance the learning experience and build close relationships between students and teachers through creating small groups of kids who are overseen by four teachers throughout their middle school years.
Unfortunately, there’s been rumor that this may be the end of the Odyssey Program.
Why? Last year Royal Oak did away with their sixth grade. Sarah Brady, an English teacher within the Odyssey Program, said that when Odyssey was established in 1998, it was set up as a three-year program. Now that the school only houses seventh and eighth graders, the dynamic of the program is a bit disfigured.
And no, it’s not a funding issue. Projects like the roller coaster are all paid for through booster clubs and fund-raising.
Maria Thompson, eighth-grade assistant principal at Royal Oak, says it’s a teacher scheduling issue at this point. The budget DOES affect that scheduling, however. In other words, if the budget doesn’t support the teachers needed to fully schedule these core programs, then…well, no more core programs. Sounds like it still does boil down to a money issue in the end.
But, while the district supports it and everyone seems to love it, Odyssey is still up in the air at this point, according to pretty much everybody.
“It’s a great project,” Hendricks said. “As far as the future (of the project), I don’t know what the future is.” | <urn:uuid:c440128e-55bd-4b20-a1f6-29c2fbaab99b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidesocal.com/classnotes/tag/odyssey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969826 | 407 | 1.75 | 2 |
What exactly is the significance of the historic upset defeat of Democratic veteran David Weprin by Republican novice Bob Turner in the post-Anthony Weiner special election for New York’s heavily Democratic ninth congressional district—a district that hasn’t gone for a Republican since 1923?
The MSM has figured it out for us:
NEW YORK — It sounded improbable on the surface that a New York City congressional district where Democrats have a 3-1 registration edge and have held office for nearly a century could even come close to electing a Republican to the U.S. House.
But voter frustration over the sour economy and President Barack Obama’s policies made the improbable a reality, as a Republican political novice, Bob Turner, scored an upset victory in a special election Tuesday over David Weprin, a Democratic assemblyman from a prominent local political family. (HuffPo)
* * *
NEW YORK (Reuters)—Republicans scored an upset victory in a congressional election on Tuesday in a Democratic stronghold of New York, trumpeting the win as a sign of voter discontent with President Barack Obama.
Less than a week after Obama delivered a $447 billion plan to create jobs as the country teeters on the brink of another recession, New York City voters handed Republican Bob Turner—a retired media executive—a 6 percentage point victory.
With the 2012 presidential election a year away, Obama’s approval rating is at 43 percent, with voters frustrated at his handling of the economy and with a 9.1 percent national jobless rate, signaling trouble for his re-election bid next November. (Chicago Tribune)
* * *
A little-known Republican businessman from Queens, channeling voter discontent with President Obama into an upset, won election to Congress on Tuesday from the heavily Democratic district in New York City last represented by Anthony D. Weiner. (NYTimes)
* * *
With the outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away, President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke Tuesday when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic district that has not been in GOP hands since the 1920s. (WaPo)
Along with the economy, some of these stories mention dissatisfaction among Jewish voters with the Obama administration’s policy on Israel—a bone of contention that led Ed Koch to endorse Turner—ironically enough, since Weprin is not only Jewish, but seems to have a pro-Israel record quite different from the president’s (as far as I can tell, not that I’ve been paying attention).
Ignored in virtually all the mainstream media coverage is another factor leading to opposition among Weprin’s fellow Jews: New York’s same-sex marriage legislation, which Weprin supported. Of all the sources quoted above, only HuffPo mentions this:
Weprin also became embroiled in New York-centric disputes over Israel and gay marriage, which cost him some support among Jewish voters.
Orthodox Jews, who tend to be conservative on social issues, expressed anger over Weprin’s vote in the Assembly to legalize gay marriage. In July, New York became one of six states to recognize same-sex nuptials.
Meanwhile, another source had a lot to say about the same-sex marriage factor—or the supposed lack of it. The gay activist Advocate was most anxious to clarify the upset was not, repeat not about same-sex marriage:
NY9: It Wasn’t About Marriage, But Marriage Was an Issue
Despite decades of Democratic control in the district, David Weprin lost a special congressional election in New York that hinged on the economy and dissatisfaction with national politics. The shocking result means that voters will continue to hear about same-sex marriage, even if evidence suggests the issue played no significant role in the race.
The Advocate goes on:
Still smarting from their loss in the state legislature in June, marriage equality opponents sensed an opportunity late in the game, and the National Organization for Marriage injected $75,000 into the race. NOM aligned itself with a small but vocal contingent of Orthodox Jewish leaders and Ruben Diaz, the avowedly antigay state senator, to send mailings and robocalls aimed at defeating Weprin, who voted for the marriage equality bill in the state assembly.
Republican Bob Turner defeated Weprin on Tuesday, with the retired cable television executive receiving 53% of the vote compared to Weprin’s 47% with 70% of precincts reporting by midnight. The upset appears likely to raise questions about the potential for marriage equality support to pose a political liability, and also about the willingness of opponents to press the issue even when polling shows a majority of voters preoccupied with other concerns. While some answers remain in flux just hours after the election, the initial analysis suggests that discussions about marriage equality will persist, so long as opponents have anything to do with it.
Ironically, spin aside (for example, mentioning NOM’s financial contributions while conveniently ignoring all the money Democrats channeled into keeping the seat, as well as the heavy politicking by the likes of Bill Clinton, etc.), and notwithstanding the nose-holding tone, you could say that’s some of the, um, straightest reporting on the marriage issue in the election out there.
As for the Advocate‘s claim that Weprin’s defeat wasn’t about marriage … somehow, I’m reminded of this:
White House says Dem’s loss in NY not about Obama
WASHINGTON—The White House says it does not view a Democratic candidate’s defeat in a New York City special congressional election as a referendum on President Barack Obama. (AP) | <urn:uuid:0f47cff1-8c0e-418e-8a64-9f86a86bd57d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/post-weiner-election/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954659 | 1,174 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Rise of the Rest is a term coined by Fareed Zakaria on the post-American world. It is not a world marked by American decline, but the rise of everybody else. The rise of China and India are the most obvious signs, but the Gulf countries are also remaking themselves beyond hydrocarbons, Africa is beginning to be distinguished into tier 1, 2 and 3 countries of promise etc.
We came up with a fun video to capture these changes in Oct 2008. You are very welcome to use this in anyway you want, please attribute, much appreciated! You can grab from youtube or a larger version from google video.
Of course, much has changed since Lehman Brother’s collapse. The current Great Reset shows that this is not an assured certainty. There is no independent rise of the rest without the continued health of the USA. But even from within a Chasm (more explanation on these terms in the Great Reset page), there will come a different rise of the rest. One not centered on export, but centered on restructured domestic economies and technological innovation.
Regions that have accumulated a depth and breadth of skills, capital, networks and wealth and that have thrived in an export-oriented world (read China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia…) cannot be automatically assumed to transition into a Chasm world successfully. But who has managed to transition into a deep, well developed domestic market with technological innovation without going through the path of export dependence? Maybe Japan, and Japan is not exactly a convincing example. Does India bear extra watching in the Chasm world? In a new world centered around China (what my prof Thian Ser calls Chi-Asia to replace Chi-merica), what are the new flows? And how might a nation/society poise itself over the next two decades to grasp onto this? Which of us has ‘got religion’ that the days of US export dependence are truly over?
When it becomes clearer which way the world will trend in the coming months, I might update with a different ‘Rise of the Rest’. | <urn:uuid:bb7ca9cd-e635-402f-9d44-084d94fea6e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://futuresgroup.wordpress.com/rise-of-the-rest/ | 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 | 0.936845 | 430 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Economy Adds 227,000 Jobs, Jobless Rate Unchanged
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By Christopher S. Rugaber
WASHINGTON -- U.S. employers added 227,000 jobs in January to complete three of the best months of hiring since the recession began. The unemployment rate was unchanged, largely because more people streamed into the workforce.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate stayed at 8.3 percent last month, the lowest in three years.
And hiring in January and December was better than first thought. The government revised those figures to show an additional 61,000 jobs.
The economy has now generated an average of 245,000 jobs in the past three months. The only better stretch since the recession began was in early 2010.
That bodes well for President Barack Obama's re-election chances, although he's still likely to face the highest unemployment rate of any post-war president.
Stock futures rose slightly after the report was released. Dow Jones industrial average futures, which were up 10 points before the report, added 10 points when it came out. Standard & Poor's 500 futures were up one point before the report and tacked on two.
Governments at all levels cut only 6,000 jobs in February and 1,000 in January, after a revision. That's a welcome change from the heavy layoffs by cash-strapped states and cities over the past two years. Last year alone they cut an average of 22,000 jobs per month.
Nearly a half-million people began looking for work last month, and most found jobs, the report said. That's a sign of growing optimism in the job market, as many people who had given up on looking for work came off the sidelines to search for jobs.
That also counters a troubling trend: a key reason why the unemployment rate has dropped since last year is that many out-of-work people have stopped looking for work. Only people without jobs who are actively seeking one are counted as unemployed.
A sustained rise in the number of people looking for jobs is a good sign, even if the unemployment rate doesn't change.
Friday's report comes as a host of data points to an improving economy and job market. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits have fallen about 14 percent in six months. Though they ticked up last week, average applications remain near a four-year low.
On Wednesday, payroll provider ADP said businesses added 216,000 employees last month, up from January's total. The ADP report doesn't include governments, which have been cutting jobs.
And service companies, which employ most Americans, are expanding at a faster pace, according to a private survey released this week. A gauge of employment shows that service firms are still hiring, particularly in the mining, educational services, and transportation and warehousing industries.
Some companies must hire because they can't squeeze more output from their current staffs. Last year, worker productivity rose at its slowest pace in nearly 25 years. That means companies will likely have to add staff to meet growing demand.
Other figures point to the same conclusion. The average work week was unchanged at 34.5 hours. That's close to the pre-recession total and suggests that companies will have to hire more workers as business improves, rather than adding more hours.
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State law protects renters throughout New Jersey who fear their security deposit might be washed away with the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.
The Security Deposit Law, as it is called in New Jersey, forces landlords to return a tenant's security deposit within five days of the tenant's displacement due to disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. Specifically, the law pertains to flood, condemnation, evacuation or fire.
In places such as Belmar and Manasquan, where summer and year-round rentals make up a sizeable portion of the population, the local government is helping distribute information on what tenants' rights are.
Belmar has distributed a summary of the law on its website: "The law requires the (security deposit) return when either an authorized public official has posted the premises with a notice prohibiting occupancy, or any building inspector, in consultation with a relocation officer, where applicable, has certified within 48 hours that displacement is expected to continue longer than seven (7) days and has notified the owner or lessee in writing."
Even the issue of how to send the security deposit back to a tenant who has no home is addressed by the law. If the tenant is displaced, homeless or now living elsewhere the law states the landlord must do the following:
"Within three (3) business days after receiving notification of the displacement, the landlord shall provide written notice to a displaced tenant, by personal delivery or mail to the tenant’s last known address, indicating when and where the tenant’s security deposit will be available for return. If the last known address for the tenant is at the property that is no longer habitable, the landlord shall post notices at each exterior entrance of the property. The landlord may make arrangements to have the municipal clerk hold the security deposit so that the tenant may collect it at the clerk’s office. If the tenant does not collect the security deposit within 30 days, it shall be re-deposited or reinvested by the landlord in the same bank from which it was withdrawn."
Now that 30 days has passed since Hurricane Sandy, many of those unclaimed security deposits will now be redeposited into their respective banks. Also, if the residency become livable again and the tenant moves bank in, the security deposit is again due back to the landlord.
The Security Deposit Law applies to most residential rental properties, including mobile homes. The exception is owner-occupied two- or three-family dwellings.
The law and other protections for tenants and landlords are explained on the state Department of Community Affairs website: www.state.nj.us/dca and follow the highlights link for “landlord tenant information. | <urn:uuid:a0ee7d03-36a6-4b98-b545-90e0e8ff07ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manasquan.patch.com/articles/after-hurricane-sandy-renter-s-security-deposits-protected-by-law | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933742 | 538 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Medical leave was a term in Starfleet which described shore leave at medical order. According to Starfleet regulations, an officer taking medical leave could select their rehabilitation facility.
Although shore leave can be ordered by medical personnel for a crewmember's well-being, a medical leave may be specifically for those who suffered physical or psychological injury in the line of duty.
In 2375 Ensign Nog was ordered to take medical leave by Starfleet Command after he lost a leg in the battle of AR-558. Upon his return to Deep Space 9 Captain Benjamin Sisko read the orders from a PADD and told Nog that his medical leave is granted except his participation for his welcome home party in the wardroom. (DS9: "It's Only a Paper Moon") | <urn:uuid:6d846b9c-9825-4a40-ac71-bf9415c5d5f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Medical_leave | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980277 | 154 | 1.6875 | 2 |
New Zealand is truly worth anyone’s listing of locations to go to. Lonely Planet posted it in its 2010 top ten travel destinations. They have everything from picturesque vistas, modern amenities, and fantastic locations. Additionally it is a wonderful country to drive around, in the event you were wanting to know if it is good to obtain a New Zealand car hire.
The main advantages of your personal automobile
Approximately 2.4 million tourists traveled to New Zealand in 2009. Since it promotes itself as the locale for “clean and green” adventure, the statistics can get higher. Everyone who has been to a popular tourist getaway knows how challenging it is to get around a place in the course of its peak season.
One of many places to go to in New Zealand is Queenstown. Viewed as the adventure hub of the nation, Queenstown features adventure tourism, skiing, jet boating, white water rafting, and other adventure sports. When the sun has set, Queenstown’s lively nightlife attracts the eye of guests.
There are other destinations of note in New Zealand such as Bay of Islands, Waitomo Caves, and Milford Sound. These types of locations provide various interesting attractions, from adventure trips to historical research.
Additionally, the success of the Lord of the Rings movie has motivated many followers, whether of the movie and the books, to check out a places where shooting occurred on New Zealand. Although the standing procedure is to return the locations to their state prior to shooting, some places like Hobbiton in the town of Matamata remain.
Millions go to these locales each year. The most effective ways to pay a visit to them is with your personal NZ car hire, since it gives you the chance to travel to places you wish, when you need to.
What you should remember
There are a couple of things to remember if you want to get a New Zealand car hire. The foremost is you, or someone in your group, needs to have an active and valid driver’s licence for the automobile used. In New Zealand, it is based on the type of vehicle you plan to operate as well as its weight.
In New Zealand, you are driving to the left of the highway, so adapt accordingly. Seatbelts are required for motors and vans. The country also imposes stringent alcoholic beverages restrictions: 0.08% for drivers past 20 years of age and none at all for people under 20. It’s also advisable to mind intersections. Refusing to give way at these types of places has become the main factors behind loss of life and injury in the country.
Even though New Zealand is not a rough country, you should always observe the weather if you maneuver around. As an example, winter snowfall can easily close up the mountain passes of South Island. Holidaymakers are advised to keep track of the weather situation in an event similar to this so its possible to compensate for the bad weather, similar to adding snow chains on the vehicle.
Furthermore, ensure your New Zealand car hire happens to be in an excellent and roadworthy state once you get it. You should not take a vehicle belonging to the rental company that is not in good shape to journey on New Zealand’s roads. | <urn:uuid:5868e39d-7467-4e3e-9bb2-84e9a74b2943> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.org/why-a-nz-car-hire-may-be-beneficial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960995 | 666 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Pima County Animal Care officials announced last week that scores of dogs culled from a high-profile animal breeding and fighting investigation had been cleared for termination.
Even as the cases wind a path through the justice system, last Thursday marked the end of the road for 94 pit bulls seized in a series of west-side busts in February. Sheriff’s officials say the raids shut down two fight-dog breeding and training operations.
But while animal care officials can celebrate the closure of the suspected dog-fighting ventures, there’s no joy for the county workers tasked to euthanize the dogs.
“It’s a sad day for us here,” said Vicky Duraine with Pima County Animal Care Center.
The county made attempts to find suitable homes for the dogs with pit bull rescue organizations and other groups with expertise in rehabilitating dogs bred for fighting, but in the end homes were found for just 15 of the more than 100 seized dogs.
Bad Rap, a California-based pit bull rescue group, took six of the dogs. Another five the Humane Society of Southern Arizona took. Diane Jessup took the remaining four pit bulls.
Jessup heads an Olympia, Wash., group called Law Dogs. A known expert in the breed, Jessup takes pit bulls rescued from breeding and fighting operations and finds homes for them with law enforcement agencies.
According to Jessup, the breed is well-suited for drug, bomb, arson and cadaver sniffing work.
Housing the animals has cost the county more than $1,000 a day since February, when sheriff’s deputies raided the two suspected breeding operations.
In addition to the 94 dogs put down last week, Duraine said seven animals had been previously euthanized because of illness and overly aggressive behavior toward other dogs.
“A greater tragedy in our community is the tragedy that we’re putting down 120 or so dogs a week,” Duraine said.
Because the county does not have crematory facilities or animal burial grounds, the destroyed animals are put to rest in city dumps. | <urn:uuid:e9445686-daa0-4c4a-bc6a-8573a819fa3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://explorernews.com/news/pima_pinal/article_ee0dba11-c1bb-5c9d-92c5-c7b53517cf00.html?mode=story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950631 | 434 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Rock-and-roll photographer Jim Marshall died on Tuesday at the age of 74. If you’re not familiar with the man himself, you’ve certainly seen his work: he was an official photographer of the Woodstock Festival, the only photographer allowed backstage at the Beatles’ final concert in 1966, and he shot more than 500 album covers. Marshall was known to gain intimate access to the musicians, sometimes even going so far as to live with them, in order to create truly vulnerable portraits. He continued to work after the days of psychedelics and electric guitars, and more recently worked with the likes of John Mayer and Ben Harper. Marshall was scheduled to promote his new book Match Prints this week, written with fellow photographer Timothy White.
Just as the music lives on, we know that Marshall’s photographs will prevail as iconic cultural images. A roundup of some of our favorite shots after the jump.
“Too much bullshit is written about photographs and music. Let the music move you, whether to a frenzy or a peaceful place. Let it be what you want to hear—not what others say is popular. Let the photograph be one you remember—not for its technique but for its soul. Let it become a part of your life—a part of your past to help shape your future. But most of all, let the music and the photograph be something you love and will always enjoy.” — Marshall
Jimi, Arm Outstretched (1967)
I approached Jimi and told him my name was Jim Marshall – that I was one of the photographers. He made some comment like, ‘Far out, man, maybe this shit is supposed to be,’ and I asked what he meant. He said the dude who made his amps was named Jim Marshall, and smart-ass me says, ‘Yeah, I know that.’ But then he said, ‘What you d0n’t know is that my middle name is Marshall.’” — Marshall
Ray Charles Recording (1962)
“He was trying to see who that person was, and understanding that we care about these people with the way that they touch our lives with music.” -Gail Buckland, curator of the Brooklyn Museum’s “Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present”
Dylan Kicking A Tire (1963)
“This particular photo was taken one Sunday morning when Bobby, his girlfriend Suze Rotolo, Dave Van Ronk, and Terri Van Ronk were all going to breakfast in New York. Just two frames were shot – no big deal – but I feel it shows Bob was still a kid in 1963.” — Marshall
Janis Lounging with Southern Comfort (1968)
“When I showed Janis the picture of her lying back with the bottle in her hand, she said, ‘Jim, this is how it is sometimes. Lousy.’ Some people said I shouldn’t have published the picture of her lying back with the bottle in her hand, but I’ll defend it to the death. It’s an honest picture, and Janis liked it.” — Marshall
Cash Flipping the Bird (1969)
“His record company is still using it [the above shot]. It shows John’s individuality, but the gesture was definitely done in jest. John’s got a great sense of humor and this was not a serious shot.” — Marshall
Mick Backstage (1972)
“As a human being and as an artist, he [Marshall] has never shied away from honesty. His style is very ‘in your face,’ and yet he inspires trust and confidence in the people he photographs, and the shared intimacy is caught in a millisecond. And there it is. Forever.” — Michael Douglas
Janis and Her Psychedelic Porsche (1968)
“She [Janis] was wonderful, not the prettiest girl in the world but she was not afraid of the camera. I could’ve shot her anytime at all ‘go ahead baby and take a picture.’ Janis was very important to me, real and honest.” — Marshall
Zeppelin, LA (1970)
“I was shooting Led Zeppelin for Atlantic records at the Hyatt House in 1970. The group shot was taken on the top floor of the hotel, to get all four of them together at one time was a job, I just had available light and got some portraits of each of them by the window.” — Marshall
The Beatles Descending From Plane (1966)
“I do see the music. This ‘career’ has never been just a job – it’s been my life.” — Marshall
Miles in Boxing Ring (1971)
“At Newman’s Gym, Miles [Davis] used to work out. He used to box with guys, ‘Don’t hit me in the mouth, I gotta play tonight.’” — Marshall
Share your thoughts on the man behind the lens below. | <urn:uuid:b4ce89fe-773c-434c-8ff5-e826e7b93910> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://flavorwire.com/79863/tribute-to-jim-marshall-rock-n-roll-royalty | 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 | 0.973673 | 1,085 | 1.765625 | 2 |
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GODERICH, ONT. — On Friday at 1:15 p.m., three weeks after an F3-force tornado slammed into this port community, the town re-opened its central square, a famed collection of 19th-century brick and stone buildings laid out in the form of the Union Jack.
But Goderich will never restore all its history. Of 100 century-old trees that shaded the square, just six survived the Aug. 21 tornado. The storm tore the back off the old opera house; its brick side wall totters in the breeze. The Victoria Street United Church (1878) has no roof; the roof beams stand against the sky like the ribs of a dead whale. The mayor says 100 buildings and 25 homes must come down.
When we visited this Lake Huron town of 8,000 the day after the tornado, National Post photographer Tyler Anderson and I found townsfolk united by grief and resolve to rebuild. When we returned this week we found graffiti-covered, abandoned houses. Security personnel filled our hotel, the Bedford, on the square.
News that Culbert’s Bakery, an institution for several generations renowned for its cream puffs, will not reopen, has whacked Goderich almost as hard as the tornado.
We saw scant signs of rebuilding. Indecision has paralyzed the community: do we try to save Goderich’s history, since tourism is the town’s future, or do we do as insurance companies would prefer: pull down half-wrecked buildings, and try to start over?
Roger Harvey, a native Newfoundlander with 30 years sailing the Great Lakes, arrived Wednesday aboard the Algomarine, the first cargo ship to call at the Port of Goderich since the tornado. The ship will take a load of road salt from the town’s mine, Sifto, to Milwaukee.
“This is the first time I got back here since it happened and it is brutal,” the sailor says, sitting at the bar at Paddy O’Neil’s, nursing a glass of Labatt’s Blue. “This is our home port and it’s blown apart.”
Serving beer is Mary Brooks, tending bar because town officials will not let her return to her swimwear shop, Seashells, in the town’s “red zone.”
“In my opinion they are doing things way wrong,” Ms. Brooks says. “They are ignoring the businesses. We need access to the stores.”
Still, locals greet the arrival of the M/V Algomarine — and the M/V Federal Pioneer, loading grain from one of the elevators also battered by the tornado — as good omens.
“My God, they’re loading salt,” says Mayor Deb Shewfelt, 75, standing in Harbour Park, home to Goderich’s celebrated Celtic Festival.
Jamie Wilkinson,14, and two friends stand with buckets of roof tar and brushes, surreptitiously painting the tops of huge tree stumps, hoping this will prompt new shoots to grow. They are feeling low.
“We may be moving out,” says Jamie. “Structural. We lost all our trees. My dad’s truck got crushed by a tree.”
The tornado has a nickname among locals: F3, as in its force — an F3 tornado. Graffiti in Benmiller, a hamlet east of Goderich also denuded in the rampage, reads: “FU, F3.”
Dr. Stan Spacek and Dr. Kim Spacek, family doctors in Goderich, said the tornado has taken a toll on their patients.
“There’s a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression,” Dr. Kim Spacek says. “In emerge I have certainly seen some people with post-traumatic stress because they were right in the storm.”
The mayor has promised the town that, bolstered with $180,000 donated by workers and management at Bruce Power up the Lake Huron coast, he will replant the town square with big trees, in time for a festival of lights at Christmas. But some question the plan.
Near the square, only the ground floor remains on Jim and Mary Frayne’s 19th-century home, fenced by their insurance company. His trees are gone. Benefactors they met through the local legion have leant them a house, free of charge, until April.
“Yes there were trees that were damaged in the downtown core, but there were trees destroyed all over town,” says Ms. Frayne. “I just hope they’re fair. I think it’ll look pretty funny if the whole downtown is full of grown trees and the rest of the town is barren.”
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty briefly toured Goderich Aug. 22, and pledged $5-million to the rebuild. Goderich’s treasurer explained to me details of the $5-million: $2.5-million goes for municipal costs; $500,000 for the region outside the town. To access the $2-million that remains, locals must fundraise: Ontario will pay $2 to every $1 raised. Digging into their own pockets could prove tough.
“What is there, 90% unemployment in this town?” asks Helen Riehl, who with her husband Reg, who suffers from dementia, is just moving into her house after 20 nights at a friend’s B&B. “The mine is closed, the grain elevator, the [salt] evaporator plant damaged. The square is closed. This is going to be a doggone hard winter.”
On Thursday at 7:30 a.m., 25 people, mainly business owners, pack a special meeting of town council that approved new bylaws to speed the rebuilding. “We are trying to remove red tape and speed up the process,” Councillor Kevin Morrison, himself homeless since the tornado hit, tells the room. “You can’t reconstruct overnight.”
Three hours later, dozens of downtown business owners pack the basement room of the Candlelight restaurant in Goderich. They are worried about a report from a conservationist who voluntarily put together a plan that would save at least the facades of every downtown building.
The dominant mood at the Candlelight is uncertainty and frustration; they fear efforts to protect damaged buildings will hamper their businesses and slow the recovery. One woman said she values heritage, but her home is next door to the badly damaged United Church, and she fears that efforts to shore up the remainders of a teetering wall will end with bricks raining on her house.
“I can see how divisive this whole thing is becoming,” says the report’s author, Chris Borgal, a conservation architect for Heritage Canada, who grew up here. “It is our opinion that we can preserve the image of Goderich. I’ve got a pile of awards on my wall in Toronto and I am not going to take a back seat to anybody. The alternative is that insurance companies declare the building unstable and you end up with a vacant lot, and vacant lots are the death knells for downtowns across North America.”
Still, he adds, “This is an incredibly stressful situation for everybody.”
"I do not use crack cocaine nor am I an addict of crack cocaine."
—Mayor Rob Ford, speaking to a media at City Hall.
Powered by WordPress.com VIP | <urn:uuid:382b0453-e1d7-4dcc-9976-a409d8308428> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/09/10/historic-goderich-divided-over-recovery-plans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949459 | 1,666 | 1.75 | 2 |
Kelvin, aka DJ Focus, spends most of his time trawling through rubbish bins for spare parts that he can turn into electricity generators, batteries or even transmitters for his very own FM radio station, which he created in order to give young people in Sierra Leone a voice. Wondering what his motivation is? He just wants to invent a better future for him, his family and his friends.
This inspirational and uplifting video tells Kelvin's story as he became the youngest person in history to be invited to the "Visiting Practitioner's Program" at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Video Source : YouTube | <urn:uuid:2e757fc7-07ed-41c8-810f-f0f003dc7695> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hereisthecity.com/2012/11/29/meet-the-15-year-old-who-is-designing-his-own-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980218 | 127 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Nearly 20,000 camels from the UAE and other Gulf Arab countries have converged on Abu Dhabi’s western region for one of the world’s biggest camel beauty contests involving prizes worth nearly Dh35 million ($9.5 million).Do the camels always look this happy or are they coached how to smile for the judges?
The camels have been brought from various parts of the UAE as well as neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and other Gulf nations for the week-long beauty competition in the western town of Dhafra.
The contest, which started on Thursday, will stretch until next Friday and officials described it as one of the largest camel beauty pageant in the world in terms of the value of prizes and number of camels.
More than 800 camel owners from the UAE and other regional nations are participating in the event, which is sponsored by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince and deputy supreme commander of the UAE armed forces. It is organised by the Culture and Heritage Authority.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Time for the annual Camel Beauty Contest!
These stories never get old:
Posted by Elder of Ziyon at 12:23 PM | <urn:uuid:a27280f4-66b8-4809-b697-1a0dc57b7b65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2010/12/time-for-annual-camel-beauty-contest.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954462 | 249 | 1.585938 | 2 |
This is not meant as an endorsement, but the following products have been reported as helpful by members of our support groups. Consult your physician.
Biotene toothpaste/mouthwash/gum/moisturizing gel for dry mouth. These can be found at Wal-Mart, most drug stores, Costco, etc. Go to www.laclede.com for more information.
Probiotics (including acidophilus) to help you tolerate the antibiotic regimen and prevent yeast overgrowth.
Ginger or ginger snaps for gastrointestinal soothing.
Patients are often advised to limit contact with water vapor and dusts that often harbor mycobacteria. Your doctor may advise you to avoid showering, gardening, potting soil and orchid mix, fountains and lawn sprinklers, and especially hot tubs and indoor pools. For those who do not have elderly, children, or guests in their home, it has been suggested that raising the thermostat on the hot water heater from 120° to 145° may reduce a person’s exposure to these bacteria.
There is a rubber sleeve that fits over a PICC line during showers and keeps the area completely dry. It works by allowing the patient to pump air out of the sleeve, keeping it air-tight. Prices generally range from $35 to $40, depending on size. | <urn:uuid:9b8fe133-a56d-4e59-b29b-ed0b583bc153> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ntminfo.org/patients/living-with-ntm/other-tips | 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 | 0.953402 | 280 | 1.515625 | 2 |
If you've been wondering how to Feng Shui your living room. Here are some ways.
Follow these points to maximise the positive influences in your home.
Paintings for your living room:
Landscapes depicting sunrise, water or mountains signify hope.
Portraits of people with serene and smiling faces encourage positive feelings.
Cascading water symbolises good luck.
Paintings based on geometric shapes increases destructive feelings. Keep them at bay.
Paintings depicting wild and vicious animals induce poor health. Do not put up such paintings.
Refrain from painting your living room with the colour red. It invokes irritability.
Lambs are symbolic of luck.
Images of swimming fish signify longevity
Plants for your living room:
Most plants are said to have a positive influence as long as they are not wilting. Cacti and plants with sharp and spiky leaves are best kept out of your house. Plastic or artificial plants are neutral and do not affect Feng Shui.
Carpets for your living room:
Choose carpets and rugs in colours that correspond to the direction you place them in. Carpets that cover your whole room should suit the direction of the room itself.
Pets for your house:
Cats are said to be the element wood, so the colours for their bedding should be black, blue or green. Red is a bad choice for a cat's bedding. If you have front doors opening to the northeast, south or northwest will make your cat strong and healthy. While the southwest and north are bad considered to be bad openings for cats.
Dogs are said to belong to the element earth. Choose a brown or a yellow basket for them. White baskets are said to make them fall ill. Main doors which face the southwest, northeast or south makes a dog healthy and stronger while those facing east or southeast can make them fall ill. | <urn:uuid:c9fa0f4a-e09e-40ad-ad2d-e5b279b39988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-01/home-garden/33286587_1_living-room-feng-shui-bedding | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944643 | 398 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Monday, 2 July 2012
easyMoney could save the eurozone
[This article is joint with Declan Gaffney, who blogs (mostly on welfare and benefit related issues here; it was prompted by a twitter conversation with Sue Marsh, also a prolific blogger on disability issues. After writing it, we became aware of this FT article by James Mackintosh, who obviously thought of the basic idea first, but having written it we thought it was worth posting, and it makes some additional points].
A few weeks ago it was reported that a group of holidaymaking Germans in a Cretan bar refused to pay their bill on the grounds that it was "their money". Unsurprisingly, a fight broke out. This microcosm of the political and economic troubles of the eurozone is revealing - because both sides had a point. More optimistically, it points to a possible solution to the fundamental problems of the eurozone that could benefit all sides.
The key to this lies in a simple question raised with us (on twitter) by Sue Marsh [Sue discusses our conversation here] . The most embattled eurozone economies are also popular holiday destinations, so why couldn’t policymakers help resolve their difficulties by channelling money to the citizens of less troubled countries to spend on holidays in these destinations?
That may sound too good to be true: in fact, it goes straight to the heart of the issue. The European Central Bank has understandably objected to buying bonds from countries in difficulty, on the grounds that this is less a monetary policy operation than a bailout. We agree. Instead, they should buy bonds from all eurozone countries. For those countries in difficulty, this would just be quantitative easing.
But the key is what other countries, such as Germany, would do with the money. Our proposal is that they should issue vouchers to their citizens, redeemable only on spending in goods and services in those countries suffering financing difficulties (Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Italy). Holiday vouchers, in other words. So German holidaymakers could pay for their drinks in Cretan bars (and their flights, hotel bills, souvenirs, ferry tickets and the like) with "money" created by the ECB and distributed to them by their own government. The Greek businesses would in turn be able to trade in the vouchers for euros from the German government (via the banking system and the ECB).
This solves a number of problems. It would loosen monetary policy across the eurozone and ease the financing problems of the periphery countries. But most importantly, as Martin Wolf has long argued, the fundamental problem of the eurozone is not fiscal profligacy in periphery countries, but internal current account imbalances. Consumers in the periphery countries have been spending on goods and services from Germany and the Northern countries, but not vice versa, financed directly or indirectly by capital flows from those same countries. Now those flows have dried up; so one way or another, the current account balances must be corrected.
Our proposal would do exactly that, quickly, directly and in a growth-friendly way. Tourism is a major export in all of the countries listed above, especially Spain and Greece. It is a large employer, especially of young people. And - unlike other export industries which will take time to establish international competitiveness and to expand - it is flexible and can respond quickly to increases in demand.
Crucially - unlike virtually anything else on the table at the moment - our proposal could be politically sustainable across the eurozone. It would address imbalances by boosting export demand, growth and jobs in the periphery countries, not by imposing self-defeating austerity or years of grinding "internal devaluation"; policies we have already seen are doomed to failure both economically and politically.
And it addresses the legitimate concerns of citizens in Germany and elsewhere in the North. It would not be a gift or a bail-out. Rather than restoring balance by asking workers and companies in Germany to become less competitive or productive it would do so by raising their real wages and increasing their consumption. And rather than asking the German government to increase taxes or borrowing to bail out "profligate" southerners, it would enable it to give something of real value to its own citizens to the benefit of the whole eurozone.
Finally, it should be acceptable to the ECB, which would be able to loosen monetary policy, but without having to worry about the inflationary consequences, since it would boost demand precisely in the regions which are currently suffering from deficient, rather than excess, demand.
The basic idea is not new: Milton Friedman famously recommended that in extreme circumstances the fiscal and monetary authorities, working together, could solve a depression with "helicopter money." Our proposal is a version of that, but with the crucial difference that it addresses not only the eurozone's overall shortage of demand, but also the internal imbalances that threaten to tear it apart. Call it easyMoney. | <urn:uuid:27e1da6c-4463-40ca-906a-85b91eb70931> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://notthetreasuryview.blogspot.com/2012/07/easymoney-could-save-eurozone.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965859 | 993 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Monday, April 6, 2009
William Dwight Hughes & Lennie I. Banks
These articles were transcribed with permission from page 217 of Appanoose County, Iowa (1986) compiled by the Appanoose County Historical Society, Centerville, Iowa.
William Dwight Hughes Family History
(William) Dwight Hughes, son of Benjamin F. and Merica (Petro) Hughes was born September 2, 1897 in Appanoose County, Iowa the youngest of four children. He grew to manhood in this county and on May 27, 1917 he married Lennie I. Banks, daughter of Tom and Eva (Criswell) Banks. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes were farmers and in later years Mr. Hughes worked in the coal mines in the area. Dwight, as he was commonly known, died June 13, 1971 and Lennie died April 30, 1982. They are buried in the Jerome Cemetery.
Dwight and Lennie raised five children: Harold, born October 12, 1918 now lives in Mesa, Arizona; Raymond born July 1, 1921 lives in Bellair Township, Appanoose County; Marjorie (Smith) born July 27, 1924 lives in Corydon, Iowa; Wayne born September 15, 1930 passed away December 6, 1979 having lived and raised his family in Lees Summit, Missouri [See Below]; Glen born February 21, 1933 lives in Summersville, South Carolina.
Wayne Edward Hughes
Wayne Edward Hughes was born September 15, 1930 in Appanoose County, Iowa to Dwight William and Lennie (Banks) Hughes. He was one of five children. He attended Centerville rural schools and graduated from Centerville High in 1947. He worked for a brief time at The Case Company in Bettendorf then spent six years in the U.S. Air Force, part of that time as a dental assistant at the Air Force Base in San Diego, California. He graduated from Centerville Community College in 1956 and from Northeast Missouri State College in 1958. He started his teaching career in Art in Vandalia, Missouri in 1958.
On September 1,1963 Wayne married Sylvia Dee Maune of Columbia, Missouri. He continued his education and received the Masters Degree from University of Missouri in Columbia in 1964.
Wayne and Sylvia moved to Lees Summit, Missouri in 1964 where Wayne taught Art in the Public School until his death December 6, 1979 following a short illness.
Wayne and Sylvia have two children: Doug age 18 and Dee Anne age 15.
In spite of the pain and crippling effects of rheumatoid arthritis that was part of Wayne's life for the last twenty years, he never ceased to be a vital father, husband and teacher devoted to his community and profession. His gentle character, sharp wit and good judgement were an inspiration to all with whom he worked and was acquainted. Submitted by Mrs. Sylvia Hughes and Raymond Hughes. | <urn:uuid:f3d02a6d-1251-46c9-aee5-ae1541fcac16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thejeromejournal.blogspot.com/2009/04/william-dwight-hughes-lennie-iowa-banks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980265 | 591 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Med mal premiums in Mass., 1975-2005
Massachusetts has the fourth-highest median malpractice settlement payments for all states. The American Medical Association (AMA) declares it a crisis state. As a test case, we analyzed its premiums from 1975 to 2005. In 2005 mean premiums were $17,810 for the coverage level and policy type most frequently purchased. Most physicians paid lower inflation-adjusted premiums in 2005 than in 1990. Mean premiums increased in only three specialties comprising 4 percent of physicians: obstetrics, neurology, and orthopedists–spinal surgery. However, because of discounts and surcharges, in 2005 premiums within the three highest-risk specialties varied nearly threefold, and nearly one-third paid less than in 1990.
American College of Physicians: E-Health Recommendations
Health care may be the fastest growing industry, but it has been slow to adopt the use of technology. While orders at fast food chains are now entirely automated, most physician offices and hospitals still maintain their records on paper.
In [the ACP's] new position paper . . . , the nation’s largest medical specialty organization says that collaboration among physicians, patients, technology developers, and policymakers must occur if e-health activities like electronic communication between physicians and their patients, remote monitoring of patients, personal and electronic health records, and patients seeking health information online are to transform health care in the U.S.
In other words, don't hold your breath. | <urn:uuid:4ba6b5c1-d2eb-468c-af84-b8f464a1b05a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthlawblog.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95122 | 308 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Tom Howell Jr.
December 26, 2012
This time, there will be plants.
Fifteen years after voters gave the green-light to a medical marijuana program in the nation’s capital, a pair of locations approved to grow or sell the drug have cleared regulatory hurdles and will set up shop a few months into the new year, according to city officials.
A cultivation site in the Northeast quadrant of the city obtained its certificate of occupancy this month, meaning it can grow marijuana once the D.C. Department of Health completes a final inspection. It is one of six sites approved to grow the drug for medical purposes before it is sold at one of five dispensaries scattered across the city. One such dispensary, located just a mile north of the Capitol, also obtained its occupancy documents.
The development is significant because it means marijuana will be available to qualified patients after years of congressional interference and local rule-making. The application process among interested entrepreneurs took more than a year, and the majority of approved cultivation centers clustered in Northeast and dispensaries scattered across the District are still building out their sites and acquiring the necessary permits and business licenses.
This article was posted: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 12:27 pm | <urn:uuid:14a69059-c988-4b6c-889f-3d1e3f544b5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infowars.com/first-marijuana-growers-in-d-c-clear-regulatory-hurdles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962949 | 247 | 1.609375 | 2 |
President Barack Obama will focus less on economic growth, but more on economic fairness in his State of the Union address tonight.
Instead of encouraging more growth, more prosperity, more success to create jobs, instead of talk of lifting all boats, he is going to talk more about torpedoing success with higher taxes.
Indiana governor, Republican Mitch Daniels, is already characterizing the president’s positions as “extremism” in giving the Republican’s response to the State of the Union address. “As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.”
What the Indiana governor is saying is this: The president is about taking more money from taxpayers for the government to spend on failed policies that don’t grow the economy or create jobs, as he wants to embed even more codified envy in the U.S. tax code.
The real issue is, the government should not be wasting anyone’s tax dollars, rich or poor. No one should want the government to waste tax money from Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Teresa Heinz or George Soros.On the president's watch the government has added $4.6 trillion to the nation's $15 trillion debt, equal to Germany and South Korea. the country has lost 1.9 million net jobs. Even if you tax the upper bracket 100% won't cover the interest on the debt, and would flatten job growth. Companies are afraid to deploy their trillions of dollars in cash largely because of unstable economic policies now emanating from Washington, D.C.
Tonight the president will take another crack at the so-called "Buffett rule," a tax that supposedly will stop fat cats from paying taxes at lower rates than billionaire Warren Buffet’s secretary.
Hedge fund and private equity fund executives get paid in what’s called carried interest, meaning their cut of the firm’s investment gains. That means the companies they work for first pay at the 35% income tax rate, then they shell out those gains to executives, who pay at the lower capital gains tax rate. That includes famous Democrats who worked at private equity firms after leaving office, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Wesley Clark and Tom Daschle.
You may not hear that double taxation, first the 35% federal tax the government takes before the capital gains rate, but you get the picture.
And so the president is now seeking to undo the capital gains cut that even President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1997, a capital gains rate cut that reduced the penalty on investment from 28% to 20%.
The question is, can the tax code be reworked so only hedge fund or private equity fund executives pay at the higher income tax rates; or will this invite more complexity into an already tangled barbed wire of a tax system, one that executives will do an end run around anyway?
Also, capital gains tax revenue is notoriously volatile, in fact it dries up when rates rise, and is not a dependable source of federal income.
The president’s “Buffett Rule" won’t go anywhere. The bigger point is the capital gains tax hikes the Presidents wants will slam Silicon Valley—Apple, Google, Facebook, PayPal, YouTube, Yelp, all got capital investments from angel investors, who won’t invest if they have to pay higher taxes on their capital gains.
Or taxpayers will sit on their capital gains instead of investing them, to take advantage of the lower, long term rates. That will freeze-over economic activity even worse than it already is already frozen.
At the same time, you’ll hear the president talk about domestic energy production, when he’s shut down the Keystone pipeline, at a time when the EPA is trying to displace states in overseeing drilling, and after oil drillers had to go to court to ask a judge to lift the president’s the moratorium on the Gulf.
The president is pushing us farther into debt with green energy proposals. You’ll hear a retread of the same State of the Union 2011 energy ideas, which were dead on arrival even in a Democrat-controlled Senate (the Democrats also ran the House until January 2011, despite the President complaining about obstructionism).
The high-profile bankruptcy of Solyndra, for which the administration had guaranteed $535 million in loans, certainly won’t help his demands for more spending of taxpayer money.
Meanwhile, even the President’s own Jobs Council said the Administration should go all in with oil and gas production—the Keystone pipeline is infrastructure, so isn’t the president for infrastructure spending to create jobs? There are lots of pipelines across the country, so why stop at this one? “
Here are more excerpts from the Republicans’ rebuttal that Indiana governor Mitch Daniels will give after the President’s address:
“The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy.
“It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.”
“That means a dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates. A pause in the mindless piling on of expensive new regulations that devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody. It means maximizing on the new domestic energy technologies that are the best break our economy has gotten in years.”
“It’s not fair and it’s not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down nearly time and again by the President and his Democrat Senate allies.”
“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat. If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category. If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have.”
“2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world’s premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing.” | <urn:uuid:625968d9-733f-455a-83c5-b954f9ab45a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2012/01/24/republican-response-to-presidents-state-union/ | 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 | 0.951123 | 1,534 | 1.523438 | 2 |
THIS WEEK in Northern California
This KQED-produced series offers insightful, thought-provoking discussion and news analysis. Local reporters from diverse media throughout the region open their notebooks for an inside look at the stories behind the headlines.
THIS WEEK in Northern California Previous Broadcasts
KQED Channel 9: Fri, Aug 25, 2006 -- 7:30 PM
* California's Minimum Wage on the Rise: Joe Mathews, Labor and Politics Reporter, LA Times
An agreement was reached between Gov. Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers to raise California's minimum wage by $1.25 - AB1835 will increase workers wages to $7. 50/hr by January 2007 and to $8/hr in 2008. Some small business owners are concerned they may have to significantly lower employee hours or even cut jobs to cover higher payroll costs. However, minimum wage earners are welcoming the gradual increase from their current rate of $6.75/hr. The governor has twice before refused to sign a minimum wage increase, and may hope that this deal will aid in his reelection. If the bill is approved, California would have the highest minimum wage in the country.
* Hurdles Ahead for School Year: Jill Tucker, Education Writer, Oakland Tribune
Educators say that more than 54,000 students in the Class of 2007 may not pass their exit exam. However, School Chief Jack O'Connell says this is an improvement over Class of 2006 at the same time last year. Students most at risk of failing are generally poor, black, Latino, English learners and/or the disabled. In Oakland, state appointed Administrator Randall Ward stepped down recently, after attempting to bring the district out of a $50 million deficit and improve test scores. Both Oakland and San Francisco are searching for new superintendents. In San Francisco, a $450 million bond is on the November ballot, the largest bond to date for improving school facilities. On the statewide ballot, Prop 88 would create a new state parcel tax to generate nearly $450 million a year for various K-12 programs.
* Youth Violence Epidemic: Kevin Weston, Director, New America Media
Last weekend, an Oakland High School junior was killed as he headed to a party with friends. He's the 89th homicide victim in Oakland this year, where nearly 1/3rd of the killings have been gang-related, compared to 12% in 2005. The number of teens killed in Oakland so far this year is nearly double last year's rate. The alarmingly high youth homicide rate has rocked several Bay Area communities, including Richmond and San Francisco, where on Wednesday a 5 year-old boy playing in a park was grazed by a bullet fired from a car. The spike in youth violence has been attributed by some to drug dealing, the use of firearms to settle disputes, increased gang activity, as well as a glorification of gang culture.
* Stem Cell Breakthrough: Carl Hall, Science Writer, SF Chronicle
Advanced Cell Technologies, a biotech firm relocating to Alameda, announced a novel method for extracting stem cells without destruction of human embryos. The new technique involves taking an embryo at a very early stage of development and removing a single cell from which a line of stem cells is grown. Stem cell research is of great medical interest for diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes, but has been a source of ethical and political controversy. The Bush administration has restricted federal support for human embryonic research. This new approach may help resolve some of the objections, but it still raises concerns for those who oppose any manipulation of embryonic material and among some scientists who question the efficiency of the harvesting procedure as well as the health of the resulting stem cells. In 2004, California voters approved Prop 71, which allocates $3 billion over 10 years to fund stem cell research in the state, but has stalled because of legal challenges. | <urn:uuid:60c30d30-2def-4164-94e6-fc8919ef47e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/archive/index.jsp?pgmid=6380&date=20060801 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959558 | 786 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Healthcare Reform Passes Today
Whether you are ready or not, The Affordable Health Care Reform Act is going to require you to purchase health insurance if you don't already have it.
There were many reactions today in the North Central Florida area, on both sides of the fence.
Whether you agree with the mandate or not, change is happening. President of Insurance World, Victor Hazy says many people may be surprised to find out that they can get a high deductible policy for a lot less money than they think.
Those that refuse to purchase insurance under the new law will be fined, so essentially, Hazy says they will be paying money out of pocket without any type of reward.
Hazy tells us that there are going to be more affordable options out there for people with lower incomes under the reform.
He advises that small business owners should not be too concerned with the new law, as it will most likely only affect businesses with fifty or more employees.
So, what does this mean for you now, if you don't already have health insurance?
Hazy says you should be shopping for insurance now, talk to someone, get some quotes,find out what is available for you now, and of course get the insurance that is doable for you now.
Fines for those without insurance will be $285 per family income, according to CNN, by the year 2014.
- Obama's Healthcare Reform: One Year Later
- Governor Scott Pushes For Healthcare For Floridians
- Healthcare Battle Continues
- Congressman Stearn's Tour on Healthcare and Education
- Healthcare Listening Tour
- Crist proposes tuition reform
- City Commission Addresses More Than Property Tax Reform
- Election Reforms
- Local Property Tax Reform
- Tax Reform Not for Everyone | <urn:uuid:7252da37-d820-4f89-9ac3-4a8d4f691e8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcjb.com/local-news/2012/06/healthcare-reform-passes-today | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95903 | 364 | 1.554688 | 2 |
More than one employee around the table had the same confession to make. Yes, they were taking their BlackBerrys to bed. Talk about an unrequited love. I wasn't surprised by this news at a work-life balance workshop I led. But it wasn't just connection addiction that was causing them to shack up with their devices. It also had to do with something that has gone largely unreported through the Great Recession. The people who are employed -- 90.8 percent, according to the latest stats -- are often doing the jobs of several people as a result of years of cutbacks.
These people are increasingly imploding from overload and the stress and burnout that comes with it, yet they're made to feel they can't complain. After all, they have a job. The question is at what price? For both individual and company. I meet people who have had heart attacks at age 29, folks in the prime of life who are on more meds than the folks on some geriatric wards. All pointlessly, and completely counter to the research on what makes us productive in the knowledge economy: a refreshed and energized brain.
Any engineer can tell you: We have structural limits. Even the strongest materials pull apart when subjected to the right amount of force and load. American workers are being pulled apart, because we're not making adjustments to the increased load and pace coming down on us. Chronic long hours can trigger a cascade of health problems. A study at the University of California, Irvine found that a steady diet of workweeks of more than 51 hours can triple the risk of hypertension. British researchers in a 2010 study documented that people who work more than 11 or 12 hours a day have a 60 percent increased chance of coronary incidents, from heart attacks to angina. Stress is the culprit, triggering the release of hormones that help contribute to plaque build-up inside arteries. Long days were also linked to sleep problems and depression.
The Japanese have known for a long time where excessive workweeks can lead, to what they call "karoshi," death by overwork. Researchers there have found a link between long hours, high blood pressure, heart disease and an unhealthy lifestyle -- no exercise, sleeplessness, poor eating habits, fewer medical visits and increased anxiety and strain.
We're working ourselves to death. Many of us have become so fused with our work we have become our jobs. One woman told me she has zero identity outside her work. We create the self through labor in this land, unlike in other countries, where your family or regional background give you a sense of who you are. We're a young land, we move around a lot and wind up defining ourselves by our jobs. Performance becomes the sole source of identity and value. Step away from it, and you have no value. You hear the nag in your head bellowing, "Get busy" -- even if you're at home on a Sunday morning.
Like all external yardsticks, performance is a flimsy source of worth, so you have to keep doing more of it to keep it propped up. A government employee I worked with told me she hadn't had 10 minutes to herself in five months. Digging deeper, I found that almost all of it was self-inflicted. She had a talk with her supervisor, who asked her why in the world she was working all these weekends.
Fear of layoffs drives "defensive overworking," as some go to extreme hours to avoid pink slips. But those who work on weekends and skip vacations get laid off like everyone else. A tech worker who limited her vacation to a long weekend, instead of the four weeks she had coming to her because she'd worked at the firm two decades, got laid off like everyone else. "Now I'm wondering where my life went," she told me.
That's usually the first thing to go with overwork -- exercise, hobbies, social outlets -- all the things that reduce stress and provide proof there is another realm of value and meaning, and that ensure you make time for it. In the course of researching my new book, "Don't Miss Your Life," I paddled, danced and hiked with people whose greatest achievement wasn't in marathon workweeks and the external approval and health problems that come with them. They found lasting gratification in the act of living through passions and hobbies.
It turns out that where we think all the gratification comes from -- performance, status, stuff -- is way off-base. The research shows the best predictor of personal satisfaction is satisfaction in your non-professional life. The more active leisure life you have, the higher your life satisfaction. The badminton, aikido, kayaking and dancing enthusiasts I met know what the researchers have confirmed: that recreational activities build mastery and risk-taking and connect us with our true aspirations and selves like nothing else. That creates lasting gratification, since these pursuits pump us up with internal satisfaction, not the mercurial approval of others.
This anti-burnout tonic is available to all of us when we rediscover the most basic self and life-management tool: boundaries. In an unbounded workplace in which there is no shortage of people happy to guilt you into burning the midnight oil, you have to be able to know when to say when.
Ex-GE boss Jack Welch, famed for his workaholic ways, was said to have made his managers demand well more than their workers could actually do on the premise of pushing until there was pushback. That pushback is not coming enough today, even though studies show speaking up in the workplace doesn't have the negative repercussions we think. One Harvard report showed that people are speaking up, and they tend to be extraverts. The report called "No," the "voice-oriented improvement system." It's how we get more effective. In my experience with workers across the country, the people who speak up get the best schedules and save their health from irreversible damage.
At a time of record job insecurity, speaking up seems dicey. But people are doing it every day and living to tell about it. At workshops, I'll ask who's good at setting boundaries. A couple hands go up, maybe 5 percent out of any group. So what happens when they set a boundary? Well, they say, there's some static. Okay, natural. And after that? Nothing. And now a boundary is set. There is a method to it, and with the right language and approach, it's a win-win. The job gets done more effectively.
One Harvard study found that boundaries are a success tool. "The key trait of successful businesspeople who have true satisfaction in their lives is the deliberate imposition of limits," said Laura Nash and Howard Stevenson. People who are good at setting limits are able to find the "just enough" point, the authors say, when they had done just enough for a given project or for the day.
Boundaries are a productivity tool. They prevent the colossal drop-off in performance that comes from excess hours (25 percent and more), fatigue and stress that comes out of your hide the next day and the next. MRI scans of fatigued brains look exactly like ones that are sound asleep. Boundaries also produce a little thing called life, a realm in which beds are BlackBerry-free zones.
Joe Robinson is author of the new book "Don't Miss Your Life" on the science, spirit and skills of activating the fullest life. He is a work-life balance and stress-management speaker, trainer, and coach at Work to Live.
Follow Joe Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WorkLifeSkills | <urn:uuid:a5ba0f6a-8fcd-46c8-8538-aa2968bacc15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-robinson/americans-overworked_b_894324.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97455 | 1,565 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Australian Bureau of Statistics
2903.0.55.002 - How Australia Takes a Census, 2006
Latest ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 24/07/2006 First Issue
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Expect a knock on your door…Census is coming!
Collectors will start knocking on the front doors of Melbourne homes this week to deliver Census forms for the upcoming Census.
A team of 30,000 Collectors has been recruited, 13 million forms have been printed and now it’s up to householders to play their part in the Census.
The Census of Population and Housing will take place on Tuesday 8 August.
Director Population Census, Andrew Henderson said the Census is an important opportunity to reassess what is happening in the suburbs of Melbourne.
“For many suburbs a lot has changed since the last Census in 2001. This year’s Census is an opportunity for every community member to help define their neighbourhood,” Mr Henderson said.
“What is the profile of the people in your community? What types of industries do they work in? Are there mainly older people or younger people? Are there particular areas of wealth or disadvantage? The Census gives us an insight into all these things.”
“The five-yearly Census enables the Australian Bureau of Statistics to develop a portrait of our population. This is important to help governments plan for the future of our suburbs, cities and nation.”
Mr Henderson said the Census is a resource for all Australians and it is important to the accuracy of the Census that everyone completes the Census form.
From Friday 28 July to Tuesday 8 August, Collectors will deliver Census forms to every home in the nation. They will return to retrieve your completed form in the three weeks after Census Night.
For the first time this year, people also have the option of completing their form online with eCensus. Householders will receive a sealed envelope containing a PIN with their usual paper form which will include instructions on how to complete the form online.
More information, including interesting facts about the Census is available at www.abs.gov.au/census
To arrange an interview with Mr Henderson or a photo opportunity with a local Collector contact: Census Inquiry Service - phone 1300 362 883.
These documents will be presented in a new window.
This page last updated 17 May 2011 | <urn:uuid:4079108f-be2d-40dc-a42c-45c83d3ae116> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2903.0.55.002Media%20Release912006?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=2903.0.55.002&issue=2006&num=&view= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936736 | 502 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Chris Campbell, on 20 December 2012 - 02:22 PM, said:
I have written an article for the January issue of Pottery Making Illustrated on the revolutionary "Skinner Blend" technique of blending colored clay.
Colored Clay has been my passion for over 20 years and for the past two years I have been working on adapting this polymer clay technique to our earthen clays.The ease and intuitive simplicity of this process makes using colored clays so much easier and quite frankly, so much more FUN.
I hope you all enjoy the article and if any of you do decide to try the process, let me know if you come up with any new twists on it.
Chris, or anyone, can you give me some suggestions on how much stain to add to thick slip to get a nice dark clay? I have a small amount (a few tablespoons) of black and brown Mason stains and I'd like to mix it into my B-Mix (cone 5) clay slip. I'd like to try what Thomas Perry's article demonstrates in the article right after yours.
Some hints on how much stain per cup of thick slip would be appreciated! I'll mix them with a stick blender and then pour it on my wedging plaster and wedge. OH!! I wonder if it would stain the plaster??
Helpful ideas, anyone?
Ginny C (Happy New Year to all) | <urn:uuid:5be41ddd-3d7e-44c9-adc0-dc6f0004a874> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ceramicartsdaily.org/community/topic/3290-january-issue-of-pottery-making-illustrated/page__p__27100 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948142 | 286 | 1.734375 | 2 |
LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. -- At the forefront among professional sports teams of the clean energy movement for more than four years, the Philadelphia Phillies have added a solar energy project to their list of investments.
They were recognized by Community Energy Solar as one of a handful of charter customers during Tuesday's "Turn the Power On" Celebration for Keystone Solar -- the largest solar project in the state -- at Kreider Farm in Lancaster County.
The symbolic flipping of the switch at the close of the ceremony helped celebrate the 5-megawatt (AC) ground-mounted project, which is anticipated to power the equivalent of 950 homes and circumvent 4,200 tons of carbon dioxide per year. As of late Tuesday morning, 4,261.3 homes were already being powered by the farm.
Abetting the celebration, which included tours of the solar farm, the Phillie Phanatic attended the event, mingling and taking photos with attendees.
Brent Alderfer, the CEO and founder of Community Energy Solar, said having the Phillies involved "put it over the top" in terms of getting the word out about their project, which took three months to build but much longer to plan.
"I think that's where the Phillies organization has shown that they are willing to be leaders in the community, and they've been a class organization in this from Day 1," Alderfer said. "It's not the usual participant in a renewable energy project, to have a sports team. It's another reason we're particularly pleased to have the Phillies on board."
Exelon Generation was the wholesale power purchaser, while Drexel University, Franklin & Marshall College, Eastern University, Clean Air Council, Millersville University, Marywood University and Juniata College were among the other high-profile customers.
The Phillies have been purchasing Renewable Energy Credits since the inception of their "Red Goes Green" program in April 2008, and they were Major League Baseball's first team to join the EPA's Green Power Partnership (GPP) program, which urges the acquisition of green power. The organization remains the largest purchaser of renewable energy among the 30 Major League clubs.
"This is a great initiative for the 'Red Goes Green' project because it's local," said Mary Anne Gettis, the Phillies manager of marketing initiatives. "So we can actually say that we're buying local solar, which is pretty amazing, and it's great to be a part of it with Community Energy, a great partner of ours."
Brian Mahoney, the Phillies' director of advertiser sales, and a key cog in the organization's involvement with the project, echoed similar sentiments.
"To be involved with a local company like Community Energy and a local project -- the largest solar field in the state of Pennsylvania -- to be a charter purchaser of that energy, we're happy to have that opportunity to be a part of it," Mahoney said.
Jake Kaplan is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:4d203f25-502f-4467-acf8-64e4b0779b93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121016&content_id=39854940&vkey=news_phi&c_id=phi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965816 | 625 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Archive for January 2010
After reading that post I began to consider my own personal experience in meetings over the last dozen or so years and decided to add an addendum to the communication node problem that was so eloquently detailed in the Mythical Man Month by Brooks.
The problem with Brooks’ theory of intercommunication is that it doesn’t take into account the “Number of Managers” in any given meeting. He assumes in his calculation that all nodes in a communication network are equal. This is a mistake. All nodes are not equal, as anyone who has sat through a meeting with more than one manager participating can attest to.
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
Abraham Lincoln may have understood trust and community better than anyone in the history of the United States. He knew that maintaining trust meant having the people’s confidence… and with confidence you can lead. I can’t imagine having to make the kind of decisions that he did, but I can imagine how important maintaining the people’s trust must have been to him through that period in history. Every leader must have his community’s trust to be effective.
Building and maintaining trust stems from two elements, transparency and action, one without the other will not work, but together they have proven to be a winning combination for instilling the necessary confidence to effectively lead.
Originally published in Open Source Business Resource January 2010
“…success comes entirely from people and the system within which they work. Results are not the point. Developing the people and the system so that together they are capable of achieving successful results is the point.”
Recently, that quote stirred some controversy among my peers. The part about “results are not the point” was hard for some people to understand and come to grips with. Aren’t results always the point? Well, as with most things, “It depends”. The people and community that evolve around an open source software project will ultimately determine its success. Even if the core team launches the project with spectacular productivity and results, this phase of evolution will be fleeting if the necessary processes and community to make the project a long lasting success are not put into place.
This article presents some of the actions open source community leaders can take to ensure not only results, but a system that encourages productivity and longevity. | <urn:uuid:e98d04b5-8723-4901-8005-f1f2f44956a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mindby.com/2010/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963525 | 501 | 1.671875 | 2 |
IF you have been anywhere near a TV in recent weeks — and who hasn’t with the Olympics going on — you can’t have missed the advertisement for Pura Milk, spruiking its permeate-free credentials.
For the record, the bloke in the ad is not a farmer but a professional actor.
A production crew of about 35 took three days to shoot the 30-second production at who-knows-what expense.
And that’s before the cost of the prime air-time.
It was paid for, of course, by Lion Foods, owner of Pura Milk.
The same Japanese-owned company that is facing an independent arbitrator to settle a milk price dispute with suppliers facing drastic cuts.
Make of this what you will, but that’s not the point I want to make.
This advertisement is a marketing gimmick; a deception misleading a public largely not equipped to know they are being misinformed.
Most people had never heard of permeate until this campaign came along, let alone understood anything about it.
When this ad tells them most milk is “diluted with a by-product called permeate” they have no reason to question what is being said.
They will probably assume this is a bad thing.
So let’s get a few things straight.
Permeate is not a by-product. Everything in permeate came out of the cow as part of the original milk.
Permeate is created from the original milk during processing to produce the many standardised varieties of milk you find in the supermarket — low-fat, non-fat, full-cream, high calcium, high protein, lactose-free and whatever.
Cows don’t produce standardised milk.
It varies from cow to cow, breed to breed, farm to farm and across the seasons.
Processors could simply pasteurise what comes in, put it in cartons and sell it like that, but customers would get a very unpredictable product.
Instead, we have the many standardised products.
To standardise milk, processors have to take it apart then put it back together using the appropriate amounts of its various components.
This has happened for decades with the fat content. Cream and the skim milk are recombined to produce the desired product.
This requires nothing more than a simple centrifugal separator.
Technology has moved on. In the past couple of decades great advances have been made in membrane filtration, allowing components to be separated at a molecular level.
This opened up the possibility of standardising milk for other components — protein, lactose, vitamins and minerals — giving us the variety we now have.
When milk goes through membrane filtration, the part that contains the removed lactose, vitamins and minerals is called permeate.
This is mixed back into the milk base to get the required product.
What goes into the carton contains nothing that didn’t come from the cow. Nothing.
So what’s all the fuss about?
Well, there wasn’t a fuss until Pura started this stupid, deceptive and damaging campaign.
Look at the message this is sending out.
It’s telling the world that most milk is diluted with this dreadful by-product, implying that it’s somehow questionable or substandard.
Not exactly helping the dairy industry is it?
The public, of course, has a right to be informed.
They also have the right to not be misinformed.
So while we’re here, let’s do a little more informing.
Milk produced without the use of permeate can only be standardised for fat content — all those other components will vary because it’s not physically possible to adjust their ratios without using membrane filtration and the resulting permeate. You should know that when choosing your product. | <urn:uuid:5c2c02e4-0d8c-4c28-9fc0-c33a39849aa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.standard.net.au/story/201907/scare-tactics-permeate-tv/?cs=75 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946049 | 813 | 1.75 | 2 |
StageOne Family Theatre is offering a DramaWorks Camp in partnership with Lincoln Performing Arts Elementary School during Spring Break, April 1 through 5, with half-day and full day options. The drama classes, held at LPAS, 930 E. Main St., will encourage students to explore the fundamentals of acting and movement for the stage through the use of their body, voice and imagination. Students will gain self-confidence and poise in an atmosphere of fun and laughter as they act out stories, become their favorite character and develop scripts and scenes – all with the professional guidance of StageOne Family Theatre’s artists/educators. The camp sessions offered are: Fundamentals of Acting, 9 a.m. to noon; Movement for the Stage, 1 to 4 p.m.; or both for a full day camp, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost to attend half-day camps is $150, or $250 for all-day camps. For information or to book a reservation, call 502.498.2436 or visit www.stageone.org.
Date: Apr 1, 2013
Starts: 9:00 AM | Ends: 4:00 PM
Lincoln Performing Arts Elementary School
930 E. Main St. | <urn:uuid:ea7847a2-f756-4fd7-b7da-961a46fd3213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voice-tribune.com/event-calendar/dramaworks-camp/?ajaxCalendar=1&mo=3&yr=2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942245 | 261 | 1.601563 | 2 |
March 21, 2004, marked the anniversary of the first death of an American soldier in combat in Iraq. The death count is now 600 and getting higher. Fifty-nine British soldiers have been killed.
Three days after this solemn anniversary, President Bush attended the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., as a guest, according to CBS News chief political writer David Paul Kuhn, of"the talking heads, the television powerful, the broadcast journalists." Our commander-in-chief there delivered a pre-scripted comedy routine, complete with slides, showing him looking outside White House windows and under a White House couch. He joked,"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere." He got lots of laughs.
On the same day in my economical Bed & Breakfast near the building in London that George Orwell used as the model for his Ministry of Truth, I read some day-old news that got no laughs in Great Britain. The Daily Telegraph reported on its front page that 14 British soldiers had been wounded, three seriously, in street protests in Iraq. A large color photograph showed two British soldiers in riot gear, their helmeted heads and upper bodies aflame after being hit by petrol bombs.
The number of U.S. military wounded in Operation Iraqi freedom and its aftermath now approaches 3,500.
Given such human cost, it is not unreasonable that some people should be concerned about the lack of judgment the president and his advisers showed in dreaming up and delivering this WMD skit. Readers of the Statesman responded strongly with letters to the editor. The fact that these jokes were not"off-the-cuff," but instead planned and approved, gives us cause to wonder whether the president's insulated inner circle understands how ordinary people might feel.
Of even greater concern, in my opinion, is the subsequent politicizing of this episode and the further trivializing of the issue of WMDs as the main reason for launching a pre-emptive military attack against Iraq. You may think I am being a stodgy moralist here and dismiss this whole matter as"a silly controversy" and politically motivated" cheap advantage grabbing," as liberal talk-show host Harry Shearer has. So let me explain.
Corpses, maimed bodies and veterans with wounded psyches are not political matters. Dead men and women no longer have a political affiliation. What the loved ones of soldiers who have died in action and what soldiers who will bear physical or psychological scars for the rest of their lives have to believe is that their sacrifice was worth it.
In a profile of Iraqi-war amputee Michael Cain in the March 8 New Yorker magazine, Dan Baum reports that Cain told him he had no regrets and would serve his country again. But Cain vowed that he would never let his son join the army.
Most poignant, however, is what veteran Steve Reighard, another amputee at Walter Reed Hospital, says:"I believed in what we were doing. If we hadn't gone to war, eventually we'd see chemical arms and those kinds of munitions in our streets." Reighard believes the WMDs matter. Why? As he tells Baum,"You, know, we kind of have to think that. Otherwise, this (missing arm of mine) is in vain."
In this, Reighard and Cain -- and bereaved mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, sons and daughters -- are no different than their counterparts in previous wars. Those who fight are dead serious about the reasons for their great sacrifice.
When Siegfried Sassoon, the British officer and poet in World War I, sensed that his men were suffering and dying abominably for no clear purpose, he protested by publicly refusing to fight until the British government explained its objectives clearly and set a timetable for either achieving them or ending the war.
While in London on leave, Sassoon saw a civilian music review where the chorus sang"the Kaiser loves our dear old tanks."
His poetic response to such obtuse civilian jocularity was savage:"I'd like to see a Tank come down the stalls,/ Lurching to rag-time tunes, or 'Home sweet Home',/ And there'd be no more jokes in music-halls/ to mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume."
Next time the White House wants to tell a joke about non-existent weapons, it should try it out first among the wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital -- and only then take it on the road.
Palaima is Dickson Centennial Professor of Classics at UT-Austin and a regular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman.
I had the above published in the Austin American-Statesman; and, unlike my 80-some other pieces over the last 5 years, it has met with almost unanimously positive response, especially from two recent vets who agreed that, like Cain, they did not question their own decision to serve, but they would never allow their children to join the military. That says lots about how they view the reasons for fighting in Iraq or anywhere, especially given how military service is now determined here in the United States.
The one negative was from a former student of mine, a minister, who kept coming back again and again to the issue of humor. He argues, among other things, that the president as commander-in-chief should fall into the category of active soldiers who, as the rich history of war accounts proves, resort to forms of dark, often cynical humor to deal with the horrors and hardship of life in the combat zone.
What do others think of this?
My piece tries to make clear that I do not think this is a political issue, or at least should not be. I think it is an issue of reverence, as defined by my colleague Paul Woodruff in his fine book of the same name. See P. Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). For a transcript of an interview with Bill Moyers, cf. http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_woodruff.html.
My op ed circles back to the White House, not for political reasons, but because the conscious decision of the president and his staff to devise and perform this skit reveals, in my opinion, an appalling lack of reverence for the dead and the maimed, physically and psychologically, in this war, which ironically is not an ‘official’ war and the active campaign portion of which has long been declared over. The White House are the primary agents in all these acts.
But the broadcasters in attendance are just as guilty. This is the point of my citing Sassoon, who had a deep and bitter hatred of politicians, privileged gentleman, women, the yellow pressmen, the clergy and the whole home crowd, who from their safe and ignorant positions could express humor, false patriotism, or ‘insights’ about the war and the soldiers who served.
The same kind of bitterness about the home front infuses the works of veteran and critic Paul Fussell, most recently his account of the American infantry experience in Europe in World War II, The Boys’ Crusade. And it is standard in Remarque, O’Brien, Hemingway. Pick a war and you find it.
But my minister friend argues that the event the president attended in Washington called for humor and the president was therefore just responding in kind and was doing what was called for by the occasion.
I feel very uneasy about that line of argument, because I essentially agree with Fussell and Sassoon. Some subjects should be taboo for humor except by the particular insiders who have the experience, aka have ‘paid their dues’, to merit commenting on the subjects in a humorous way. This applies to matters of race, gender, ethnicity, social status, religion and so on.
I then thought of the freedom of speech the ancient Athenian playwrights, tragic and comic, enjoyed in commenting on war. But given the universal male military service and constant experience of war in 5th-century Athens, the audience and the playwrights themselves were soldiers and formed an inner circle of just the sort I am talking about, a group that had the right to comment on their own experience with humor or satire.
The bitingly satirical jokes of Aristophanes about war and commanders or Aeschylus’ depictions of war in the Agamemnon or Seven Against Thebes is public therapeutic ‘insider’ humor. See Larry Tritle’s From Melos to My Lai and Jonathan Shay’s Odysseus in America for more on the setting for Athenian tragedy and comedy as a veterans' 'therapy'.
One last thing.
What Cain actually tells the New Yorker writer Baum about whether he (Cain) would allow his son to join the military is:"Fuck no. I'd tell him, 'I'll beat the shit out of you if you try it.'" That is quoted directly in New Yorker. I wanted that to be printed, and argued for it with the Statesman editorial staff, one of whom is a Vietnam vet, so I respect his opinion greatly. So it was edited out.
Still I cannot help feeling, more than thinking that this somehow proves Tim O'Brien's point that we civilians will never understand the experience of soldiers at war because we cannot deal with the word 'shit'.
Tom Palaima: Tired of Trashy Campaigning 09/11/04
The following appeared today. We could add to the overall strategy U.S. Sen. John Cornyn's proposed marriage amendment to the constitution. During Cornyn's senatorial race here in Texas, to which Rove was personally assigned by GWB, Cornyn played the race card against his opponent. Now on the national level the homophobic card is played first. Then Zell Miller plays the race card. The Swift Boat people play the 'nothing is true' card. And Cheney plays the fear and Anti-Islamic card. Giuliani plays the 'he was presdient when this blew up, so he must stay in office' card. and John McCain comes on board for the sake of his own 2008 ambitions.
Meanwhile GW plays the simple and humble and god-fearing white man of firm Christian resolve who will keep us safe. COMMENTARY Austin American-Statesman 09/11/04
Palaima: I'm tired of trashy politics, and I won't take it anymore
Thomas G. Palaima, REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR
Austin American-Statesman Saturday, September 11, 2004
Four years ago, I was asked to write a post-mortem on the 2000 presidential campaign. It appeared in the American-Statesman on the day after the election and was titled"The end of an uninspiring campaign." The drama of the Florida vote-count fiasco is what sticks now in most of our minds, but campaign 2004 has given me queasy feelings of déjà vu, so I checked back.
Sure enough. Unless things change, campaign 2004 will have the same effects as campaign 2000 - the rotten taste of elections run as exercises in advertising and packaging and spin; strong divisions encouraged and exploited among citizens of different political views, classes, ages, genders, sexual orientations, religions, income levels and regional backgrounds; and pandering to the selfish concerns of individual voters rather than encouraging thoughts about the common good.
This should come as no surprise, given that Karl Rove has masterminded the campaign for President Bush in both elections. Instead of exploring the real issues that should concern us, we are caught up in personality issues. Anyone remember all the senseless fuss about Al Gore's woodenness? Is President Bush really in touch with the working class because he wears an open collar, speaks English not so good and chops wood on his Crawford ranch? Is Dick Cheney really sure terrorists will attack us if John Kerry is elected?
Is single-mindedness of vision the mark of a good leader? Is it firm and unwavering determination to see policies through? Or is it a myopic inability to understand and adjust to complex and changing circumstances? Is flip-flopping a lack of commitment to values? Or is it the natural result of a 20-year career as a U.S. senator studying and voting on issues in an ever-changing world?
Back in the year 2000, I reported that David Walker, comptroller general of the United States, an appointee of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, had criticized both candidates for not addressing the staggering economic problems this country would face in year 2011, when the first baby boomers reach age 65.
Not only has that still not happened four years later - and conditions contributing to the economic disaster Walker predicted have only deteriorated - but we now are running a costly and bloody war - aka"mission accomplished" - with no end in sight. The annual federal deficit has hit an all-time record. Yet our conservative vice president breezily tells us not to worry. Next year's projected large addition to the deficit should not be record-setting.
What can we do? Here is my opinion, or rather that of Sam the Lion in"The Last Picture Show." We should all say firmly his true Texan words:"I've been around that trashy behavior all my life. I'm getting tired of putting up with it."
Let's accept that a candidate who attends elite Yale University and then volunteers to serve as a soldier anywhere in Vietnam is a manipulating careerist with no sense of duty. Let's accept that his later impassioned testimony before congressional hearings at a time when even the president of the United States was seeking ways of extracting us from Vietnam was cowardly and uncomradely.
Let's accept that former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes is a politically motivated liar. He does not now regret helping the other candidate, from the same educational and social milieu, avoid service in Vietnam by joining the Texas Air National Guard. And let's even accept that working stateside on a political campaign and being grounded for failure to perform routine National Guard duties showed courageous respect for the men being drafted, volunteering, serving and dying in Vietnam.
Finally, let's accept that flip-flopping with the American people about the motives for going to war in the Middle East showed honest resolve.
Let's put aside all that trashy stuff and ask the candidates and their handlers to focus on the real issues. We could start with two main sets of questions.
What is the economic picture for the next decade, factoring in the 2011 time bomb and the costs of the war in Iraq and the"unwinnable" war on terror? Where are the new jobs created by the Bush tax-cut trickle down going to come from, and what sorts of jobs will they be? How will we curtail the deficit?
What is the strategy for an"end game" in Iraq? What will the criteria be for any major commitment of troops and resources elsewhere? Will Congress have a say, or will this remain a unilateral decision of the White House?
And let's all just say no - to trashy campaigning.
Find this article at:
Here is a New Year's piece designed to make us wonder, in the manner of the famous chorus from Sophocles, at the hard-won accomplishments of humankind. It was co-written with a freshman at UT Austin. There is small hope for our world.
Palaima and Skelton: What it takes to bring us life's simple things
Tom Palaima and Christina Skelton, LOCAL CONTRIBUTORS
Austin American-Statesman Tuesday, December 28, 2004
If we are fortunate, as many of us in our bountiful country are, the season of Christmas and New Year is a time to wonder at the state of our lives and our world, and to notice small wonders that we normally overlook. If we are wise, we may see what matters and better appreciate how much we owe to the hard work and ingenuity of others.
We might learn from the most powerful people in our country. We might also learn from people who will be forever nameless. Recent events surrounding our secretary of defense have reminded us of how important the simple act of signing a letter can be. In writing officially to inform loved ones about the death of a soldier in service to our country, the time spent personally signing a letter conveys something humanly important to them. It brings reassurance that the same person of power who sent their soldier off to war has spent a few moments thinking about and sharing in the deep loss they feel.
Taking the time to write — i.e., to write down our thoughts and feelings with our own hands, to sign our own names as personal witness to what we have written — is a mark of our hard-won humanity. That so many of us have the tools and knowledge to do these things so readily is a marvel of the progress of civilization, science, labor, industry and education.
The next time you pick up a pencil to write a note, to draw or to make a simple mark, pause for a moment and think about the everyday miracle that is the pencil. In the long history of mankind, the pencil, more or less as we now know it, has been with us for just over two hundred years.
Pencil enthusiast Abdullah Ismail of Venus Pencil Company (PVT) Limited of Pakistan helps us feel the wonder of the pencil: "The ubiquitous, yellow (mostly), seven-inch . . . lead pencil (is) the simplest, most convenient, least expensive of all writing instruments. The wood-cased pencil is, perhaps, man's closest approach to perfection. The modern pencil can draw a line 35 miles long, write an average of 45,000 words and absorb 17 sharpenings. It is nearly weightless and totally portable. It deletes its own errors but does not give off radiation. It doesn't leak and never needs a ribbon change, isn't subject to power surges, and is chewable."
The pencil is also our first and truest friend in learning to write letters and words and to add and subtract numbers. It empowers us to look for and correct our mistakes. It helps us to work toward perfection in what we write and draw.
More marvelous than what the pencil can do is how and why this most democratic of all tools of communication even exists. If your pencil is already sharpened, take a look at the exposed wood now tapering down to the point. Keep looking. Rotate the pencil in your hand. See if you can detect the subtle differences in texture of the two pieces of wood that make up the pencil shaft. Then ask yourself, "How in the world did they cut and join the wood so precisely?" "How did they get that lead in there?" "Where does that lead come from?"
The lead is actually graphite. It was first mined for the making of the earliest pencils in 16th century England. The thin rods that made the modern pencil possible were developed in late 18th-century France and then in Germany (whence the Conté crayon and the Eberhard Faber pencil). They are a mixture of powdered graphite, water and clay. But the graphite has to be mined and processed, and that is hard and dangerous work.
If you are lucky, you can get someone like Professor Leon Long of the University of Texas Department of Geological Sciences to explain to you vividly how the graphite mine in nearby Burnet operated between 1900 and 1980. You can almost feel the blasting of big boulders from the open pit mining, the sweaty toil of loading and trucking, of rough sledgehammering and finer pulverizing. You do not have to breathe in and out all day long the particle-filled air of the processing rooms.
Much of the world's graphite is mined now in regions like Sri Lanka, Mexico, China and Brazil. Studies of miners in Sri Lanka between 1987 and 1993 revealed that as many as one in 12 had clear symptoms of lung disease from carbon and graphite dust inhalation, despite work environment regulations imposed in 1972. The graphite pneumoconiosis is progressive even after exposed workers stop working in the hazardous mining and processing environment.
What Ismail calls the "ubiquitous pencil" can everywhere remind us of the hard-won cumulative progress of mankind and the large price many pay for the wonderful things that cost us so little and mean so much.
Find this article at: | <urn:uuid:7b68b766-3a10-455b-aef8-9999cc7cbb17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hnn.us/blogs/2/authors/13.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959684 | 4,229 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Greater Western Flank Phase I, North West Shelf, Australia
Phase I of the Greater Western Flank (GWF) development project was sanctioned by the North West Shelf Venture (NWSV) partners in December 2011. The $2.45bn phase one project aims to extend hydrocarbon supply to the Karratha Gas Plant and endorse the venture's ongoing marketing attempts for domestic gas and LNG. The project is scheduled to come online in early 2016.
The GWF area is located approximately 130km north-west of Karratha in Western Australia and constitutes 16 undeveloped fields. It is estimated to hold up to three trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable gas and up to 100 million barrels (MMbbl) of recoverable condensate.
In the first phase, the Goodwyn GH and Tidepole fields will be developed as tie-backs to the existing Goodwyn A (GWA) platform. Remaining fields will be developed in subsequent phases at later stages.
Woodside Energy, with a working interest of 16.67%, is the operator of the GWF Phase I project. The other five participants in the project, namely BHP Billiton Petroleum, BP Developments Australia, Chevron Australia, Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) and Shell Development, have equal stakes in the project.
Infrastructure for Woodside's Goodwyn GH and Tidepole fields
Goodwyn GH and Tidepole fields are located in water depths of approximately 230ft to 425ft within the lease area WA-5-L on the North West Shelf. Tidepole was discovered in 1971, while Goodwyn was discovered in 1972.
A total of five subsea production wells will be drilled within the two fields, including three in Tidepole and two in Goodwyn GH. These wells will be tied-back to the GWA production platform through a 16km long production pipeline measuring 16in in diameter.
The fields will be developed using inherent reservoir pressure with minimal aquifer support to limit the formation of produced water. Well stream flows will be regulated by installing subsea facilities at each well head.
The project also covers minor modifications to the GWA platform, which will include additional pipe work, replacement of manual and automated valves, modernisation of chemical system and additional control functions.
Fluids from the production pipeline will be brought onboard the production platform through a retrofitted riser pipe. At the platform, the gas / condensate will initially be treated in a high pressure train and then be sent to a compression train.
The compressed gas will be transported to the Karratha Gas Plant for processing by using the existing facilities.
The new infrastructure will allow Woodside to introduce the remaining fields in the GWF area in a phased manner. The future tie-ins are planned to be installed at the Tidepole and Goodwyn GH manifolds. As per the company's environmental submission, the phase one development will have field life of 25 years.
Goodwyn A production platform on Australia's North West Shelf (NWS)
The GWA production platform, commissioned in 1995, was the second platform to be installed as part of the NWS development project. The platform is located in lease WA-5-L, about 135km north-west of Karratha, in water depths of about 430ft and stands approximately 955ft tall.
The platform has the capacity to produce 32,000t of gas and 11,000t of condensate each day. It is designed to handle up to 30 production wells. A total of 137 workers can be accommodated onboard the platform.
Contractors for the Western Australian GWF offshore project
In January 2012, Australia's subsea contractor Fugro-TSM was awarded a subsea installation contract worth $97.7m for the GWF Phase I project. Fugro-TSM will engage its dynamically positioned multirole vessel, Southern Ocean, to complete the project.
Houston-based technology solutions provider (for energy sector) FMC Technologies was contracted in January 2012 to design, manufacture and supply subsea production systems for the project.
The contract, worth approximately $150m, includes supply of six subsea production trees, six wellheads, two manifolds, subsea and topside controls and flow line connection systems.
Installation of a production pipeline from Goodwyn GH and Tidepole fields to the GWA platform will be carried out by Global Offshore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Technip. Deepwater derrick pipelay vessels Global 1200 or Global 1201 are expected to be deployed for offshore installation.
Electro-hydraulic steel tube umbilicals (EHU) will be manufactured and supplied by Aker Solutions. Brownfield services to support the GWF project will be provided by Transfield Worley. | <urn:uuid:4982c74f-0e21-4c9d-b8f6-5becb93db1dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/greater-western-flank-australia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938617 | 985 | 1.796875 | 2 |
An anonymous reader writes "When it comes to spotting malware, signature-based detection, heuristics and cloud-based recognition and information sharing used by many antivirus solutions today work well up a certain point, but the polymorphic malware still gives them a run for their money. At the annual AusCert conference held this week in Australia a doctorate candidate from Deakin University in Melbourne has presented the result of his research and work that just might be the solution to this problem. Security researcher Silvio Cesare had noticed that malware code consists of small "structures" that remain the same even after moderate changes to its code. He created Simseer, a free online service that performs automated analysis on submitted malware samples and tells and shows you just how similar they are to other submitted specimens. It scores the similarity between malware (any kind of software, really), and it charts the results and visualizes program relationships as an evolutionary tree."
gadzook33 writes "I had an interesting experience at work recently. A colleague suggested during a meeting that we were building something that would make it far too easy for the customer to perform a certain task; a task that my colleague felt was deleterious. Without going into specifics, I believe an apt analogy would be giving everyone in the country a flying car. While this would no doubt be enjoyable, without proper training and regulation it would also be tremendously dangerous (also assume training and regulating is not practical in this case). I retorted that ours is not to reason why, and that we had the responsibility to develop the best possible solution, end of story. However, in the following days I have begun to doubt my position and wonder if we don't have some responsibility to artificially 'cripple' the solution and in doing so protect the user from themselves (build a car that stays on the ground). I do not for a second imagine that I am playing the part of Oppenheimer; this is a much more practical issue and less of an ethical one. But is there something to this?"
OpenShift, says Wikipedia, "is a cloud computing platform as a service product from Red Hat. A version for private cloud is named OpenShift Enterprise. The software that runs the service is open-sourced under the name OpenShift Origin, and is available on GitHub." This is a video interview in which Diane Mueller Explains OpenShift in depth. You may want to watch this OpenStack demo video as well.
psykocrime writes "The crazy kids at Fogbeam Labs have a new blog post positing that there is a trend towards advanced projects in NLP, Information Retrieval, Big Data and the Semantic Web moving to the Apache Software Foundation. Considering that Apache UIMA is a key component of IBM Watson, is it wrong to believe that the organization behind Hadoop, OpenNLP, Jena, Stanbol, Mahout and Lucene will ultimately be the home of a real 'Star Trek Computer'? Quoting: 'When we talk about how the Star Trek computer had “access to all the data in the known Universe”, what we really mean is that it had access to something like the Semantic Web and the Linked Data cloud. Jena provides a programmatic environment for RDF, RDFS and OWL, SPARQL and includes a rule-based inference engine. ... In addition to supporting the natural language interface with the system, OpenNLP is a powerful library for extracting meaning (semantics) from unstructured data - specifically textual data in an unstructured (or semi structured) format. An example of unstructured data would be the blog post, an article in the New York Times, or a Wikipedia article. OpenNLP combined with Jena and other technologies, allows “The computer” to “read” the Web, extracting meaningful data and saving valid assertions for later use.'" Speaking of the Star Trek computer, I'm continually disappointed that neither Siri nor Google Now can talk to me in Majel Barrett's voice.
Aguazul2 writes "The German software giant SAP has announced it plans to recruit hundreds of people with autism within the next few years. The project has already started in India and Ireland where a total of 11 people with autism are employed by the company. The program to take on software testers, programmers and data management workers will spread across Germany, Canada and the U.S. this year. People with autism have a neural development disorder that often undermines their ability to communicate and interact socially [...] but in the world of computers the tendencies they often display such as an obsession for detail and an ability to analyze long sets of data very accurately can translate into highly useful and marketable skills."
Via the H comes a report that the Simon Phipps, current President of the Open Source Initiative, thinks that the VP8 patent Cross-license agreeement Google brokered with the MPEG-LA is incompatible with the Open Source definition. The primary problems are that the license is not sub-licensable and only covers certain uses, leading to conflict with OSD clauses five, six, and seven. Phipps concludes: "As a consequence, I suggest the license is flawed when considered in relation to open source projects and is likely to be negatively received by many communities that value software freedom. Doubtless a case can be made that the patent license is optional, but I suspect the community issues may remain. Once again we're left with our fingers crossed. Google's making the right noises, but this draft agreement seems like a particularly unworkable approach for free and open source software. Its failure to allow sublicensing seems like a major flaw. Even if this doesn't result in a requirement for all end-users to sign the agreement, the discrepancies between this document and the OSD leave it disruptive to open source adoption of VP8."
jrepin writes "The GNU Hurd is the GNU project's replacement for the Unix kernel. It is a collection of servers that run on the Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). The Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. Debian GNU/Hurd is currently available for the i386 architecture with more than 10,000 software packages available (more than 75% of the Debian archive)."
An anonymous reader writes "I run a small software consulting company who outsources most of its work to contractors. I market myself as being able to handle any technical project, but only really take the fun ones, then shop it around to developers who are interested. I write excellent product specs, provide bug tracking & source control and in general am a programming project manager with empathy for developers. I don't ask them to work weekends and I provide detailed, reproducible bug reports and I pay on time. The only 'rule' (if you can call it that) is: I do not pay for bugs. Developers can make more work for themselves by causing bugs, and with the specifications I write there is no excuse for not testing their code. Developers are always fine with it until we get toward the end of a project and the customer is complaining about bugs. Then all of a sudden I am asking my contractors to work for 'free' and they can make more money elsewhere. Ugh. Every project ends up being a battle, so, I think the solution is to finally hire someone full-time and pay for everything (bugs or not) and just keep them busy. But how can I make that transition? The guy I'd need to hire would have to know a lot of languages and be proficient in all of them. Plus, I can't afford to pay someone $100k/year right now. Ideas?"
Today at a press conference leading up to E3, Microsoft unveiled its next-gen games/entertainment console, the Xbox One. Their stated goal for the Xbox One is to have a single device provide "all of your entertainment." One of the big changes is increased support for voice and and gesture input. You can turn the console on by voice, and it will recognize you and automatically login. Swiping to the side with your hand will browse through menu pages, and saying "Watch TV" will bring up the TV app very quickly. The same with music, internet, and movies. The new console also supports multitasking — for example, while watching a movie, you can bring up your web browser in a side panel and surf the web at the same time. There is also a built-in TV listings app that responds to channel names — saying "Watch CBS" will switch to CBS without giving it an actual channel number. By this point, you're probably asking: does it play games? Yes. Hardware specs: 8-core CPU/GPU, 8GB RAM, a Blu-ray drive, a 500GB HDD, USB 3.0, and Wi-fi Direct. (They didn't provide the CPU frequency, instead saying it had 5 billion transistors.) The Kinect sensor got an upgrade: 2Gbps of data capture has finer skeletal visibility, can detect minor orientation changes in hands and fingers, and can even calculate your balance and weight distribution. The new controller looks slightly bigger, and is designed to play well with Kinect. They've also updated Smartglass, the remote control software that runs on mobile devices, but they didn't explain much about it. The new Xbox Live will have 300,000 servers powering it, up from 15,000 this year — though, of course, no details were provided about server specs. The console will have native game capture and editing tools — essentially, a game DVR. Saved games will be stored in the cloud, and they have new matchmaking capabilities that operate in the background. Update: 05/21 17:50 GMT by S : Halo is getting its own live-action TV show, for some reason. They'll be collaborating with Steven Spielberg. Microsoft is also partnering with the NFL for live broadcasts and interactive experiences, such as split-screen Skype chats and fantasy league updates. Xbox One will be out "later this year." No price information. it will not be backward-compatible with Xbox 360 games.
dcblogs writes "The Senate's immigration bill may force the large offshore outsourcing firms to reduce their use of H-1B visa-holding staff, forcing them to hire more local workers and raising their costs. But one large Indian firm, Infosys, will try to offset cost increases with software robotics. Infosys recently announced a partnership with IPsoft, a New York-based provider of autonomic IT services. With IPsoft's tools, work that is now done by human beings, mostly Level 1 support, could be done by a software machine. Infosys says that IPsoft tools can 'reduce human intervention.' More colorfully, Chandrashekar Kakal, global head of Infosys's business IT services, told the Times of India, that 'what robotics did for the auto assembly line, we are now doing for the IT engineering line.' James Slaby, a research director of HFS Research who has been following the use of autonomics closely, wrote in a recent report that the IPsoft partnership may help Infosys 'reap fatter margins by augmenting and replacing expensive, human IT support engineers with cheaper, more accurate, efficient automated processes,' and by improving service delivery."
walterbyrd writes "In 2012, IBM started retiring the Lotus brand. Now 1-2-3, the core product that brought Lotus its fame, takes its turn on the chopping block. IBM stated, 'Effective on the dates listed below, [June 11, 2013] IBM will withdraw from marketing part numbers from the following product release(s) licensed under the IBM International Program License Agreement:' IBM Lotus 123 Millennium Edition V9.x, IBM Lotus SmartSuite 9.x V9.8.0, and Organizer V6.1.0. Further, IBM stated, 'Customers will no longer be able to receive support for these offerings after September 30, 2014. No service extensions will be offered. There will be no replacement programs.'"
First time accepted submitter ectoman writes "A third party steps into a financial transaction to make sure all parties exchange funds at the same time and as expected. Can you patent this process? What if the third party is a computer? Rob Tiller, vice president and general counsel for Red Hat, details a recent court ruling on this very matter—one that has critical implications for the future of software patents, and one that divided the judges involved. Tiller writes that: 'The judges mostly agreed that the idea of managing settlement risk with a third party was abstract such that by itself it could not be patented. They differed, though, on whether using a general purpose computer for managing settlement risk meant that the patents avoided invalidity based on abstraction.' Interestingly, some judges suggested that a computer becomes a 'new machine' every time it loads different software."
benrothke writes "Had Locked Down: Information Security for Lawyers not been published by the American Bar Association (ABA) and 2 of its 3 authors not been attorneys; one would have thought the book is a reproach against attorneys for their obliviousness towards information security and privacy. In numerous places, the book notes that lawyers are often clueless when it comes to digital security. With that, the book is a long-overdue and valuable information security reference for anyone, not just lawyers." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.
jyosim writes "Hundreds of people are spending 20 or 30 hours a week just taking free Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. They're not looking for credit, just the challenge of learning. This Chronicle of Higher Ed story looks at whether these MOOC addicts think they're learning as much as they would in a traditional college course. From the article: 'Consider Anna Nachesa, a 42-year-old single mother in a village near Amsterdam who logs on to MOOCs for several hours each night after dinner with her teenage kids. She has always found TV boring, she says, and for her, MOOCs replace reading books. She is a physicist by training, with a degree from Moscow State University, and she works as a software developer. "This stuff is actually addictive," she says. In some ways the lure is like Everest: Some want to climb it to see if they can. "The Dutch have the proverb 'If you never shoot, you already missed,'" she says.'"
judgecorp writes "Government institutions are among the targets of an attack on Pakistani bodies, which originates in India, according to reports. The campaign is using vulnerabilities in Microsoft software to install the HangOver malware, according to Norwegian security firm Norman Shark (PDF). From the article: 'In the attacks on Pakistani organizations, spear phishing emails were sent out purporting to contain information on "ongoing conflicts in the region, regional culture and religious matters," according to Norman. Norman could not provide direct attribution to the attacks, but its report did note the following: "The continued targeting of Pakistani interests and origins suggested that the attacker was of Indian origin." Snorre Fagerland, principal security researcher in the Malware Detection Team at Norman, told TechWeekEurope it appeared Pakistani government bodies had been attacked.'"
Freshly Exhumed writes "Forked from Mandriva Linux back in 2010, Mageia Linux has hit a new release milestone. Trish at the Mageia blog announces: 'All grown up and ready to go dancing: Mageia 3's out! We still can't believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we've been doing it for two and a half years. For people who can't wait, get it here; release notes are here. To upgrade from Mageia 2, see here.'" Adds reader hduff: "It offers cutting edge and stable versions of your favorite applications and desktop environments as well as a version of the STEAM gaming software."
mask.of.sanity writes "Lights, sounds and magnetic fields can be used to activate malware on phones, new research has found. The lab-style attacks defined in a paper (PDF) used pre-defined signals hidden in songs and TV programmes as a trigger to activate embedded malware. Malware once activated would carry out programmed attacks either by itself or as part of a wider botnet of mobile devices."
First time accepted submitter russotto points out the claim of industry group TechAmerican Foundation (reported by Computerworld) that "wages for the software industry are falling, not rising. Wages fell 2% to $99,000 in 2012." Averages are one thing; the article points out though that wages vary vastly within the industry, and that some jobs are harder to fill (thus, better paid) than others. An excerpt: "Victor Janulaitis, CEO of Janco Associates, a research firm that also analyzes IT wage and employment trends, cited a number of reason for the decline in wages for software professionals. First, technology is becoming easier to implement without having an IT professional, he said. Also, the option of turning to outsourcing creates less pressure to increase wages. As the recession continues, companies continue 'to look at productivity and will often look to hire individuals who are lower cost employees,' said Janulaitis. That could include displaced baby boomer workers who have been out of work for some time and 'will take a lower paying job just to get back into the workforce.'"
Velcroman1 writes "The former island home of anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee burned down Thursday afternoon under circumstance he told FoxNews.com were 'suspicious.' It's an odd choice of words from a man whom the Belize police found suspicious, following the November 2012 murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, a well-liked builder from Florida who was shot at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye. 'I believe that there are a select few with great power in Belize that will go to great lengths to harm me,' McAfee said. 'This fire was not just a strange coincidence.'" Watch for more from McAfee soon.
Madwand writes "The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. NetBSD is a free, fast, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system. It is available for a wide range of platforms, from large-scale servers and powerful desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices. Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent for use in both production and research environments, and the source code is freely available under a business-friendly license. NetBSD is developed and supported by a large and vibrant international community. Many applications are readily available through pkgsrc, the NetBSD Packages Collection." | <urn:uuid:8c4b1496-1a9e-4439-a287-5fe93f456fc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://search.slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=software | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958076 | 3,963 | 1.835938 | 2 |
jRover project. Running a VexPro robot controller. With 12 motors 6 for drive and 6 for steering. It has 3 ultrasonic sensors. It is built in the mars rover style using a rocker bogie based suspension. It higher level controlling software is ROS from Willow Garage. It uses opencv to detect the blobs of color we want to follow or drive through. I will post more actions videos as we get further along. I will also post its run at the +DPRG outdoor robotics contest which is to be run on Dec 16th.
Great work, Jason! Thanks for sharing your project — hack on! | <urn:uuid:2be4caf9-6d40-46e1-a14c-edc18624d7d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2012/11/23/jrover-a-mars-rover-style-robot-hackfriday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936725 | 130 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Child Protection Policy is up to date and all Managers and Coaches are CRB checked.
All the Club managers and committee members were invited to attend a ‘Child Protection’ Workshop in 2006. This was kindly organised by Dawn Coppock of the Oxfordshire St Johns Ambulance service. It was an eye opener of an evening, that taught us not to be complacent about child protection issues.
Some of the more memorable points are: All club officials are put in a position of care and responsibility for the club members and we now have been made more aware of our responsibilities. The specific areas that we must all put into action are: No swearing. No bullying.
We know that swearing is often an outlet for frustration, but it’s also a short step to directing that frustration at someone else, when it then becomes abusive. No swearing applies to both players and officials!
Every one is different. Some people can take verbal/physical bullying as the joke that it is often meant to be. Some others may laugh the taunt off but are actually deeply hurt. Bullying is abuse. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and don’t try to get one up on them by bullying.
Some of the more memorable points are:
All club officials are put in a position of care and responsibility for the club members and we now have been made more aware of our responsibilities. The specific areas that we must all put into action are:
No inappropriate handling.
Officials must always be aware that actions that are meant as sympathy, friendliness or as a joke may be construed as physical abuse. We should be careful not to put ourselves in a position where we could be accused of inappropriate handling of a child.
Be prepared to talk and to listen.
If anyone feels they have been abused or knows of abuse going on, they must talk to someone about it. Abusers always try to hide behind their victims embarrassment or make their victim feel guilty about telling on them. Any one who knows about abuse should let someone else know.
As club officials, we have a duty to report any abuse. If you want to talk to someone about something you know, then you must do it. But you must also be aware that whoever you talk to must investigate and report that information. They cannot keep it secret.
Make sure that abuse doesn’t happen in our club.
Club officials who have attended the workshop are:
Richard Gregory, Aldie Chalmers, Sue Edwards, Karen Willis, Jim Wagerfield, Miichael Coombes, Elsie Coombes, Brian Coombes, Jo Florey, Paul Florey, Joe Hodgkins, Mervyn Broughton, Karen Baley, Bruce Hedges, Mandy Tree, Andy Tree.
- SASH Fixtures 2013 now available
- Peewees 7th in Nationals
- Presentation Night – Thursday 6th December at 7pm
- Seniors and Juniors Win 2012 League
- Oxford Blues AGM – Tuesday 13th November
- Ice Hockey in Oxford
- Roller Disco at Wheatley
- Peewees moving up…
- Hurricanes going to Switzerland
- Calling all players – complete the survey | <urn:uuid:56a70d3d-a86e-4386-b8e9-e7f73f6d6238> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oxskate.com/child-protection/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968533 | 661 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Every year about this time, many athletic field superintendents begin contemplating what to do to get their playing surfaces looking better.
Many times the thought of artificial turf will come to mind because “the school up the road has it”. This is definitely one time you should not try to keep up with the Jones’. I am strongly opposed to artificial turf. My opinion is not just because I am in the turfgrass industry, but because of the many hazardous conditions it presents. It creates hazards for the athlete, and for the environment. Professional athletes who rely on injury free seasons to make a living overwhelmingly choose natural turfgrass. Please click on the this link and read about the facts and research concerning artificial turf and natural turfgrass: Natural Grass and Artificial Turf: Separating Myths and Facts (PDF) | <urn:uuid:049cfc56-9855-42f2-8718-b502af81dda9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.winsteadturffarms.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937594 | 168 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Lake Wenatchee's south shore worries of life without PUD fiber
Thursday, January 17, 2013
LAKE WENATCHEE — Mother Nature has obliterated a fiber-optic cable that supplied enviably fast Internet, telephone and cable TV service to this forest lake’s south shore, leaving homeowners with no comparable alternatives.
Now most are reeling from the news that the Chelan County PUD may not rebuild the line but replace it with a far slower and less versatile — but cheaper — wireless network.
Quick facts about Lake Wenatchee south-shore fiber
When was the south shore fiber line installed?
August 2008 at a cost of $300,000.
Why can’t they just fix it?
The fiber cable contains 144 strands of glass fiber. Each strand in use carries data for Internet, telephone and cable TV service. When a cable breaks, each of these strands must be repaired individually. Each fix, called a “splice,” may restore service only to a few customers. Fiber splices take far longer than electric wire splices. When a fiber cable has many breaks, replacement is the fastest, cheapest option, PUD officials say.
Why is the south shore fiber line so expensive to fix at Lake Wenatchee?
Replacement costs are higher than new installation costs because they involve removing damaged fiber equipment from poles before new equipment can be installed.
Doesn’t the PUD have insurance?
The PUD has insurance to cover property damage, but its deductible is $1 million, officials say.
Why not bury fiber in the ground?
PUD officials say burying fiber would increase its installation costs six- to 10-fold.
Why is the PUD “take rate” of 26 percent along the lake’s south shore so much lower than LocalTel’s 50+ percent?
The PUD figure is calculated on 244 total area addresses, which include vacant lots. The LocalTel figure is calculated on a base of 157 actual area homes, about 80 of which take fiber service.
Does the PUD have a legal obligation to rebuild the line?
PUD lead attorney Carol Wardell says no. The utility’s service contract doesn’t require it to rebuild or reimburse for lost revenue “in connection with any failure or deficiency of the District’s System caused by or associated with: Circumstances beyond the District’s reasonable control...”
Lack of legal obligation doesn’t necessarily mean the PUD won’t rebuild the line, Wardell said.
Source: Chelan County PUD
“A lot of people up here think that we’ve been thrown under the bus,” says longtime resident George Wilson, one of many south-shore residents who lobbied for years to get the PUD to put the fiber in. “I’ve never, ever seen a utility just walk away from an established, essential service. Wireless is a huge step backward.”
The PUD paid about $300,000 to install the fiber line in August 2008 as part of a $120 million county-wide network that reaches about 70 percent of all county residents, but has never generated enough revenue to pay its own bills or cover its build-out costs.
A series of ice and snow storms hit the heavily forested region in mid December, sending hundreds of snow-laden trees falling into power and fiber lines.
PUD officials say fiber around the lake’s north shore is fixable, but the south-shore line is destroyed.
The damaged south-shore fiber line stretches about 5.5 miles northwest of Lake Wenatchee State Park. It will cost an estimated $500,000 to $750,000, to fix, depending on the time of year they do the work. This compares to $175,000 to $225,000 for wireless, Mike Coleman, the PUD’s managing director of fiber and telecommunications, has said.
Officials from LocalTel Communications, the company that sells Internet, phone and TV services over Chelan County PUD fiber, say 157 homes on the lake’s south shore are equipped to receive fiber services. Of those about 80 actually take the service, bringing the company’s “take rate” up to more than 50 percent.
This take rate is comparable to far more densely populated areas the company serves elsewhere in Chelan County.
But only about seven homes are occupied year-round on the lake’s south shore, PUD officials say. The rest are second homes, occupied part of the week or year.
The line also supplied Camp Zanika, a recreation area sponsored by Camp Fire USA. The camp hosted more than 1,200 visitors last year, including Camp Fire, youth groups and work groups.
South shore residents, full and part time, say they’ve built their lives around fiber in the four years it’s been available.
They’ve upgraded their homes, set up offices to operate businesses and invested in fiber-dependent security systems.
Wireless isn’t fast enough to support phone service, considered vital by many for its access to 911 emergency dispatch. Nor will it support cable TV.
Some homeowners, like Dr. Stu Freed, medical director at Wenatchee Valley Medical Center, said wireless may be OK for him at his lake house.
Most others say fiber would hard for them to do without.
“We changed the whole way we do registration based on the fiber,” Theresa Samuelsen, Camp Fire director said Tuesday. “We tried wireless, but it wouldn’t work because of all of our trees.”
“I can understand where the PUD is coming from,” said Don Bottoms, another of the lake’s full-time residents. “They spent a lot of money to put it in, and it disappeared on us overnight, practically. It would be one thing if the system had never existed and we hadn’t done anything with our properties based on having fiber capability.”
He added, “You go back to why PUDs are established nationwide and it’s to serve the underserved areas.”
Bob Hooson runs an employment recruiting businesses from May to October from his Lake Wenatchee home. He spends winters working in California.
“I’m on the Internet all day,” he said. “Our business requires pulling a lot of resumes down off the Internet and communicating with a lot of people at once. I’d be dead in the water without it. We have built our business based on the fact that we have fiber technology available to us. Wireless is not fast enough.”
“I just hope they make it right,” says Dr. Gary Bell, a Seattle dentist with strong Wenatchee ties who does contract forensic work over the Internet from his lake home. “When fiber came in... we spent $500,000 to upgrade our home. “I’ve never heard of the PUD coming in, giving service and then taking it away. It totally changes our life here. I think we deserve the services as much as anyone. We’re ratepayers, too.”
The PUD netted a $75 million budget surplus last year, the largest in many years. But utility executives say they’re committed to a new policy based on most customers’ wishes that fiber and all other PUD services pay their own way with their own revenues. That policy includes strict cost caps for fiber.
Even though lake long timers qualify the season’s snow storm as the worst they’ve ever seen, PUD officials fear they could lose the line again in a few years, if they pay to replace it.
PUD Commission President Carnan Bergren said Tuesday that he still hasn’t made up his mind about what’s right for the south shore — and wouldn’t until PUD staffers further study fiber costs, make a recommendation to the board and further consult the public. More public discussion is expected in the next couple of weeks.
“Pulling from our reserves is not in our business model,” Bergren said. “Each service has to pay for itself. “Do we all pay it through our fiber bills? Do we specifically charge a certain area? The fiber system should have to pay for that repair one way or another.”
Christine Pratt: 665-1173
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Friday, May 24
BNI Wenatchee Valley Friday
Smitty's Pancake House, 7 a.m. | <urn:uuid:578eb23c-6ae7-44d5-bdf2-f413270fc992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2013/jan/17/south-shore-of-lake-wenatchee-frets-of-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94924 | 1,906 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The Tyranny of Central Banking
11/11/2011 5 Comments
This statement might paraphrase the source of a serious candidate’s dilemma who threatens the U.S. political establishment. Four of the five Presidents that opposed the Central Bankers were assassinated and Andrew Jackson luckily survived his assassination attempt.
Recently a friend and I were discussing the politics behind the U.S. economy and the concept of “Who is driving the bus?” arose.
He said “the bus is driven by the 50% who live off the government.” I said the following …
‘All commerce (private & public, domestic or foreign) is beholden to finance, both to produce the product / service or to finance its’ sale or implementation.
Regarding the U.S. Government, financing comes via bond sale revenues or fees / taxes imposed on the citizen (natural or artificial). If the political representatives want to spend more revenue then they take in via bond and levied tax receipts, what can they do under the Constitution ?
Except for increasing bond sales and/or taxes the answer is nothing, unless they establish by enactment an ‘anti-constitutional’ vehicle of back-door enrichment by creating fictional or ‘fractional’ money – the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which devalues its citizen’s wealth via inflation and/or deflation. This brings us back to your position – ‘the 50% who live off the government are driving the bus’.
I say they are only the ‘benefactors’ of the stolen wealth. The quid-pro-quo is their vote to re-elect the legislative ’Conspiritor’.
The truth is, the person driving the bus is the Thief, the ‘cartel’ members of the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of the United States who operate in secrecy beyond the reach of full financial audits and who finance thru various sources (corporate clients / tax code benefactors) the campaigns of these legislators in exchange for ‘interest payments’ paid with direct IRS ‘income tax’ or ‘gift’ collections [see 31 U.S.C. 321(d)(2)] deposited with the NYFRB against the trillions of ‘federal reserve notes’ advanced as ‘fractional’ loans via authorized congressional ‘debt ceiling’ increases made thru the Federal Reserve (ACT) System to the U.S. Government, backed by the good faith and credit (wealth) of the working Citizens of the United States.
This ‘bus’ must to be taken off the road and put out of commission permanently !!
A stroke of a pen by the President on a Law repealing the ‘Federal Reserve Act’ removes approx. $10 trillion from the national debt and thereby $250+ billion in annual interest payments to the FRB is gone !! Furthermore, since the FRB invested no capital (real dollars) they are due nothing, but the ‘World Bank’ & ‘IMF’ loans to other countries backed by the U.S. taxpayer revert back to and are due the U.S. Treasury in D.C. !!!’
See … http://www.youtube.com/user/SilentNoMorePubs – view ‘Silent No More Publications’ history of U.S. central banks and ‘Federal Reserve’ seminar entitled “How to Take our Country Back” – Part I.
St. Augustine, FL
The third central bank of the United States was established in 1913 under nefarious circumstances, despite opposition by those such as Congressman Charles Lindbergh Sr. http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/44519
His story tells how the oligarchs of any society use various methods and propaganda to implement legislation that gives them the political and financial power they desire to control commerce as Karl Marx noted as the 5th platform in his Communist Manifesto. http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html
You can pretty much guarantee that of all Republicans and Democrats currently running for the Presidency, only Congressman Ron Paul endorses abolishing the Federal Reserve Banking monopoly. He is obviously a brave man. | <urn:uuid:31045c80-de17-4407-b450-53fc75430f44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rsjexperiment.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/the-tyranny-of-central-banking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938459 | 905 | 1.742188 | 2 |
New year's beauty resolutions
BY Chelsea Clark body+soul
Find out how keeping your new year's beauty resolutions could help your health
Hands up if you're guilty of the odd broken new year's resolution or two (or 20!). We all start the year with the best intentions, but somewhere around mid-January things start to go wrong. Diets are broken and exercise plans go out the window as we all get back to reality after the long summer break.
But what if your 2013 resolutions were two-fold? Making some small changes to your beauty routine can not only make you more attentive to your skin, hair and body but help you take control of your health, too. That's double the motivation for sticking with your new regimen.
Detox your nails
With so many news reports about harmful chemicals in everyday items, it's easy to become confused about which chemicals actually do damage. But one simple way you can reduce the number of toxins you are exposed to is to switch your nail polish to a toxin-free brand.
"Three ingredients commonly found in nail polish – formaldehyde, toluene and DBP [dibutyl phthalate] – are toxic and have many health implications," manicurist Fiona Hay says.
"Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen, toluene is a reproductive toxin and DBP could lead to birth defects."
Most polishes say they are "3 Free" on the bottle, but check the ingredient list if you're unsure.
Wash your hair well
Scalp problems such as dandruff or psoriasis can be made worse with excessive use of styling products, so if you're regularly using hairspray, eat-protecting products or other styling aids, wash your hair every few days.
"Those with psoriasis or dandruff should always use medicated shampoos," hairdresser Brad Ngata says. He advises leaving shampoo in the hair for a minute before rinsing.
Do a beauty audit
Just like the food in your pantry, beauty products have use-by dates. Common side effects of using expired products include skin reactions, conjunctivitis and other eye infections.
And if you experience any kind of skin sensitivity or rosacea, just a light application of a product that is past its prime could be enough to give you a rash that may take weeks to get back under control.
Foundations and moisturisers generally last a year after opening. Many products carry an "open jar" symbol that indicates how long, in months, the product can be safely used after opening, if properly stored. Stick to it!
Clean make-up brushes
Months-old foundation, blush or eye shadow on your make-up brushes could be harbouring harmful bacteria, so experts advise washing your brushes once a month.
"The bacteria can live on unwashed brushes for months and each time you apply your make-up you run the risk of them transferring to your skin and causing problems such as skin irritation or infection," says make-up artist Allie Clark.
Rinse your brushes in warm water with facial cleanser. Work it through the bristles with your fingers. Pat dry with a towel.
Remove your make-up
We've all experienced a late night when you just can't be bothered standing in front of the bathroom mirror to remove your make-up. But sleeping in your foundation can clog your pores, leading to problems including acne, dryness and red, inflamed skin.
"Properly cleansing your skin every night to remove every trace of make-up is your best weapon against skin conditions," Clark says. She advises using an oil-free make-up remover first, followed by your regular cleanser and moisturiser.
Care for your cuticles
Applying cuticle oil is probably the last thing on a busy woman's mind, but taking just a few seconds every week (or daily if you can manage) to take care of the skin surrounding your nail bed can help prevent infection caused by dry skin.
"By massaging cuticle oil into the cuticles and nails, you increase circulation and blood flow to the area, which promotes healthy growth of the nails and keeps them from becoming dry and brittle," Hay says.
Wear sunscreen – even in winter
If you don't already do it, make regular checks of your skin a habit in 2012. Look for spots, lumps or unusual changes.
"Checking your skin at the start of every season [every three months] is a good way to remember," says Vanessa Rock from Cancer Council NSW. "A GP should be consulted immediately if anything looks new, different or just odd."
Read the resolutions our anti-ageing beauty blogger has set herself for 2012. | <urn:uuid:a427cc3c-a19b-421c-9c8e-0b81584f876d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/beauty/news+reviews/new+years+beauty+resolutions,16185 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946487 | 985 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Mumbai, May 24 (IANS) The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Thursday called a Bharat Bandh (nationwide shutdown) on May 31 against petrol price hike.
The decision was announced by the NDA's acting chairman and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani at the party's national executive meet here.
"In the history of the country, there has never been such steep rise on a single day in the price of petrol," Advani said.
"To protest against this arbitrary hike, the NDA has decided to organise a day-long peaceful protest, including a 'bandh', in the entire country on May 31," Advani said, appealing to the people to make the shutdown successful.
In New Delhi, NDA convener and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) chief Sharad Yadav said that the shutdown was announced after consulting all allies.
"Government has washed his hands of the decision on price hike but in reality, it happens only when the government wants. The government will also be increasing prices of diesel and LPG (cooking gas) after the presidential elections get over," he claimed. | <urn:uuid:c299e698-bd5e-4737-b202-4162e1fa5eca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://in.news.yahoo.com/nda-calls-shutdown-may-31-against-petrol-price-112131895--finance.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978698 | 246 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Agreement could end litigation threat
After months of wrangling, a solution to the recent water war between Mammoth’s municipal water district and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power may be at hand—and perhaps as soon as Feb. 14.
“We had a conference on Jan. 29 and DWP asked for a two-week extension, which we agreed to,” said John Pedersen, the interim general manager of the Mammoth Community Water District, who took on the job after former general manager Greg Norby left for another job at the end of January.
“We believe the reason they only asked for two weeks, and the judge granted it, is because the judge understood that we are close to agreeing to the basic principles that will go into a final settlement.”
Even if an agreement is reached Feb. 14, it will still take another several months to finalize it, Pedersen said. But the agreement would mark the end of the threat of litigation against the district, litigation that has so far cost the district more than $600,000.
If things fall apart and the two sides cannot agree Feb. 14, the case could still go to trial, he said.
He said he was not at liberty to state what those “principles” were, but on Feb. 5, the Los Angeles Times ran an article stating that “the DWP is weighing a compromise: in return for less than $5 million, Los Angeles would drop its lawsuit and both sides would agree never to challenge each other’s water rights.”
Pedersen would not confirm this statement, which was not attributed to any single source in the article, stating legal constraints in talking about the case.
But before he left, Norby indicated he believed the main thing DWP wanted from Mammoth was a fair price for the water Mammoth uses from the creek.
The Los Angeles Times recently published a story about a series of other "water wars" between the Eastern Sierra and LADWP. | <urn:uuid:35a409d0-c554-44f9-9646-0f129c1bd9ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mammothtimes.com/print/9005 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975107 | 420 | 1.59375 | 2 |
View of roof-top Vernazza (Cinque Terre) and the Mediterranean from our room.
I am aware that I often blog about cultural difference. Since I am making confessions this bright-blue-sky Sunday morning, I will also admit that I talk, at considerable length, about this theme when my mind ought to be on other things, like my work or the US Primary race. (Political systems are also anthropological constructs but I am “primaried” right out even though the election is still more than a year away.) The thing is that I am endlessly, irrationally fascinated by the ways in which people are different from each other, and the ways in which we are same, and how we have developed as “peoples” which is to say in communities, cultures and civilizations. DP commented recently that I am an anthropologist and I believe he is right.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines anthropology as “the science of human beings; especially: the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture.”
Actually, my field is applied anthropology and the whole world is my classroom.
One of our favourite travel destinations, thus far (and I am not going to say San Miguel de Allende although I adore that precious little Mexican town) is called Cinque Terre (pronounced CHINK-weh TAY-reh) comprised of five small, medieval towns hanging off the cliffs of the Italian Riviera, directly across the Mediterranean from Barcelona.
I like Rick Steves’ description:
“The rugged villages of the Cinque Terre, founded by Dark Age locals hiding out from marauding pirates, were long cut off from the modern world. Today the villages, linked by a milk-run train, a ferry, and a spectacular trail, draw hordes of hikers. To preserve the character of the towns and the area’s natural beauty, the government declared the Cinque Terre a national park a few years ago. Visitors pay a small entrance fee, which stokes a park maintenance fund and helps to maintain the trails.” From:http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/destinations/italy/cinqueterre.htm
Last Christmas, a trip to the Cinque Terre formed the second leg of our “Wow! I LOVE Italy!” Italian vacation. We took the train up from Florence and spent five cold but deliciously starry nights falling in love with Vernazza, the smallest of the towns, and our home base in the Cinque Terre. From the main street of town – which starts up at the post office, dips under the train station and ends in the sea – the mythic journey to our rented room took us 119 precarious steps up into the sky. I was literally shaking the first time we did the walk to our room and DP probably had my bag. By the end of our stay, however, my legs were no longer trembling and the muscles in my bottom were harder than they have ever been in my life; still, we made no unnecessary trips up to the room. Forgot your camera in the room? No worries! Just use the other person’s!
One of my favourite things about the Cinque Terre is the train route that connects the five towns. For much of the two-minute trip from one town to another, the train travels inside a tunnel but, periodically, the train shoots out into the dazzling sunlight and the sunlight is reflected by the sea and the dizzy train passengers declare, “Ahhhh” as in the sound that is made every year by a million people, their heads tilted back, watching the Canada Day fireworks in Ottawa. Then, without warning, the train plunges back into the darkness of the mountain.
Riomaggiore, Manarola and Monterosso del Mar were, as Rick promised, beautiful variations on a theme and, within two days of our arrival, I was able to identify Monterosso as the town with the greatest ceramic bowl buying potential. We never did reach Corniglia (pronounced Cornelia), the Cinque Terre town nestled in a ridiculously high-home, 370 steps above the train station. I am fairly certain that the pirates never made it to Corniglia either! (To put this journey in perspective, it has three times as many steps as the pyramid at Chichen Itza in Mexico and is probably not much safer.) We will take the little shuttle bus next time.
It was late December. I wore, as always, my MEC shell and my heavy MEC fleece and was was toasty-warm (especially by step 100). There were no “throngs” of tourists in late December… there may have been a grand total of 15 foreign travelers staying in the little town of 600 residents. The food was amazing; the seafood was beyond fresh and we learned that the Cinque Terre is the home of pesto. We slept late in the mornings and took photographs and wrote in our journals and explored the little towns and their harbours. We were especially tickled by a town in which the people living on the main street had parked their boats (not cars) in front of their houses. We ate the most incredible take-out pizza – the real Italian “Margherita” deal – out of the box in our ramshackle room and licked our fingers clean. I forgot that I was a teacher and became, instead, a private citizen of the universe.
The great news is that we are returning to the Cinque Terre in early December but this time, to make things really interesting, we are taking nine students from our school: four 8th grade girls, one 8th grade boy and four 9th grade boys. No… this is not a punishment of some kind. It was my idea! I am running the “Travel Club” as an after-school activity this year and D. is chaperoning with me. We all meet on Monday afternoons after school and plan the trip: the destination, the flight, the food/restaurants, our itinerary… all of it. We are also learning together and our topics include a digital photography workshop, basic Italian words and phrases and tips for traveling in Italy. It’s such a cool idea that we have had other teachers and parents say, “Can I come too?” (We are pretty sure they are kidding).
Last Monday, we were talking about food that is indigenous to the Italian region of Liguria: wine, olives, pesto and anchovies. The kids were brainstorming lists of the kind of meals that might be served at local restaurants and sharing their ideas. I was amazed by the kids’ response to this activity; it felt just like Christmas morning as the students read off their lists of anticipated meals. A hand shot up – a hand belonging to a girl who had really REALLY wanted to go to Milan for the shopping. We are, in fact, flying into Milan on a late-night flight but will be leaving on a (very) early morning train to the Cinque Terre the following day.
Is this going to be a shopping question, I wondered. “Yes?”
“Miss, is it okay if we buy a REALLY big cheese?” Her arms flew up into the air where they formed an enormous lop-sided circle.
“Sure. If you can find one.”
“Cool.” Four Spanish girls nodded their heads in unison and dreamed of the really big cheese.
This is a cultural difference to love. | <urn:uuid:2b019d81-33bb-4b4b-a252-56d290ae622a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://monnamcdiarmid.com/category/europe/ | 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 | 0.97357 | 1,617 | 1.570313 | 2 |
You have two video options for the Banned Books Virtual Read-Out:
1) You can submit a video no more than two minutes long of a reading from a banned or challenged book. Here is a list of banned literary classics as well as a list of frequently challenged books throughout the years. You should also check out Mapping Censorship and Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books: Challenging Our Freedom to Read for more ideas. Banned Books: Challenging our Freedom to Read is available for purchase at the ALA Store or can be found at your local public library.
2) A video of an eyewitness account of local challenges can be submitted. This video should be no longer than three minutes long.
Whoopi Goldberg recorded a video for the event in which she reads a Shel Silverstein poem. Have a listen!
I can’t tell how many videos are on the channel right now, but it is easily dozens of them. So find your favorite controversial prose, get your webcam ready, and give it a good reading!
(Here’s my video from last year’s Banned Book Week. I thought I might share that one again.) | <urn:uuid:94aebef6-6f72-475a-938f-b31b4822d012> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/virtual-read-out/?like=1&_wpnonce=81a70c627a | 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 | 0.931734 | 247 | 1.710938 | 2 |
ABSTRACT: Squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck are highly responsive to induction chemotherapy. However, randomized trials have failed to demonstrate a survival advantage with the addition of induction chemotherapy to locoregional therapy consisting of surgery and/or radiation therapy. Currently, concomitant radiation and chemotherapy has emerged as a standard and has optimized locoregional control in head and neck cancer. In this setting, the addition of induction chemotherapy may further improve outcome by enhancing both locoregional and distant control. As interest in induction regimens is renewed, we elected to conduct a systematic review of trials of induction chemotherapy for locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer. The most studied combination— cisplatin(Drug information on cisplatin) plus fluorouracil(Drug information on fluorouracil) (5-FU)—achieves objective response rates of about 80%. In a meta-analysis, induction with platinum/ 5-FU resulted in a small survival advantage over locoregional therapy alone. The introduction of a taxane into induction chemotherapy regimens has produced promising results. Induction chemotherapy should be the subject of further clinical research in head and neck cancer. Randomized clinical trials in which the control arm is concurrent chemoradiotherapy and the experimental arm is induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy are planned. Platinum/taxane combinations are the preferred regimens for further study in the induction setting and a suitable platform with which to investigate the addition of novel targeted agents.
Head and neck cancer affects about 39,000 persons and results in 11,000 deaths annually in the United States. Patients with head and neck cancer commonly have locoregionally advanced disease at presentation, which is associated with a poor long-term outcome: Traditional treatment with surgery and/ or radiation produces a 5-year survival rate of 40% or less. Historically, disease recurrence has been predominantly locoregional, whereas distant failure occurs in 20% to 30% of patients. The use of chemotherapy has been introduced with a binary objective- to achieve organ preservation and improve survival. Indeed, in recent years, chemotherapy has been successfully employed in a variety of clinical settings and has established an integral role in the curative management of locoregionally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The timing of chemotherapy in this setting can be either (1) prior to locoregional therapy (ie, induction, neoadjuvant, or preoperative), (2) concurrent with definitive radiation therapy, or (3) after locoregional therapy with or without concomitant radiation therapy (ie, adjuvant or postoperative). Currently, the data strongly support the use of chemotherapy concurrently with radiation therapy either as primary therapy or in the postoperative setting. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy has become the standard nonsurgical treatment for locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer. However, the optimal chemotherapeutics for use concurrently with radiation to treat head and neck cancer have not yet been determined. A favored regimen, supported by results of cooperative group randomized trials in the United States, is cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 every 3 weeks during conventional fractionation radiation. In unresectable disease and nasopharyngeal cancer, a survival advantage was demonstrated with the use of the above regimen over radiotherapy alone,[3,4] whereas in laryngeal cancer, concurrent chemoradiotherapy with cisplatin resulted in a higher rate of organ preservation. Finally, the combination of cisplatin and radiation therapy was superior to radiation therapy alone after a potentially curative surgical resection.[6,7] In addition to single-agent cisplatin, a number of combination chemotherapy regimens, predominantly platinum/fluorouracil (5-FU), have been studied concurrently with radiation and produced superior results over radiation alone in randomized trials.
Induction Chemotherapy: Rationale and Controversy
Squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck are highly responsive to induction chemotherapy. A complete response (CR) to induction chemotherapy, and especially a pathologic CR, is predictive of improved survival.[9-13] It is reasonable to hypothesize that induction chemotherapy can improve patient outcome by downstaging the primary tumor and eradicating locoregional and distant micrometastases. Nevertheless, with a few notable exceptions, multiple randomized trials conducted in the 1980s and 1990s that used standard locoregional therapy- surgery and/or radiation-as a control failed to demonstrate that the addition of induction chemotherapy to locoregional treatment results in survival benefit.[14,15] In several of these studies, the addition of induction chemotherapy decreased the rate of distant metastasis, which usually did not translate into a survival benefit. Moreover, a deleterious effect on survival from induction chemotherapy was suggested in some studies.[16,17] Domenge et al reported the only positive trial, a study that enrolled 318 patients with locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer. Disease-free survival was improved in the induction chemotherapy arm, but the difference did not reach statistical significance (P = .11); however, overall survival was superior in the induction chemotherapy arm (P < .05). A study by Paccagnella et al, comparing induction chemotherapy with cisplatin/ 5-FU followed by surgery and/ or radiation, showed a survival benefit for induction therapy but only in patients with unresectable tumors. In a meta-analysis by Pignon et al, when all induction chemotherapy studies were examined together, there was no survival benefit with induction chemotherapy.[ 20] However, when the subset of trials with cisplatin (or carboplatin(Drug information on carboplatin)) plus 5-FU was examined, a small (3%) but statistically significant improvement in survival was observed with the addition of induction chemotherapy (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.79-0.97). Nevertheless, the superior treatment was concomitant delivery of chemotherapy and radiation, which resulted in a meaningful survival benefit of 8% at 5 years (HR = 0.81, 95% CI = 0.76-0.88). A number of studies have directly compared induction chemotherapy followed by single-modality radiotherapy to concurrent chemoradiotherapy.[5,21] A study by Taylor et al showed that concurrent therapy on an alternate-week schedule produced better disease control than induction chemotherapy followed by radiation. Furthermore, Forastiere et al reported that locoregional control and laryngeal preservation rates were superior with concurrent vs sequential chemotherapy and radiation.[ 5] Therefore, concurrent chemoradiotherapy has emerged as the preferred treatment strategy for locally advanced head and neck cancer. However, it is unknown whether induction chemotherapy would be of benefit when the primary therapy is concurrent chemoradiotherapy. When the patterns of failure in randomized trials of concurrent chemotherapy and radiation vs radiation alone were analyzed, it was evident that the survival benefit was most likely a result of improved locoregional control. More recently, phase II studies have reported that high rates of local control approaching 90% can be achieved with intensive chemoradiotherapy regimens.[22,23] A reversal of the historical pattern of relapse (ie, local more common than distant) was observed, with a predominance of distant failure. In that context, eradication of distant micrometastasis that is potentially achievable with induction chemotherapy may become critical. In conclusion, the potential role of induction chemotherapy in improving the survival of patients treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy needs to be revisited. We conducted a review of the activity and toxicity profile of various induction chemotherapy regimens. The review of these clinical trials may assist in the identification of the most efficacious regimens for use in future trials of induction chemotherapy.
We performed a computerized search of Cancerlit, Medline, and American Society of Clinical Oncology website databases in order to identify phase II and III clinical studies of induction chemotherapy for locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer. Trials in the English literature that included previously untreated patients with locoregionally advanced squamous cell cancer of the head and neck were selected and included in this review. We recorded the objective response rates, pathologic response rates (when reported), and toxicities of the regimens. Survival data were primarily reviewed in randomized trials. It should also be noted that most studies included heterogeneous patient populations usually without eligibility restrictions by site or resectability. Moreover, there were significant differences in the methods used to assess and report objective response rates between trials. Although survival end points may be relevant to the efficacy of induction chemotherapy regimens,[ 25] subsequent locoregional therapy is a major confounding factor. Therefore, we elected to use objective response rates as a surrogate of chemotherapy efficacy, acknowledging the limitations of this assumption.
Differences in Response Among Head and Neck Sites
Some reports have suggested differences in chemotherapy responsiveness among squamous cell carcinomas that arise from different head and neck sites. Nasopharyngeal cancer may be different biologically and appears to be the most chemotherapy-responsive head and neck tumor.[26-33] Separate clinical trials of induction chemotherapy for nasopharyngeal cancer are warranted. The oral cavity was shown to be a less responsive site in one study, but contradicting results have also been reported. A recent trial reported an objective response rate of 82% in the primary tumor among patients with resectable oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma. Limited experience has been reported for other less common sites of head and neck cancer such as the paranasal sinuses, but it is likely that squamous cell carcinomas arising from these sites and other more common sites are equally chemotherapy responsive. In this review, the studies examined mainly enrolled patients with tumors affecting four major primary sites: oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, and larynx.
Optimal Number of Treatment Cycles
Although no randomized trial data have suggested an optimal number of chemotherapy cycles in this setting, it is widely accepted that two to four cycles are optimal as induction therapy.Studies with cisplatin and 5-FU have shown that the response rate is higher with three vs two cycles,[38,39] whereas a plateau may be reached after three cycles. Di Blasio et al observed no further increase in the rate of objective response with the extension of induction chemotherapy to five cycles; however, there the CR rate improved (see Table 1).
Shin et al reported that the rate of complete response to carboplatin/ ifosfamide(Drug information on ifosfamide)/paclitaxel at the primary sites increased from 23% after two cycles to 60% after four cycles. Moreover, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) laryngeal cancer study and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) trial in resectable laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancers, respectively,[41,42] as well as other randomized trials have employed three cycles of induction chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-FU. Finally, a recent phase III, randomized EORTC trial in patients with unresectable head and neck cancer incorporated four cycles of induction chemotherapy in both arms-cisplatin/5-FU/docetaxel [Taxotere] or cisplatin/5-FU (Figure 1).
Activity of Combination Regimens
Cisplatin and 5-FU
Cisplatin and 5-FU have been the most commonly used agents in the induction chemotherapy of head and neck cancer. When these agents are combined, standard doses are cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 on day 1 and 5-FU at 1,000 mg/m2/d as a continuous infusion for 5 days, repeated every 3 weeks. This dosing schedule was proven to be superior to cisplatin plus bolus 5-FU in a small randomized study performed at Wayne State University.[ 45] In this study of 42 patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer, both the overall objective response rate (72% vs 20%) and the CR rate (22% vs 10%) were significantly higher for the continuous infusion vs bolus 5-FU treatment arm. Toxicities were also less pronounced in the continuous-infusion arm except for mucositis, which was usually mild in severity and tolerable. Multiple phase II and III trials using PF (cisplatin [Platinol]/5-FU) as induction therapy for locally advanced head and neck cancer have been conducted (Table 2).[5,9,14-17,19,34,36,38,41,43, 46-57] Older studies[54,56,57] utilized clinical/endoscopic evaluation of response only, but more recent studies[ 5,16,48] routinely employed computed tomography (CT) in addition to endoscopy. The OR and CR rates achieved in 24 trials with cisplatin/ 5-FU ranged from 54% to 94% (mean: 80%) and 7% to 66% (mean: 32%), respectively. Pathologic CR rates, which were reported in a minority of studies, ranged between 22% and 33%.[36,46,51,53,54] Toxicities observed in four large trials of induction chemotherapy with the standard cisplatin/5-FU regimen are listed in Table 3.[15,34,38,52-57] The toxic death rate during induction cisplatin/ 5-FU is low, ie, 3% or less.[9,36]
Carboplatin and 5-FU
Carboplatin was introduced as a safer but potentially equally efficacious agent to cisplatin for the treatment of head and neck cancer. However, the combination of carboplatin and 5-FU (CF) was shown to be inferior to PF in the recurrent or metastatic disease setting.[ 61] In the induction setting, a number of phase II trials as well as a phase III trial of CF have been conducted (Table 4).[48,58-60]
CF was compared with PF in a randomized trial conducted in Spain. De Andres et al randomized 96 patients with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck to receive either CF or standard PF. The study was terminated at interim analysis, when superiority of the control arm was demonstrated. The overall response rate (ORR) was higher in the PF arm (92% vs 76%). Moreover, the 5-year disease-specific survival rate (49% vs 25%, P = .03) and 5-year disease-free survival rate (47% vs 24%, P = .02) were significantly better in the PF arm. Differences in the toxicity profile were also noted. Hematologic toxicity predominated in the CF arm, whereas mucositis and nausea/vomiting were more frequently seen with PF. In conclusion, CF should be considered an inferior regimen. However, carboplatin may be substituted for cisplatin in cases of intolerable cisplatin-associated toxicity.
Cisplatin/5-FU Plus Leucovorin
The modulation of 5-FU was a topic of intense research in the 1980s and 1990s. Many phase II clinical studies investigated the efficacy of standard PF when leucovorin was added to the regimen (PFL); leucovorin was administered in various formulations in these studies (Table 5).[62-66] The mean ORR in these five phase II clinical trials of PFL was 78%, with a mean clinical CR rate of 37%. A major downside of PFL was that it results in high rates of severe mucositis (14% to 41%)-higher than what is expected with standard PF-which suggests 5-FU modulation by leucovorin in the normal mucosa.[62-66] Clark et al reported that 27% of patients developed grade 3/4 stomatitis in the first PFL cycle, with a significant percentage of patients requiring hospital admission for severe stomatitis with dehydration, whereas Vokes et al observed that 14% of patients developed grade 3 mucositis, which in some cases was of very early onset, occurring during the first 5 days of the 5-FU infusion.[ 63] Other authors reported that 36% to 41% of patients developed grade 3 or 4 mucositis.[64-66]
Thus, although no randomized trial has compared PFL to PF in the setting of induction chemotherapy for head and neck cancer, the added benefit provided by leucovorin seems to be negligible. Moreover, the toxicities added to the regimen may be considerable. Finally, two phase II trials conducted by groups in Chicago studied the addition of interferon alfa-2b(Drug information on interferon alfa-2b) (Intron-A) to PFL.[67,68] The combination was highly active, resulting in clinical CRs in 51% to 66% of patients. Despite its high activity, PFL/ interferon alfa-2b had an unfavorable toxicity profile, with high rates of severe mucositis (52%-54%) and myelosuppression.[ 67,68]
Cisplatin/bleomycin-based combinations have been extensively studied for the treatment of head and neck cancer. As induction chemotherapy, cisplatin plus bleomycin(Drug information on bleomycin) (PB) demonstrated ORRs of 48% to 70% and CR rates of 0% to 17%.[69,70] The Head and Neck Contracts Program (HNCP) trial randomized patients with stage III/IV resectable head and neck cancer to one of three arms: (1) one cycle of induction chemotherapy with PB followed by standard therapy (surgery and postoperative radiotherapy); (2) induction chemotherapy with PB and standard therapy followed by maintenance chemotherapy, which consisted of six cycles of monthly cisplatin; or (3) standard therapy alone. The ORR observed with one cycle of PB in the HNCP study was low-37%, with a 3% CR rate-and there was no survival advantage with the use of chemotherapy. Toxicities associated with PB included nausea/vomiting (grade 3/4 vomiting in 25%), bleomycin-related rash (grade 3 in 2%), mucositis (grade 3 in 1%), neutropenia, and anemia. Other investigators evaluated the addition of methotrexate(Drug information on methotrexate) to PB with or without leucovorin; we identified four trials in which these regimens yielded ORRs between 58% and 77% (mean: 68%) and CR rates of 9% to 26% (mean: 20%).[12,72-74] In two other studies of PB-containing combinations, the incorporation of vincristine resulted in an ORR of 79% and a CR rate of 29%, whereas the addition of vindesine(Drug information on vindesine) plus mitomycin(Drug information on mitomycin) produced an ORR of 50%, a 10% CR rate in the primary site, 27% ORR, and 9% response rate in the lymph nodes. Weaver et al reported lower rates of CR for two cycles of PB plus vincristine vs three cycles of standard PF (29% vs 54%, P = .04) in a nonrandomized comparison.
Finally, Schuller and colleagues randomized 158 patients with locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer to receive surgery plus radiation with or without induction chemotherapy consisting of three courses of PB plus vincristine and methotrexate. These investigators reported an ORR of 70% and a CR rate of 19%. However, there was no statistically significant difference in survival between the two treatment arms. In conclusion, PB and multiagent PB-based regimens do not optimize antitumor activity in the induction setting. Currently, the use of bleomycin is exceedingly rare for the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer.
Platinum-Plus-Taxane Combination Regimens
The combination of a platinum (carboplatin or cisplatin) and a taxane (paclitaxel or docetaxel(Drug information on docetaxel)) has shown marked antitumor activity in head and neck cancer. A potential advantage of the platinum-plus-taxane combination is that the incidence of stomatitis seen with it is less than what is observed when 5-FU is part of the induction regimen, which may decrease complications of subsequent radiotherapy.
• Platinum and Paclitaxel(Drug information on paclitaxel)—Carboplatin and paclitaxel is well tolerated and active as induction chemotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer. In seven clinical trials (Table 6),[77- 83] the ORR ranged from 66% to 89% (mean: 82%) and CR rates from 13% to 48% (mean: 30%). Although every-3-week administration of carboplatin and paclitaxel is common, weekly regimens with very promising antitumor activity have also been studied by groups at the University of Chicago[78,79] and Brown University.[ 77] Potential severe toxicities with carboplatin and paclitaxel include febrile neutropenia (~5%), thrombocytopenia, neuropathy, hypersensitive reactions, and myalgias/arthralgias. The Minnie Pearl Cancer Research Network conducted a phase II trial that evaluated the addition of continuousinfusion 5-FU to carboplatin/paclitaxel as induction chemotherapy for locally advanced head and neck cancer in a multicenter, community-based setting.[ 84] Induction chemotherapy consisted of paclitaxel at 200 mg/m2 and carboplatin at an area under the concentration- time curve [AUC] of 6, both administered on days 1 and repeated on day 22, and 5-FU at 225 mg/m2/d as a 24-hour continuous intravenous infusion on days 1 to 43. This was fol- lowed 1 to 3 weeks later by radiation to 68.4 Gy plus concurrent paclitaxel at 50 mg/m2 and carboplatin at an AUC of 2, given weekly for six doses. A total of 123 patients were enrolled in the study, the majority of whom had oropharyngeal (41%), laryngeal (18%), or nasopharyngeal (15%) primaries. In 119 evaluable patients, the ORR was 70% (CRs noted in 9%). With a median follow-up of 24 months, the 3-year progression-free and overall survival rates were 53% and 51%, respectively. Toxicities with the induction regimen included mucositis (grade 3/4: 12%) and neutropenia (grade 4: 8%), and 24% of patients required hospitalization for treatmentrelated complications. Subsequent chemoradiotherapy was feasible, but radiation dose omissions and delays were necessary: 58% of patients received the planned radiation dose, and 61% of patients received all six planned doses of weekly carboplatin and paclitaxel with the radiation. During concurrent chemoradiotherapy, 11% of patients experienced grade 3/ 4 radiation dermatitis, and 75% of patients developed grade 3/4 mucositis, whereas 23% required enteral or parenteral alimentation for more than 6 months. Myelosuppression was infrequent; 4% of patients developed grade 3/4 neutropenia. Overall, this study showed that aggressive induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy can be delivered in the community setting. Efficacy results were promising. Surprisingly, there is a paucity of induction trials with cisplatin and paclitaxel. This combination was studied in a phase I/II trial in head and neck cancer by Hitt et al. Twenty-eight patients with locally advanced, unresectable squamous cell head and neck cancer received cisplatin at 75 mg/m2 plus paclitaxel at 175 to 300 mg/m2 for the first cycle with intrapatient dose escalation, repeated every 21 days for three cycles. Patients receiving paclitaxel doses of 200 mg/m2 and above received granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF [Neupogen]) support. In 27 evaluable patients, the ORR was 78% and the CR rate was 48%. Despite increased dose intensity, the regimen was relatively well tolerated without dose-limiting hematologic toxicities. Four patients developed grade 3 myalgias.
• Cisplatin/5-FU/Paclitaxel—Hitt et al investigated the triple combination of cisplatin/5-FU/paclitaxel as induction chemotherapy in head and neck cancer. In this phase II trial conducted in Spain, 70 patients with locally advanced squamous cell head and neck cancer, 60% of whom had unresectable disease, were treated with pac-litaxel, 175 mg/m2 as a 3-hour infusion on day 1; cisplatin, 100 mg/m2 on day 2; and 5-FU, 500 to 750 mg/m2/d as a 24-hour continuous infusion on days 2 to 6, repeated every 3 weeks for a total of three cycles, followed by surgery and/or radiation therapy. In 43 patients, weekly paclitaxel was given concurrently with radiation. The 5-FU dose was reduced from 750 to 500 mg/m2/d due to the excessive toxicity, mainly mucositis and neutropenic sepsis, observed in the first 14 patients enrolled. A total of 70 patients were enrolled, 90% of whom received all three cycles of induction. Major toxicities of cisplatin/5-FU/paclitaxel in patients treated at the lower 5-FU dose included grade 3/4 neutropenia in 29% of patients (with one case of neutropenic fever), grade 3/4 mucositis in 5%, and grade 3 peripheral neuropathy in 5%. The ORR in 69 evaluable patients was 87%, including 58% CRs. The 5-year time to progression and overall survival rates of 56% and 44%, respectively, were encouraging. Following this favorable experience, a phase III trial was launched that compared standard PF with PF (using a 5-FU dose of 500 mg/m2/d) plus paclitaxel at 175 mg/m2 for the induction chemotherapy of head and neck cancer. Preliminary results favored the triple combination, and updated results of this study are pending. Finally, a dose-dense cisplatin/5-FU/ paclitaxel regimen, with cycles repeated every 2 weeks, was studied by the same group in patients with recurrent or unresectable head and neck cancer.[ 88] The activity was very promising (ORR of 83% in recurrent patients and 91% in unresectable disease patients), and toxicities were acceptable: grade 4 neutropenia occurred in one patient (3%) but led to sepsis and death; grade 3/4 mucositis in five patients (15%); and grade 3 neuropathy in one patient (3%).
• Platinum/Paclitaxel Plus Ifosfamide—The combination of a platinum (carboplatin or cisplatin), paclitaxel, and ifosfamide showed impressive antitumor activity (ORR: 58%-59%, CR rate: 17%) in patients with recurrent/metastatic head and neck cancer in two consecutive phase II trials at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.[89,90] Given these promising results, Shin et al conducted a trial of carboplatin/ paclitaxel/ifosfamide as induction therapy in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer. The induction regimen consisted of paclitaxel at 175 mg/m2 on day 1, ifosfamide at 1,000 mg/m2 as a 2-hour infusion on days 1 to 3 with mesna(Drug information on mesna), and carboplatin at an AUC of 6 on day 1, repeated every 3 to 4 weeks. Patients achieving an objective response after the first two cycles of induction chemotherapy received two additional cycles (ie, a total of four). Of 52 evaluable patients, 31% had a CR and 50%, a partial response (ORR: 81%). Five patients (9%) developed neutropenic fever. Grade 3/4 thrombocytopenia and anemia occurred in three (6%) and four (7%) patients, respectively. Grade 3/4 fatigue developed in four patients (7%), arthralgia/ myalgia in two (4%), peripheral neuropathy in two (4%), and one patient died of an anaphylactic reaction. Khuri et al used paclitaxel/ifosfamide/ cisplatin as sole therapy for selected patients with intermediate-stage (T2-T4, N0/N1) supraglottic or glottic laryngeal cancer that was deemed potentially resectable by conservation laryngeal surgery. The study regimen consisted of paclitaxel at 175 mg/ m2 on day 1, ifosfamide at 1,000 mg/ m2 as a 2-hour infusion on days 1 to 3 with mesna, and cisplatin at 60 mg/m2 on day 1. After three cycles of paclitaxel/ ifosfamide/cisplatin, patients achieving a partial response proceeded to surgery, whereas patients achieving a pathologic CR received an additional three cycles of chemotherapy and no local treatment. Updated results with a median follow- up of 36 months were recently presented. In a total of 29 patients who were treated on study, 11 (38%) achieved a CR, 9 of whom have remained disease-free without locoregional therapy (median followup: 36 months), and 18 (62%) had a partial response. Overall, the results with platinum/paclitaxel/ifosfamide are favorable but represent single-institutional experience. The contribution of ifosfamide in the activity of these regimens is difficult to discern.
• Cisplatin/Docetaxel-Based Combinations—Docetaxel has shown high levels of activity as a single agent and in combination regimens in head and neck cancer. Cisplatin and docetaxel have been combined in phase II trials in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer with overall response rates between 33% and 54%.[93-95] This is at least comparable to the activity of cisplatin/ 5-FU and cisplatin/paclitaxel in the recurrent/metastatic disease setting. The combination of cisplatin and docetaxel is well tolerated even in the palliative care setting. The US Food and Drug Administration approved cisplatin/ docetaxel for first-line therapy of metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. The commonly used doses are 75 mg/m2 for each drug on day 1. This regimen is associated with acceptable toxicities, including about a 5% incidence of febrile neutropenia. There has been limited experience with cisplatin/docetaxel as induction chemotherapy for locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer. The EORTC conducted a phase II trial of docetaxel, 100 mg/m2, followed by cisplatin, 75 mg/m2, both administered on day 1 and repeated every 3 weeks, without prophylactic colony-stimulating factor support. In a subgroup of 18 patients with chemotherapy- naive locally advanced or recurrent head and neck cancer without distant metastasis, the regimen showed substantial activity with an ORR of 89%. Another phase II trial of cisplatin/docetaxel in patients with locally advanced unresectable squamous cell head and neck cancer reported a lower response rate of 55% (30% CR rate) in 37 evaluable patients.[ 97] Finally, preliminary results have been reported from a randomized phase II trial of docetaxel, 85 mg/m2 on day 1, plus cisplatin, 40 mg/m2 on days 1 to 2 vs standard PF in patients with stage III/IV squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, or larynx. Both regimens were repeated every 3 weeks to a maximum of four cycles. Objective response rates were comparable between the two treatment arms (ORR/ CR rate: 69%/15% for docetaxel/cisplatin vs 71%/12% for PF). However,the toxicity profile of the two regimens was different. Docetaxel/cisplatin resulted in a higher rate of grade 3/4 neutropenia but less frequent grade 3/4 mucositis and nausea/vomiting.
• Cisplatin/5-FU/Docetaxel—Docetaxel-With the goal of improving the efficacy of PF, many groups have studied the addition of docetaxel to the combination (TPF), and in some cases, the addition of leucovorin (TPFL), in a number of phase I and II trials (Table 7).[99-104] Locoregional therapy varied considerably among these studies. Efficacy results have been very promising. When examined collectively, these trials showed that TPF or TPFL produced 2-year survival rates of 42% to 82% and ORRs that ranged from 71% to 100%. The predominant severe toxicities encountered with TPF are hematologic, with grade 3/4 neutropenia seen in 83% to 95% of patients, resulting in neutropenic fever in 16% to 19%, and grade 3/4 stomatitis in 17% to 30%.[99,101] Treatment-related deaths occurred rarely (0%-4%).[99,101] As expected, toxicities were more pronounced when each drug in the regimen was administered in full doses. On the basis of encouraging efficacy results, two phase III randomized trials comparing TPF with standard PF have been conducted, one of which, conducted by the EORTC, recently re- ported results. This study, presented by Vermorken et al, randomized 358 patients with unresectable head and neck cancer to receive one of two induction regimens: (1) cisplatin at 75 mg/m2 on day 1, 5-FU at 750 mg/ m2 continuous infusion * 5 days, and docetaxel at 75 mg/m2 on day 1, with prophylactic ciprofloxacin(Drug information on ciprofloxacin), or (2) standard PF (cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 on day 1, 5-FU at 1,000 mg/m2 continuous infusion * 5 days). Induction chemotherapy was followed by single-modality radiation therapy (various fractionation schemes allowed) in both arms. TPF proved superior to PF in terms of ORR (68% vs 54%, P = .007), progression- free survival (HR = 0.72; 95% CI = 0.56-0.91), and overall survival (HR = 0.73; 95% CI = 0.57- 0.94). The triplet regimen was generally better tolerated, as it resulted in lower rates of severe nausea/ vomiting and mucositis, apparently due to the use of lower doses of cisplatin and 5-FU in this regimen compared with standard PF. A second randomized trial of TPF (TAX 324) is using somewhat different dosages for cisplatin/5-FU: cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 and 5-FU at 1,000 mg/m2 as a 4-day infusion. Patients in both arms subsequently receive radiation plus weekly carboplatin. Planned randomized trials of chemoradiotherapy with or without induction chemotherapy from the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will be employing variants of TPF as induction chemotherapy in the experimental arm.
Induction Chemotherapy for Organ Preservation
A major goal of nonsurgical therapy is to achieve organ preservation in patients with resectable head and neck tumors. The avoidance of laryngectomy is the best example of an organpreservation goal. Three randomized trials that included about 600 patients with locally advanced but resectable laryngeal or hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma have compared induction chemotherapy followed by radiation therapy with surgery that included laryngectomy followed by radiation therapy.[41,42,106] A meta-analysis showed a nonsignificant trend toward worse local control (12% vs 25%) and overall survival (39% vs 45% at 5 years) with the nonsurgical approach.[18,107] There was significant heterogeneity among the three trials; moreover, one of them had a small sample size (< 70), which limited the interpretation of meta-analysis results. Induction chemotherapy may decrease the rate of mutilating surgery for other sites, such as the oral cavity, as shown in a randomized trial by Licitra et al. In laryngeal cancer, a subsequent trial to the VA laryngeal study three-arm trial (which contained no surgical arm) showed that optimal laryngeal preservation is achieved with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Patients with resectable stage III/IV laryngeal cancer were randomly assigned to one of three arms: (1) the laryngealpreservation strategy used in the VA laryngeal study, consisting of induction chemotherapy with three cycles of cisplatin and 5-FU, followed by radiotherapy for responders, (2) radiation plus concurrent cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 administered every 3 weeks, or (3) radiation alone. Locoregional control (78% vs 61%, P = .003) and laryngealpreservation rates were superior with concurrent chemoradiotherapy vs induction chemotherapy (84% vs 72%, P = .005). An advantage in overall survival could not be demonstrated with the use of chemotherapy, despite a decrease in the rate of distant metastasis in the two chemotherapy arms. Based on the results of this study, concurrent chemoradiotherapy emerged as the preferred strategy to achieve organ preservation in laryngeal cancer. This may hold true for other primary sites as well.
Planned Randomized Trials of Induction Chemotherapy
The feasibility of platinum-based induction chemotherapy followed by chemotherapy given concurrently with radiotherapy has been demonstrated in multiple clinical trials (see Table 8), [78,79,81,82,84,87,108] and many groups are launching phase III trials of induction chemotherapy. The general schema of these trials is shown in Figure 2. The control arm consists of concurrent chemoradiotherapy, but regimens and eligibility criteria vary considerably. For example, SWOG is planning a trial in resectable oropharyngeal cancer with cisplatin plus standard radiation as the control arm and cisplatin/ docetaxel/5-FU followed by cisplatin plus standard radiation as the experimental arm. Based on their observations with the T-FHX regimen (paclitaxel, 5-FU, hydroxyurea, and hyperfractionated radiation),[78,79] Vokes et al at the University of Chicago will enroll patients with advanced N-stage disease and will use TPF as the induction regimen; both arms will receive concurrent chemoradiotherapy with docetaxel, 5-FU, hydroxyurea, and hyperfractionated radiation. Finally, Posner and colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute designed a phase III trial in which the control arm will be cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 for two cycles plus accelerated boost radiotherapy-based on the phase II Radiation Therapy Oncology Group experience-and the experimental arm will be cisplatin/5-FU/ docetaxel for three cycles, based on the Dana-Farber experience, followed by radiation plus chemotherapy. The concomitant chemoradiotherapy regimen in the experimental arm is determined according to the response to induction chemotherapy: Patients who achieve a CR will receive conventional radiation plus carboplatin, but patients with less than a CR will receive a more aggressive regimen with accelerated concomitant boost radiotherapy plus docetaxel.
Induction chemotherapy remains experimental in head and neck cancer. It is likely that certain patient groups derive benefit from induction chemotherapy, but this has yet to be proven in randomized trials. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy has evolved as a standard primary or postoperative treatment in locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer. With the evolution of standard therapy for locoregionally advanced squamous cell head and neck cancer, the role of induction chemotherapy needs to be revisited. It is postulated that induction chemotherapy may optimize disease control by eradication of locoregional and distant micrometastasis. Distant control is particularly important in the setting of improved locoregional control rates seen with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Our review identified several active combination regimens in head and neck cancer. Cisplatin/5-FU, which has long been a standard for induction chemotherapy, is being surpassed by platinum/ taxane-based combinations. Carboplatin/paclitaxel appears to be better tolerated than PF and achieves similar response rates, although no randomized study has yet compared the two regimens. On the other hand, carboplatin/ 5-FU has proven inferior to cisplatin/ 5-FU. Docetaxel is another taxane with promising activity in head and neck cancer. The triple combination of taxane/cisplatin/5-FU was shown to be superior to cisplatin/5-FU in two randomized trials; results of a third study are pending. For many authors, docetaxel/cisplatin/5-FU is an emerging standard for induction chemotherapy. With newer, more effective systemic therapies, the rationale for revisiting the role of induction therapy is strengthened. Currently, a number of randomized trials are being designed to define the role of induction chemotherapy in head and neck cancer when the primary treatment is concurrent chemoradiotherapy. These trials are of major importance for the evolution of head and neck cancer therapeutics. Finally, platinum/taxane combinations may be good platform regimens with which to investigate the addition of novel therapeutics in head and neck cancer, including molecular-targeted therapies such as inhibitors of epidermal growth factor receptor. Such clinical studies are expected to attract the interest of investigators in the coming years.
Financial Disclosure: The authors have no significant financial interest or other relationship with the manufacturers of any products or providers of any service mentioned in this article. | <urn:uuid:f368909e-d5da-47e7-81da-ffba9bb62cdd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cancernetwork.com/head-and-neck-cancer/content/article/10165/106138 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933149 | 8,852 | 1.789063 | 2 |
S: GOING TO GRANDMA'S
FC: GOING TO GRANDMA'S
1: A Christmas To Remember...
2: Merry Christmas Grandma! We are on our way! We Love You!
3: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
7: Holiday Memories Warm Even The Coldest Of Days
9: Some of the Bowling Boys having Bowing fun at Christmas!
11: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping on your nose, Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, And folks dressed up like Eskimos. Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe, Help to make the season bright. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, Will find it hard to sleep tonight. They know that Santa's on his way; He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh. And every mother's child is going to spy, To see if reindeer really know how to fly. And so I'm offering this simple phrase, To kids from one to ninety-two, Although its been said many times, many ways, A very Merry Christmas to you
13: Opening gifts at Grandma's house. What number are you this year?
14: All I want for Christmas is ...
19: Although it's been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!
21: "And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, How could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." ~ Dr. Seuss
22: May all your Christmas dreams come true
23: Then and Now, the true gifts of Christmas are Peace, Joy and Love | <urn:uuid:1c94146c-aa0b-407d-b0d4-36f72e1d0bac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/holiday/merry-christmas-2-4641547 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962661 | 425 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Several days ago, I created a follow-up to my previous post, More Google Virgins!. Like the original post, it contained startling new revelations based on phrases that don’t appear in a Google search. The title of the post was, “Kraft Does Not Make Real Food.” This carefully researched statement was based on the fact that, according to Google, no one has ever posted the phrase, “Kraft makes real food” on line. Not even Kraft itself, one of the largest food manufacturers in the world, has ever claimed that its food is real.
I was about to add the finishing touch to my new post – a dire warning about the takeover of the Earth by mollusks (“Mollusks are not taking over the world,” doesn’t exist on line), when I discovered that my new post had mysteriously vanished. Now, some might say that I either never saved the draft of the post or that I was using a faulty computer that appeared to be clicking on “save draft” but was, in fact, doing nothing. I, however choose to believe that Kraft Foods has taken down my post. Come to think of it, they have probably taken down ALL anti-Kraft posts. You want evidence of this? None of the following phrases appear on line outside of this very post:
“I know the truth about Kraft”
“Stop Kraft from destroying the world”
“Not on only did Kraft control the mid-term elections, but it is also turning my own belly button against me.”
Now, I’m a reasonable gender-specified person, so I will concede the possibility that no one ever made these claims on line. But, the fact that the phrase, “Kraft has never done anything wrong” doesn’t appear on line leads me to believe they have something to hide. To be sure of this, I checked, and “Kraft has nothing to hide” also does not appear on line.
But, before you spend your brief life (I shall explain just how brief in a minute) trying to expose the truth about Kraft Foods, consider these other dangers:
The phrase, “The moon is not crashing to Earth,” does not appear on line. Apparently no scientist is willing to make that claim. No one has even typed, “The moon poses no danger,” or “The moon will not kill you.” Therefore it will.
So, how soon will the moon kill you, you may wonder? Well, I checked. The assertion, “All readers of the Daisybrain blog will not die in the next five minutes,” has never been made by anyone on line. Goodbye.
And now for something completely similar:
(touch the daisy) | <urn:uuid:4ff25144-300d-44fa-8e3e-f27f7e322849> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/mollusks-are-taking-over-the-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964153 | 593 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said he will boycott an event in protest at sharing a stage with Tony Blair, former British prime minister, over his "morally indefensible" support of the US-led Iraq invasion.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate decided to withdraw as a speaker on Tuesday at a one-day leadership summit in Johannesburg on Thursday after "wrestling with his conscience and taking counsel", his office told organisers.
"Ultimately, the archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible," Tutu's office wrote to organisers.
Blair's office said he was "sorry" the Archbishop had decided to pull out.
"Obviously Tony Blair is sorry that the archbishop has decided to pull out now from an event that has been fixed for months and where he and the archbishop were never actually sharing a platform," his office said in a statement.
Blair's office acknowledged the pair's different approaches to Saddam Hussein's regime.
"As far as Iraq is concerned, they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force. Such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy," Blair's office said.
The US-led coalition overthrew the Iraqi leader in 2003 in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced many more.
Blair is the final guest speaker at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit whose organisers expressed regret at Tutu's "unexpected" withdrawal, saying his contribution would have been invaluable.
"At no point had Archbishop Tutu indicated his discomfort at speaking at the same conference as Prime Minister Blair and therefore his withdrawal was unexpected," Hylton Kallner, Discovery's chief marketing officer, said.
Other speakers at the summit include Garry Kasparov, former chess grandmaster and opposition Russian politician. | <urn:uuid:ddc4f341-07be-4c05-8eb7-a360c29c3764> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/08/20128295214839374.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987793 | 390 | 1.710938 | 2 |
“For his 1920 Dada sculpture, ‘Nature Morte: Portrait of Cézanne/Portrait of Renoir/Portrait of Rembrandt,’ Picabia attached a stuffed monkey to a wooden board and crudely painted the title around it. Painting is old-fashioned and silly, he seemed to be saying. Yet he kept painting.”
Harry Swartz-Turfle, “Francis Picabia’s Style Problem”*
by Linda Wysong
Free is a fascinating exhibition at the New Museum in New York that looks at digital space as public space and explores how artists are using the virtual town square. It is an expansive group show that brings together a broad cross section of artists and approaches. The point of departure is “Dispersion,” an essay by artist Seth Price, in which he notes, “Collective experience is now based on simultaneous private experiences, distributed across the field of media culture, knit together by ongoing debate, publicity, promotion, and discussion.”
Anna Von Mertens’s Portraits reflect a desire to research and incorporate modes of knowledge (i.e. the pseudoscience of the aura) into an art historical context in a way that makes canonical knowledge and this pseudoscientific knowledge seem equally absurd and oddly co-dependent. …
Carlos Gonzalez’ compelling performance 4More at Appendix Space last night was about proximity and distance both literally and metaphorically. In four acts, Gonzalez silently drew a capacity audience into (again both literally and metaphorically) a strong performance work that addressed shared experience, the distance(s) between us, public and private space (how we carve it out and how we use it), and an aspect of the artist’s identity at an oblique angle. | <urn:uuid:8e02f06e-4e19-4870-b39b-5830ebda0d67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ultrapdx.com/zero/page/5/ | 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 | 0.941515 | 375 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A deep faith in God is the cornerstone of LeTourneau University. We believe that no education is complete until a student understands who God is and how to relate to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. This belief influences all that we do and teach. While we believe that everyone must have the freedom to interpret God’s truth individually, LeTourneau University recognizes certain basic tenets of the Christian faith.
We believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the only inspired, authoritative Word of God and are completely truthful and without error. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary and is true God and true man. We believe that man, created in the image of God, sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is separation from God; that all human beings are born with a sinful nature, and that those who reach moral responsibility become sinners in thought, word and deed.
We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice and that all who believe in Him are justified on the basis of His shed blood. We believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, in His ascension into Heaven and His present life there for us as High Priest Advocate. We believe in “ that blessed hope”—the personal, visible and imminent return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We believe that all who receive by faith the Lord Jesus Christ are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God; by Grace are we saved through faith. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and unjust, the everlasting blessedness of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the lost.
LeTourneau University is committed to educational studies within the framework of a Christian theistic view of the world, of man and of man’s culture in the light of biblical and natural revelation. Such a view sees no dichotomy in truth, affirms that biblical revelation and scientific inquiry are complementary rather than contradictory and requires a recognition of a personal God revealed both in nature and in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son. Thus, all truth is regarded as God-given and is considered sacred. It should be pursued with diligence and received with humility | <urn:uuid:b6e01ef3-d0cc-488c-8d0e-fdb978f2cf55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://letu.edu/opencms/opencms/_Other-Resources/_Community-and-Media/about-letourneau/faith.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958538 | 490 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Making Mistakes and Poor Decisions Because of Old Risk Information
The other day, I was working on an article about assessing risk management and looked to the COSO ERM Framework for quotes. Specifically, I looked at the Executive Summary for language concerning the need for decisions to be based on timely, current, and reliable information about risks. I found these excellent observations:
- “Value is created, preserved or eroded by management decisions ranging from strategy setting to operating the enterprise day-to-day. Inherent in decisions is recognition of risk and opportunity, requiring that management considers information about internal and external environments, deploys precious resources and recalibrates enterprise activities to changing circumstances.”
- “In sum, it helps an entity get to where it wants to go and avoid pitfalls and surprises along the way.”
- “Enterprise risk management considers activities at all levels of the organization, from enterprise-level activities such as strategic planning and resource allocation, to business unit activities such as marketing and human resources, to business processes such as production and new customer credit review.”
Unfortunately, I was looking at a draft of the Executive Summary and only the second of these three survived the process of cutting down what was a 21-page summary to a much shorter final document.
I contacted some of the principals involved in producing the 2004 Framework. I asked whether they agreed with me that perhaps the omission in the Summary contributed to an omission in understanding that risk management must be continual, not a periodic event.
The consensus was that one of the most critical aspects of risk management is providing timely information so that intelligent decisions can be made. They also agreed that if the omission in the Summary had led people to believe that risk management meant taking the top risks and assessing them periodically, those people were mistaken. That is not risk management (per the intent of COSO).
Rick Steinberg, who is a former partner with PwC and is one of the primary authors of COSO ERM, told me: “I for one have joined you in working over the years to convince many that looking at the top 10 or 20 risks is a far cry from ERM.” Jim DeLoach, a managing director for Protiviti and a member of the Project Advisory Committee when the Framework was developed said: “ERM is much more dynamic than maintaining a list of risks.” (By the way, I love an expression coined by Jim to describe the practice of managing top risks on a periodic basis: he calls it ‘enterprise list management’.
If you look at the other primary risk management guide, the ISO 31000:2009 Standard, the linkage between risk management and effective decision-making is even clearer. For example:
- The Introduction to the Standard says that “the management of risk enables an organization to… establish a reliable basis for decision making and planning.”
- The Principles for effective risk management include:
- “Risk management is part of decision-making”, and
- “Risk management is dynamic, iterative, and responsive to change.”
Other risk management experts say it well. Grant Purdy chaired the group that developed Australia/New Zealand’s highly-regarded risk management standard 4360, and represented Australia in the working group responsible for ISO 31000:2009. He told me that “Risk management, like strategic management, must be dynamic and responsive. Annual or bi-annual risk assessments are just catching up exercises. Risk assessment as part of the management of changes (external and internal) is required.”
Felix Kloman is one of the most respected sages of risk management. His view is “managing risk is a continuous exercise, not a sporadic one. Daily, even hourly, we are cautioned to consider the effect on ourselves and our organizations of the changes, large and small that occur.”
I have twice served as risk officer for a large, global corporation. The first time, I was responsible for starting the risk management program; the second time, I came into a program that was relatively well established. However, both relied on Excel for documenting risk assessments, identifying risk treatments (including controls and action items to reduce risks), and tracking completion of action items. I never want to do that again!
I probably spent 20-30% of the total time allocated to risk management (I also led the internal audit function) just making Excel work for me – updating information, consolidating assessments of the same risk from different managers, and producing reports for executive management and the board. (Other risk officers tell me they have similar experiences.) More of my time was consumed in calls and meetings to obtain updates on risk assessments and action items. I could scarcely afford that amount of time and, frankly, it held me back from making the desired progress in maturing the risk management program.
I was sold on acquiring risk management software, and was well along that path when Business Objects was acquired by SAP and I moved into my current role.
In hindsight, the product I was going to buy was not the right software. I now recognize that the value of risk management is not just in understanding and assessing risk periodically, and then ensuring that the risks are managed within tolerance, but in providing risk-related information to support intelligent decisions across the enterprise.
My criteria for a risk management product (and these also apply if you are looking at solutions for risk and compliance – what some call a GRC platform or enterprise GRC solution) include:
- The ability to gather, update, and share risk information on a continuous basis (including sharing with decision makers). Risk owners can update risk levels and other risk attributes as often as risks change. Decision makers can obtain risk information as needed, drill down into detail as needed, and explore scenarios to determine how risks might affect their various choices.
- Automated monitoring of risk drivers and updating of key risk indicators. This is critical, increasing the timeliness of risk information and enabling risk-intelligent decisions. I would need to be convinced that there is sufficient integration with other enterprise applications (including ERP) or enterprise business intelligence applications, to support continuous risk monitoring.
- Workflow to:
- Remind risk owners to review and update risk information if they have not done so recently, and
- Notify owners of action items that their attention is needed to complete assigned tasks, together with the ability to identify past-due items for follow-up (again through workflow) and reporting.
- The ability to provide risk information to the right people, at the right time, wherever they are. I want to understand how the software will enable an executive to review risk information while he is literally making a decision on the run – while he is waiting at the airport in Singapore for his next flight.
- The future. Risk management, in time, needs to be built into routine business processes if it is to be part of the fabric of the culture and of decision making. While most software is stand-alone, I want to understand how risk management capabilities will be integrated with business processes for vendor selection, customer sales pricing, inventory management decisions, and more. I recognize that this is the future rather than the present for risk management, but I want to buy software that will develop with me over time and provide this functionality.
Do these products exist? Are there reputable vendors who I expect will remain committed to this space for the long term? I believe the answer to both is “yes”.
Do you agree with the above, including my criteria for selecting risk management (or GRC) solutions? Your comments are welcome.
For more on this topic, see my separate post.
Posted on Mar 22, 2011 by Norman Marks
Share This Article: | <urn:uuid:826fd804-0ad2-4d54-921d-d5752553480a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theiia.org/blogs/Marks/index.cfm/post/Making%20Mistakes%20and%20Poor%20Decisions%20Because%20of%20Old%20Risk%20Information | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963323 | 1,606 | 1.804688 | 2 |
By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) — Political scientist James Q. Wilson, whose "broken windows" theory on crime-fighting helped trigger a nationwide move toward community policing, died Friday at a Boston hospital. He was 80.
A hospital spokeswoman said Wilson died at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Wilson was being treated for leukemia, according to Peter Skerry, a family friend and Boston College political science professor.
Wilson wrote or co-authored more than a dozen books on various topics, but his study of police work and the importance of quickly attacking even small signs of disorder have resonated for decades. He was a distinguished scholar in Boston College's political science department at the time of his death.
The ideas in his 1982 "Broken Windows" article in The Atlantic influenced successful community policing efforts in cities including New York and Los Angeles. Last month, Detroit announced it was beginning its own initiative.
"He's just clearly one of the foremost social scientists of the second half of the 20th century," Skerry said. "He was a very on-the-ground kind of scholar and brought a great insight and common sense to things."
Wilson and co-author George L. Kelling argued in The Atlantic article that communities must address minor crimes and their effects, such as broken windows, to prevent larger problems from developing.
"I think Jim and I caught a wind," Kelling said in an interview Friday. "Up until that time in policing, nothing seemed to work. ... By the late '70s, policing was kind of looking for a new approach and community policing was kind of on the horizon, although not yet being really articulated."
Kelling said the article instantly resonated with law enforcement and also caught the general public's attention because the "broken windows" metaphor was so effective.
"That was pure Wilson," said Kelling, now a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. "The thing about a metaphor is it takes a complex thing and simplifies it and makes it readily graspable."
The article was based on firsthand research — Kelling walked the beat alongside Newark, N.J., police during the 1970s — as well as the work of other scientists. In it, Wilson and Kelling argued that policing had historically been about maintaining order, but had become overly focused on solving serious crimes.
Police had shied away from walking patrols, becoming walled-off in cruisers and paying little attention to minor offenses in communities that created a sense of disorder, such as breaking windows, they said.
They argued the crime of vandalism wasn't as damaging as the message the broken window sent about the community, leading to more serious crimes there.
"Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing," they wrote.
The article concluded, "Police ought to protect communities as well as individuals. ... Just as physicians now recognize the importance of fostering health rather than simply treating illness, so the police — and the rest of us — ought to recognize the importance of maintaining, intact, communities without broken windows."
Police and politicians responded in subsequent years with changed tactics to crack down on minor offenses and bring officers closer to communities and their problems. In the New York subway system, for instance, police cracked down on so-called minor offenses such on graffiti, panhandling and fare jumping and saw dramatic improvements in perception of public safety.
William Bratton, former New York City police commissioner and Los Angeles police chief, said police need more than a "broken windows" strategy to prevent more serious crime, but the success he's seen in cities where he worked wouldn't have happened without it.
"It could not have been done without using broken windows as almost the linchpin strategy," said Bratton, now chairman of Kroll, Inc., a risk management company. | <urn:uuid:0be8392e-e501-4c30-847e-5a6397ea9bbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2012/03/02/co-author-of-broken-windows-policing-theory-dies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979618 | 828 | 1.742188 | 2 |
There was a time, not too long ago, when computer numerical controls were notoriously closed and proprietary. Adapting or upgrading an existing CNC was difficult. It may be a sign of how much control technology has changed that one major supplier now offers a range of options for upgrading not just its own CNCs, but other CNCs as well.
Jim Spearman, manager of machine tool solutions for GE Fanuc Automation (Charlottesville, Virginia), says that his company is focusing more of its attention on products aimed at the end users of existing controls. While the new CNCs it offers to machine tool OEMs continue to improve, end users will represent a growing share of the company’s business. Products for this market include “Black Box” add-ons that equip existing controls with new capabilities.
One example is the “iAdapt” Black Box, which adds adaptive feed rate control. When the user of this capability specifies a target spindle load, the system adjusts the machine’s feed rate on the fly in order to maintain that load. Even if a CNC already has some sort of adaptive load monitoring, this Black Box might do the job better. As a stand-alone unit, it can sample the load and compensate within a period smaller than 4 milliseconds—faster than what many CNCs can manage. As shops run at faster feed rates, says Mr. Spearman, this faster sampling speed becomes more important for smooth control. The capability can be added to any CNC, whether from GE Fanuc or from another company, that meets certain basic requirements.
Probing is another capability that can be added to a range of CNCs. Yet another system also available for add-on is the company’s “iCellOEE,” in which “OEE” stands for overall equipment effectiveness.
This latter system collects information on machine availability, performance and quality. The system continuously tracks machine uptime, cycle times, setup times, stoppages, part yields and other process characteristics, with the data plotted automatically to illustrate trends. Reports can be viewed both at the control and on the Web.
Practically any control can take advantage of this data-gathering capability, Mr. Spearman says. When the system is used with GE Fanuc Ethernet or High Speed Serial Communications, however, advanced capabilities are available. They include NC file management, remote diagnostics and remote viewing of the CNC display.blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:4704245f-02de-4008-b4c1-590b72631b4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/expanding-capabilities-for-existing-controls | 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 | 0.940414 | 514 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Nuttx is a real-time embedded operating system (RTOS). It has a small footprint that is usable in micro-controller environments. It is fully scalable from tiny (8-bit) to moderate embedded (32-bit) systems. It also aims to be fully compliant to standards, to be fully real time, and to be totally open.
NXWidgets is a graphical user interface package for the NuttX RTOS. It integrates seamlessly with the NuttX NX graphics subsystem in order to provide graphic objects, or "widgets". It is written entirely in C++ using only selected "embedded friendly" C++ constructs which are fully supported under NuttX. No additional C++ support libraries are required. It is tailored for use with MCUs in embedded applications. It is ideally suited for the mid-to-upper range of most MCU families. It will work on high-end frame buffer devices as well as on LCDs connected via serial or parallel ports to a small MCU. It will accept position and selection inputs from a mouse or a touchscreen. It will also support character input from a keyboard such as a USB keyboard. It supports a special widget called CKeypad which provides keyboard input via an on-screen keypad which can be operated via a mouse or touchscreen inputs. Some of the graphic objects supported by NXWidgets include labels, buttons, text boxes, button arrays, check boxes, cycle buttons, images, sliders, scrollable list boxes, and progress bars. | <urn:uuid:767f8661-bc05-4e18-9ce2-e268b0accecf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freecode.com/users/spudmonkey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935105 | 311 | 1.554688 | 2 |
SMITHFIELD-- The nurse's office at Carrollton Elementary School in Smithfield has seen a flurry of activity this week.
On Monday, Isle of Wight spokeswoman Kenita Bowers reported that of the 560 kids that attend, 140 children were absent due to illness. That's not including the staff.
Bowers says that out of the nine schools in their county, Carrollton is the worst.
13News asked for comment from the principal but he and his daughter are at home sick too.
The principal has been emailing parents, warning them of the pandemic of sickness going through his school.
An extra janitorial crew was cleaning every surface of the school Wednesday with a special certified cleaner from the department of health.
CHKD specialist in infectious diseases Dr. Randall Fisher says the virus that is affecting people's stomachs and the influenza virus are two different illnesses.
Fisher says there's no such thing as the stomach flu.
The Virginia Health Department reports that smaller children are most affected right now with illnesses such as RSV and the flu. | <urn:uuid:e4880d3a-f003-4252-bd7d-a634070c242d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvec.com/video/featured-videos/Isle-of-Wight-school-face-pandemic-183227161.html?ref=prev | 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 | 0.97906 | 219 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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That’s a Paddlin’ is a catchphrase, first spoken by Jasper Beardly, from the animated sitcom The Simpsons. The phrase is used as a template for making fun of strict rules, often captioned on an image of Jasper.
The clip originally came from the Season 6 episode The PTA Disbands, in which the teaching staff at Springfield Elementary goes on strike, leading Principal Skinner to look for voluntary substitute teachers from the community, including local senior Jasper Beardly. Jasper proceeds to meticulously lay out his master disciplinary plan:
“Talkin’ out of turn? That’s a paddlin’. Lookin’ out the window? That’s a paddlin’. Starin’ at my sandals? That’s a paddlin’. Paddlin’ the school canoe? Oh, you better believe that’s a paddlin’.”
Usage and Spread
The phrase was originally intended to comment on corporal punishment in schools, something frequently associated with older generations. But, it quickly turned into a series of image macros and response fads. An action or idea would be questioned, followed by, “That’s a paddlin’.” Online, the phrase is often used to facetiously comment on authority and rules, as well as for pure humour. The action of “Paddlin’” has come to be closely associated with Jasper’s image.
The phrase has gained popularity on online forums, consistent with other Simpsons derivatives.
Search interest for the phrase has remained relatively constant since the start of 2011. | <urn:uuid:f99c9ccf-fe16-4e1b-8c9e-64be3a2a072a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thats-a-paddlin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939324 | 437 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Anti-Dumping Measures on Cement from Mexico
|Short Title:||US — Anti-Dumping Measures on Cement|
|Third Parties:||Canada; China; Chinese Taipei; European Communities; Japan;|
|Link to Dispute Site:||http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds281_e.htm|
|Dispute Subject(s):||Anti-dumping Measures; Cement;|
On 3 February 2003, Mexico requested consultations with the US concerning several antidumping measures imposed by the US on imports of Gray Portland cement and cement clinker from Mexico, including:
* the final determinations in several administrative and sunset reviews;
* the US authorities' determination regarding the continuation of the antidumping orders; and
* the US authorities' rejection of a request by Mexican producers to initiate an administrative review based on changed circumstances as well as.
In addition to the above measures, Mexico's request included a number of laws, regulations and administrative practices (such as "zeroing") used by the US authorities in the above determinations. Mexico considered that the above antidumping measures are incompatible with Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 18 of the Antidumping Agreement, Articles III, VI and X of the GATT 1994 and Article XVI:4 of the WTO Agreement.
On 29 July 2003, Mexico requested the establishment of a panel. At its meeting on 18 August 2003, the DSB deferred the establishment of a panel. Further to a second request to establish a panel by Mexico, the DSB established a panel at its meeting on 29 August 2003. China, the EC, Japan and Chinese Taipei reserved their third-party rights. On 5 September 2003, Canada reserved its third-party rights.
On 24 August 2004, Mexico requested the Director-General to compose the panel. On 3 September 2004, the Director-General composed the panel.
On 1 March 2005, the Chairman of the Panel informed the DSB that it would not be able to complete its work in six months, inter alia due to the large number of claims involved, the complexity of the issues and certain postponements in the Panel's timetable and that the Panel hoped to complete its work by the end of October 2005. On 3 October 2005, the Panel informed the DSB that due to its continued consideration of the issues in this dispute, it would not be possible for the Panel to complete its work by the end of October, and that the Panel expected to complete its work in January 2006.
On 16 January 2006, the Chairman of the Panel informed the DSB that in the context of negotiations to find a mutually acceptable solution to this dispute, Mexico had requested the Panel to suspend its proceedings, in accordance with Article 12.12 of the DSU, until further notice. The Panel agreed to this request. Since the Panel was not requested to resume its work, pursuant to Article 12.12 of the DSU, the authority for establishment of the panel lapsed as of 14 January 2007.
On 16 May 2007, the United States and Mexico notified the DSB of a mutually agreed solution under Article 3.6 of the DSU. The mutually agreed solution was in the form of an agreement between the United States and Mexico, dated 6 March 2006 (the "Trade in Cement Agreement"). The Trade in Cement Agreement makes possible increased imports of Mexican cement, encourages US cement exports to Mexico, and settles outstanding litigation relating to the US anti-dumping order on Mexican cement. The Agreement also provides for the anti-dumping order to be revoked as of 1 February 2009. | <urn:uuid:eeb74dd7-b1fc-45ce-a251-44f00d190cba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ustr.gov/trade-topics/enforcement/dispute-settlement-proceedings/wto-dispute-settlement/anti-dumping-measure-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950209 | 766 | 1.65625 | 2 |
wtompepper wrote:Jnana: Your really think that TNH has the "party line" on all Mahayana Buddhism? Are you honestly not aware of how unusual his position is?
Calling me stupid and ignorant over and over, this is true Buddhism? You post something I wrote just to insult me angrily for days, and then say I am angry and not a real Buddhist? I'll stick with my non-buddhism, thanks.
This is a very depressing forum. I honestly hope some of you learn something about Buddhism someday, and get over your childish, ignorant anger.
wtompepper wrote:duckfiasco: I am not suggesting my speech might have been the cause of someone's suffering or anger--but I would not consider that unskillful. If the truth makes someone angry, or makes them suffer, then they should take their anger at the truth as an opportunity to see their delusions. Buddhist teaching has not usually meant saying only nice happy things even if it means encouraging delusion--that is a very modern very western idea of Buddhism. The "projection" I am referring to is the assumption that anyone who thinks is angry--if you think that thought always means anger, it might be worth considering what it is about thought that makes you so angry, what truth you are avoiding that thought might reveal to you.
Remember that arrogance does not mean being right, arrogance means refusing to consider evidence that you are wrong.
wtompepper wrote:Jnana: Your really think that TNH has the "party line" on all Mahayana Buddhism?
wtompepper wrote:Calling me stupid and ignorant over and over....
wtompepper wrote:I'll stick with my non-buddhism, thanks.
wtompepper wrote:Yes, zenkarma, it is in sense paying less attention to the sensory, or at least not limiting ourselves to it, not assuming it is a clear and true perception. We must analyze our immediate perceptions to discover how they arise, what conditions them. This is not uncommon in the Buddhist tradition; we must realize that even our sensory perceptions are already shaped by our culture and experiences, and there is never a pure and true perception, because perception occurs in the mind, not the eye/ear/finger.
My point is that this reification of senses, by the belief that they are unanalyzable, prevents us from becoming aware of how things really are. This is a long debate in Buddhism, and, to come to Huseng’s question, the belief in and unconditioned, which is clearly already a subject of debate in the Pali canon, only becomes more or less “settled” in the “Original Nature” or “Buddha Nature” debates. It is after this that it is commonly simply assumed, in eastern Buddhism, that there is an “unconditioned.” Up until then, it was a subject of debate, and Nagarjuna is clearly arguing that even things like space are dependently arisen—but he is arguing this because there are other Buddhists who disagree with his position. It is only later that it can be “assumed” that there is an unconditioned, and for many Buddhists this is still seen as a rejection of the most important Buddhist insights: anatman and dependent origination.
I rarely agree with HHDL (I am not a Tibetan Buddhist), but on this he has a point. There is perhaps nothing wrong with understanding “mindfulness” a bare attention to the supposedly “pure” sensory present, if it helps relieve you migraines or whatever—but it is not Buddhism. Instead of helping us to realize the absolute conditioning of everything, it reifies our present construal of the world, and uses the “ineffable” to avoid real insight.
To return briefly to the idea of Thich Nhat Hanh using “skillful means”: I think in the case of the example of the WMD engineer, the function of the example in the book is not to suggest that he will become awakened eventually, but to reassure the reader of the book that it is okay to give money to Plum Village even if that money is made by making weapons. Read the book, and I think the rhetorical function of the example is clear: don’t bother to change the world, just ignore the effects of your actions and focus on you immediate sensations. It is promoting quietist comfort, and Buddhism as a way to reduce anxiety and guilt without having to stop doing things we really should be anxious and guilty about. I could believe he was using skillful means if he just said to the guy, look, if you even came here to ask this question, you already know the answer—when you’re ready to accept the answer you already know, then we can talk.
wtompepper wrote:At the risk of being attacked for justifying my tone, I wonder if I can ask people to offer serious advice about this. Isn't it sometimes useful and even necessary to upset and anger people to help free them from their illusions and attachments? If we have an obligation to help others see through their illusions, can this be done by being "nice" and "accepting"? Has anybody had success with this approach? (Please, that last question is NOT meant rhetorically or sarcastically--I'm looking for real examples.)
wtompepper wrote:I have a question regarding combative tone. My concern is that the idea of a core self, the reification of our illusions, is so powerful and subtle, that it seems often impossible to persuade anyone out of it with kind words. The non-confrontational acceptance, the "tolerance" and acceptance of all positions, seems to just subtly reinforce core delusions, particularly the sense of a core "true self," while giving the illusion that it has been transcended. Then the newcomer to Buddhism realizes that despite (believing she has) transcended attachment, she is still miserable and angry, and she moves on to some other (non-)solution.
At the risk of being attacked for justifying my tone, I wonder if I can ask people to offer serious advice about this. Isn't it sometimes useful and even necessary to upset and anger people to help free them from their illusions and attachments? If we have an obligation to help others see through their illusions, can this be done by being "nice" and "accepting"? Has anybody had success with this approach? (Please, that last question is NOT meant rhetorically or sarcastically--I'm looking for real examples.)
My great concern with my own practice right now is not with understanding, but "skillful means." I seriously do believe, as Johnny Dangerous and others have pointed out, that I lack skillful means to successfully discuss these matters. My own experience has been that what passes for "right speech" simply reinforces peoples comfort with their denial and delusion, and when they are faced with truth they are more powerfully entrenched than before. For instance, the popular version of "mindfulness," which pretends to stop all thought, so strongly reinforces the subtle sense of a "self" that those who practice it seem to become even more powerfully attached, less able to comprehend anatman.
Now, I fully expect further comments on how angry and arrogant this comment is, and more assertions about my ignorance of Buddhism (eg if you "understood" you wouldn't lack skillful means, etc). But I'm willing to ignore them if anyone wants to seriously address this issue, which is the question my original post on Speculative Non-Buddhism was trying to address: can we really wake people from their sleep of illusion without being confrontational and argumentative and even making them upset and angry? Is there really a kinder gentler way to do it?
wtompepper wrote:I do see your point thus-gone, and perhaps this forum is not the place to discuss this matter. In my particular school of Buddhism, anatman is taken to entail that there are no "enlightened" individuals, and that we can only move toward enlightenment collectively. So from my perspective, to stay silent and wait for an enlightened teacher is to participate in the delusion of self. Do you see my point, here? If the consensus here is that individuals become enlightened and then teach the rest of us, and we must wait for one and in the meantime be kind, then perhaps I am just in the wrong place to discuss this matter, and I will only get more assertions that I am ignorant and deluded. From my perspective, we are all ignorant an deluded as individuals, and can only become awakened collectively--anyone claiming to be an enlightened teacher is, to me, perpetuating the worst kind of delusion and attachment to self.
I have received quite a few emails from people unwilling to post here and on other boards (because they are tired of being insulted and attacked, mostly) saying that a confrontational approach did help to break them free of their illusions. I am quite seriously asking if there are any examples of the kinder, calmer "right speech" approach doing the same?
wtompepper wrote:In my particular school of Buddhism, anatman is taken to entail that there are no "enlightened" individuals, and that we can only move toward enlightenment collectively ... anyone claiming to be an enlightened teacher is, to me, perpetuating the worst kind of delusion and attachment to self.
wtompepper wrote:I am quite seriously asking if there are any examples of the kinder, calmer "right speech" approach doing the same?
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests | <urn:uuid:88921dad-ec6b-485e-9e45-46b9cde2f99c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=136909 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971931 | 2,015 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Wilson Spotlight: How Iranians Democratized Media
Haleh Esfandiari is director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has recently been involved in a media tour, promoting her new book My Prison, My Home, which tells the story of her 2007 detainment in Iran as a political prisoner. Davar Iran Ardalan is a civic journalist and public broadcasting veteran. She's been a leader in new media innovation. Most recently, she was in charge of Weekend Edition at NPR News, and prior to that, worked on Morning Edition.
The internet, social media, mobile devices: All of these things are changing the ways we acquire news and information. During the protests following Iran's disputed election of 2009, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other new media tools became indispensible when trying to figure out what was happening. This technology revolution is not only changing the work of reporters, but is also redefining the notion of who is a journalist. When a foreign correspondent was unable to gain access to a protest rally, an Iranian citizen journalist with a cell phone was there to fill the information void. This week on dialogue we look at the work of the Wilson Center's Middle East Program with Haleh Esfandiari and also that of a special guest who is leading the way in the arena of civic journalism, Davar Iran Ardalan. Scheduled for rebroadcast starting August 25th, 2010 on MHz Worldview channel. | <urn:uuid:73cc5e21-16fb-43bc-afb7-d8fb832c78d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wilsoncenter.org/dialogue-program/wilson-spotlight-how-iranians-democratized-media | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957778 | 293 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Drug Endangered Children (DEC) Task Force Announces Launch of Website to Better Serve Children Endangered by Drug Abuse
Attorney General Eric Holder announced today the launch of a public awareness campaign at a Federal Interagency Drug Endangered Children (DEC) Task Force event to bring attention to the challenges faced by children and families affected by drug abuse and highlight the work being done across the country to address these issues. Following opening remarks by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, Administrator Michele M. Leonhart of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) moderated a panel discussion, featuring Attorney General Holder and actors Jim True-Frost ("Prez"), Wendell Pierce ("Bunk") and Sonja Sohn ("Kima") from the HBO hit series, The Wire. Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Gil Kerlikowske delivered closing remarks.
Focused on protecting children from drug abuse and exploitation, the public awareness campaign will emphasize the important role law enforcement officials, health professionals, educators and community leaders play in helping first responders identify whether a child is endangered by drugs, as well as the resources available to assist vulnerable children.
"This public awareness campaign will highlight the risks posed to drug endangered children across the country and empower communities to better serve children exposed to drug abuse, trafficking and addiction by their parent or childcare provider," said Attorney General Holder. "Protecting youth from exposure to drug abuse is a key priority for this department, and we are unwavering in our commitment to raising awareness about this vital mission and continuing our efforts to assist the most vulnerable victims of the illicit drug industry."
"In collaboration with our federal, state and local partners, we are creating a more cohesive strategy to support communities to better respond to the special needs of drug endangered children," said Deputy Attorney General Cole. "The DEC public awareness campaign will help strengthen our multi-faceted approach to serve children and families devastated by drug abuse."
"Protecting drug endangered children is an essential tool to combating crime and safeguarding our communities," said DEA Administrator Leonhart. "Children exposed to drug abuse are more than 50 percent more likely to be arrested as juveniles, so it is critical that we play an active role in preventing children's exposure to drug abuse, as well as better serving children who are victims of drug abuse when it does occur."
"Too many of our Nation's children are at serious risk from drug use and its devastating consequences," said Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy. "This task force will help break the cycle of abuse and neglect by providing vital services for drug endangered children. By offering valuable tools and encouraging collaboration across local organizations, we will be better able to rescue, protect and serve the victims of drug-related crimes."
The DEC Task Force includes more than eight federal agencies and more than 80 participants. Following the task force's kick-off meeting in May 2010, the DEC Task Force established multidisciplinary, multijurisdictional teams to assist communities with at-risk children. These teams include representatives from law enforcement, child protective services, health professionals, educators, victim services specialists, child advocates and the courts.
In coordination with the public awareness campaign, the DEC Task Force will launch a website providing resources to federal, state and local partners to better serve children endangered by drugs. The website can be viewed at: www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/Children. | <urn:uuid:6c2f2220-8364-4505-b48b-f67b402a312e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://votesmart.org/public-statement/612365/attorney-general-eric-holder-justice-department-and-administration-officials-join-with-actors-from-hbos-the-wire-for-launch-of-drug-endangered-children-public-awareness-campaign | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936272 | 691 | 1.804688 | 2 |
A fundraiser for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is scheduled in D.C. for Sunday, May 16. I am not normally in the business of discouraging support for gay rights groups, but in this case I am making an exception.
Last August, at a Lincoln Memorial rally marking the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, NGLTF Executive Director Matt Foreman -- who was one of the speakers -- deliberately avoided any mention of the gay marriage fight. This despite the fact that, at a D.C. Gay Pride Month town meeting the previous June, he had called the Federal Marriage Amendment a blazing inferno that threatened to race through Congress. There he stood, a few feet away from rally organizer and former D.C. congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy -- a leading supporter of the anti-gay amendment -- and Foreman said not a word to challenge him on it or to explain this civil-rights issue to a civil rights gathering. The reason was simple: Fauntroy was black. How pathetic, how insulting, how redolent of self-defeating double standards and pandering.
Few white gay activists are willing to talk about this, because they are uncomfortable dealing with issues involving race. I can well understand that, as those are treacherous shoals to navigate. But these are challenging times. We are big boys and girls. Activist leaders need to be prepared to talk to us as adults and speak the truth about our lives where it most needs to be heard. For gay rights advocates to trim their message or eliminate it altogether, out of either political correctness or lack of nerve, is to practice what President Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." (He was talking about equal educational opportunity, though his fine words were not followed by adequate funding.)
On May 4, Foreman released a hard-hitting op-ed entitled, "Where are Democrats on the Federal Marriage Amendment?" He makes some good points. But the whole piece rings hollow in light of Foreman's utter silence on Fauntroy and other black ministers who wrap themselves in the civil rights tradition while being in bed with the radical right.
Fauntroy is a leading front man for the anti-gay Alliance for Marriage, and was prominently featured at its 2001 news conference announcing the proposed amendment. He is not alone; several AME ministers are listed on the Alliance for Marriage board of advisors. There is no way that only black people should be expected or permitted to address this problem. Either we believe our own high-sounding words or we don't, and if we do then we need to treat people equally.
The religious right has been shopping in the black community for years to find camouflage for the culture war. Fauntroy, our own former congressman, is a leader among those providing that camouflage. It is disgraceful, and any gay activist who was ever moved by hearing Martin Luther King quote Jefferson that "all men are created equal" has no excuse for failing to step up to the plate when it comes time to challenge those who betray that vision. King's widow Coretta Scott King is a strong ally of our community, as is another civil rights veteran, Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta, and of course D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. Fauntroy's advocacy on the other side should be treated as a scandal.
When the leader of NGLTF refuses to say a peep about any of this -- or even mention our fight for equal marriage rights and against the right-wing's effort to scapegoat gay families -- at a civil rights gathering where every other conceivable issue is aired, then those with limited activist dollars should seriously consider directing their funds elsewhere. To be sure, NGLTF is not the only group timid on this score, but the failure is most glaring in Mr. Foreman's case. May I suggest other worthy groups: Freedom to Marry (www.freedomtomarry.org), Lambda Legal Defense (www.lambdalegal.org), National Black Justice Coalition (www.nbjcoalition.org), Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (www.glad.org), Equality Virginia (www.equalityvirginia.org), and Equality Maryland (www.equalitymaryland.org).
To be honest, NGLTF was always too far to the left for me, using self-righteous rhetoric about all oppressions being linked as a cover for their refusal to focus on gay rights just as their coalition partners in other civil rights groups have a focus. Over the years, the Task Force has deemed it necessary to take a position on the Gulf War, on newspaper strikes in Detroit, on welfare, and on the death penalty -- all issues about which gay people legitimately disagree. To take one example, NGLTF denounced the death penalty against Wanda Jean Allen because she was a lesbian, despite the fact that the two women she had murdered were also lesbians. If the concern was that she was railroaded or sentenced differently due to homophobia, then that should have been the emphasis, not the penalty itself. But why was the Task Force involved in the first place? It is not a legal services group. Once again, it has trouble focusing.
I realize that different groups are bound to define their mission and scope differently, but it seems reasonable at least to expect a gay rights group to fight for gay rights. In its refusal to do so in its relations with African American leaders, NGLTF has flagrantly failed.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and gay rights activist in Washington, D.C.
Town Square is a forum for members of Washington, D.C.'s GLBT community to express their opinions on topics and issues of the day. For more information e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:af02d244-db1a-4ff6-9b33-b05142c2c837> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://metroweekly.com/news/opinion/?ak=1028 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968009 | 1,183 | 1.523438 | 2 |
There won't be any F-22 stealth fighters at the Paris Air Show this month. U.S. officials are still concerned about intelligence-gathering, passed off as French customs inspections. That happened before when the F-117 was displayed overseas. On one occasion, the aircraft was routed over several French military establishments for electronic intelligence gathering.
However, the Raptor is going to Hawaii. A dozen of the aircraft will form the first F-22 Raptor unit, led by and primarily staffed with Air National Guardsmen. The squadron, part of the Hickam-based 154th wing, will start training its aircrews in 2010 and begin receiving its stealth fighters –- and giving up its F-15s -- in 2011 as it becomes the seventh operational F-22 unit.
"There were rumors as we went through the [base realignment process] last spring and the numbers for the F-22 appeared to be finalized at 183," says the squadron's commander, Lt. Col. Chris Faurot. Hawaii and Alaska were picked to first host the new fighter. "They had to come up with a plan to best array those forces to meet future threats. There is a desire to get as many of those [F-22s], because of their capabilities, as far west as we can."
While the initial interest is in the fighter's aerial combat and bombing capabilities, there is a deeper game afoot.
"The future upgrades to the F-22 are of interest to us -- both kinetic, like the small diameter bomb, and non-kinetic," says Col. Mike Boera, commander of Pacific Air Force's Richard Bong air operations center (AOC). The ability of the F-22 to see and attack very small targets like stealthy cruise missiles is a brand-new capability. Driving the research is the fact that "cruise missile defense is going from a medium to a large area of concern," he says.
Air Force secretary Michael Wynne suggested late in May that Pacific-based Raptors -- F-22s deployed to Okinawa -- may have helped persuade North Korea to engage in talks on curbing its nuclear program. "We'll never know and they'll never admit if the two are related but I can say that after the aircraft arrived, for some reason the negotiations went a lot better," he said. (Of course, they have not made much progress since they left.)
Pacific Air Forces face the task of operating over long distances and the possibility of confronting China's Peoples Liberation Army Air Force. The PLAAF has advanced strike aircraft, such as the Su-30MKK, at least two new cruise missiles, and a new dogfight missile.
More pictures and details in the June 18th edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology. | <urn:uuid:57386ad8-70d5-4004-bf58-7df138bc1360> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aviationweek.typepad.com/ares/2007/06/hawaiian_raptor.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977911 | 565 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Natural Ingredients in Melatrol Sleep Aid
These days, wise consumers want to know exactly what's in the supplements they take. We want you to know what the Melatrol ingredients are. We're proud of our formula, and are happy to share this with you.
When you can't sleep, you want support that's effective.
5-HTP is a short term for 5-Hydroxy Tryptophan. This is an important "precursor" to seratonin. A precursor is a substance that precedes, and is the source, of another substance. Seratonin is vital in many functions of the body. 5-HTP supports the production of melatonin, and assists in easing stress and anxiety.
5-HTP is a natural extract from the seeds of the Griffonia tree found in West African countries. Traditionally, the African people use all parts of the tree for various maladies.
5-HTP is generally well tolerated. However, light nausea and some mild gastric disturbances could occur at first. Usually these symptoms disappear quickly. If you experience continued disturbance, discuss this with your health care professional.
Just as the growth of plants is affected by the hours of daylight, so too, are animals and humans affected. Darkness triggers production of the hormone, melatonin, and causes the drowsy, sleepy feeling you get which is your body's signal it's time to go to sleep. Bright light halts the production of melatonin.
Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in the brain. It can also be produced by bone marrow cells, the retina, and the gastrointestinal tract. Even plants, such as rice, produce
melatonin. When you eat rice or other foods containing melatonin, it will reach and bind to sites in the brain.
In addition to helping you sleep, melatonin is an antioxidant. It helps protect DNA, protects the brain, and may play a role in increasing longevity.
Melatonin is safe for the human body even when taken over a period of time. However, like all supplements, caution is advised against taking more than directed. High doses can cause complications.
Valerian has been used to improve people's lives since the times of ancient Greece and Rome. Hippocrates discussed its benefits, and Galen prescribed Valerian as a remedy for insomnia.
Only the roots, rhizomes and stolons (A horizontal stem which grows along the surface of the soil) of the plants are used. The flowers of Valerian are quite sweet-smelling, and can perfume your whole garden.
On the other hand, the dried root has a pungent, unpleasant smell some people say is like "dirty socks." Herbalists often suggest Valerian root to people who are nervous, anxious, and not sleeping well.
Gamma Amino Butyric Acid
Gamma Amino Butyric Acid is usually called GABA. It is an amino acid necessary for the action of certain cells. In adults, it is inhibitory in action. That is, it inhibits certain substances from entering the cells. It's found primarily in the tissues of the nervous system.
GABA functions as a neurotransmitter to prevent certain neurons from over-reacting. This makes it possible for the brain to relax, and reduces stress and anxiety.
Rhodiola Rosea Extract
Rhodiola Rosea, sometimes called "golden root" or "roseroot", grows in the dry sandy areas of high mountains from Iceland through Siberia.
It was not named Rosea for its flower, but for the sweet, rose-like fragrance of the freshly cut root.
Until the 1960s Rhodiola rosea was not well known in this country. For many years, the people of the northern latitudes kept it a secret.
In 1725, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave the herb its modern name. It was later determined that the plant extract was a powerful adaptogen.
The term adaptogen is used by herbalists to refer to a natural herb product that is proposed to increase the body's resistance to stress and anxiety. In the past, they have been called "rejuvenating herbs."
The Passion Flower is a frequent sight in many gardens. It is a delightful vine, which can climb to 30 feet, and is covered with purple and white flowers during the blooming season.
The unique flowers give the plant its name. In 1609 Jacomo Bosio, a monk and scholar in Rome, thought the shape of the flowers resembled the crown of thorns put upon the head of Jesus. He felt it represented the mysteries of the cross and the passion of Jesus.
Passion Flower was used for centuries for people with anxiety, sleeplessness, and "hysteria." Herbalists today still use Passion Flower for people with occasional sleep problems, tension and nervousness.
It is said that Passion Flower will bring sweet dreams to the user, but there is no scientific evidence to support this.
It is generally well-tolerated by most people. People taking MAO inhibitors or blood-thinning medication should consult with their primary care provide before taking Melatrol.
We take great pride in the quality of our products and want you to be pleased with your purchase. We believe in offering the very best value, quality and selection to our customers. *Policy Details | <urn:uuid:76566444-38d0-4fb1-826e-b8f64e205992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.melatrol.com/ingredients.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955964 | 1,106 | 1.648438 | 2 |
FairTax advocates brief congressional staffers
Presidents of National Taxpayers Union and National Small Business Association brief congressional staffers
A team of FairTax economists and advocates recently spoke to a number of congressional staffers about the FairTax Plan. Present at the briefing were representatives of more than a dozen congressional offices, including the tax-writing committees.
Representatives from Americans For Fair Taxation (AFFT) led off, followed by the presidents of two organizations John Berthoud of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and Todd McCracken of the National Small Business Association (NSBA).
AFFT representatives discussed their current efforts, including recent success before the South Carolina primary in attracting more than 8,000 FairTax supporters to rally. They also discussed the nonpartisan nature of AFFT, the history of the organization, the concentration of AFFT on research, and the importance of ensuring that Congress actually defines the criteria for reform.
Todd McCracken began his discussion by introducing NSBA as the oldest small business group in the nation. For almost 70 years (longer than any other small business organization) NSBA has remained America's small-business advocate with the primary mission of backing state and federal policies that are beneficial to small business, the state, and the nation and promoting the growth of free enterprise.
McCracken advised the group that the NSBA has long supported the FairTax, and stated, “That is an indication of how much the concept and legislation appeals to a broad cross section of business groups, from retailers to realtors.” McCracken also mentioned the many regional groups that support the FairTax, including the Small Business Association of Michigan and the Council on Small Enterprise, each group larger by numbers than many Washington associations.
John Berthoud spoke next. NTU, one of the nation’s largest and most respected taxpayer organizations, was established in 1969 to educate taxpayers, the media, and elected officials on a nonpartisan basis on the merits of limited government and low taxes. NTU uses a variety of means to accomplish their work including direct mail, research papers, public speaking, e-mail, advertising, the Internet, and lobbying.
Berthoud discussed why NTU endorses the FairTax, including its respect for privacy, the 4th Amendment, transparency, visibility, and stability. Berthoud noted that the FairTax vests every taxpayer in the tax system and restrains the growth and size of government through honesty in taxpayer spending. Berthoud also mentioned that the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform erred by failing to consider research or analyze the criteria on which their decision was based. They failed to analyze the FairTax at all.
David Burton and Dan R. Mastromarco of the Argus Group, who wrote the FairTax bill, spoke about several issues and stood by to answer questions. They discussed why the FairTax encourages economic growth and what the expected magnitude of that growth will be, according to the nation’s foremost economists. Burton discussed why the FairTax is good for trade by making the U.S. the world’s greatest tax haven. Mastromarco discussed the salient effect of the FairTax on the affordability of housing and upward mobility and how the FairTax reduces compliance costs and evasion.
AFFT intends to hold a similar briefing for Senate staffers. | <urn:uuid:bab9bb03-fcf6-40ad-beb0-a13bd001d6e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_events_062207_briefing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950781 | 691 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Book review - The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz
A review of the famed travelogue The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz
Book Review – The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz
ISBN – 9781857021851 – 7 out of 10
Irma Kurtz recounts her journey across early 1990’s America in The Great American Bus Ride.
After 30 years as an ex-patriate the writer feels the need to re-connect with the place of her birth, and her ancestors, and decides to see the whole of America from the windows of a number of Greyhound Buses.
With a novelist’s eye for detail, and a tourists sense of discovery, Kurtz recollects her travels from Boston to New York, and the people she meets along the way, from fleeting night time bus rides, to more involved friendships, she often finds herself in the company of people like herself, who are looking for some kind of meaning.
Although it is basically a travelogue, the real life characters that Kurtz meets often have the ring of fictional characters. Although her mother fears for her safety, the many small towns that she visits offer her nothing but hospitality, and like the work of Kerouac, and too a certain extent Mark Twain, the journey is seen as being just as an important part of the experience as the people who she encounters. | <urn:uuid:0ce44d8d-daa5-49b8-a26d-551fcc5429cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reviews.wikinut.com/Book-review-The-Great-American-Bus-Ride-by-Irma-Kurtz/2tnlkj_6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962238 | 286 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Chile's emergency office, ONEMI, issued a red alert after the blaze broke out on the city's San Roque hill, some 75 miles (120 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Santiago.
Strong, changing winds and high temperatures at the peak of the Southern Hemisphere's summer holiday season stoked the fire. Valparaiso Regional Gov. Raul Celis called it "the city's worst blaze in two decades."
Local television stations aired images of a towering plume of smoke billowing over Valparaiso. The smoke kept firefighting aircraft grounded while more than a dozen firefighter units, 700 policemen and several army platoons continued to battle the fire five hours after it started.
Twenty-seven people, including five children, are being treated for minor injuries and smoke intoxication, said Claudio Fernandez, director of the local Van Buren Hospital.
Police said they had arrested at least three people for looting.
The port of Valparaiso is surrounded by dozens of hills where most people live. Authorities say the fire is centered near the hills in the highest part of Valparaiso, and is still far away from the city's low-lying downtown area.
Associated Press Writer Luis Andres Henao contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:3f505c73-2c0a-4122-96a0-42948a6f2996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.times-standard.com/nationandworldnews/ci_22592972/chile-battles-huge-fire-port-valparaiso | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942067 | 257 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Arch Coal Inc. has bid $86 million plus future royalties for the right to mine a half-billion tons of state-owned coal in southeastern Montana near the Wyoming border. St. Louis-based Arch already controls 731 million tons of coal in Otter Creek, south of Ashland. Because the public and private coal tracts are arranged in a checkerboard fashion, industry observers say the reserves likely would be mined together. Combined, they contain enough fuel to meet the nation's coal needs for more than a year. Developing a mine could take years and would also require construction of the proposed Tongue River Railroad — a project fiercely fought by environmentalists and area landowners. The Montana Land Board meets Thursday to consider Arch's bid. If the company's offer is accepted, the $86 million bonus bid payment would provide a much-needed jolt to the state's budget. Declining revenues have led to projections of future deficits. A sale would also provide vindication for Montana's pro-coal Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, who was sharply criticized for setting the price for Otter Creek too high. Republicans warned he was driving away business. "Forty-nine other governors would pull all of their front teeth out with a vice grip to be in our position right now," Schweitzer said Tuesday. "If they don't develop within 10 years, it's $85 million that we just keep." Over the next several decades, a new mine could bring in royalty payments and taxes totaling more than $5 billion, Schweitzer said. The bonus payment offered by Arch was almost $60 million less than the state sought during a prior lease sale that ended in February. That first sale drew no bidders — only a letter from Arch saying the price was too high. Arch spokeswoman Kim Link said Tuesday the company had no immediate comment on the lease sale. But with Tuesday's bid, the nation's second largest coal miner is continuing its aggressive expansion in the Powder River Basin along the Montana- Wyoming border. Arch acquired the reserves interspersed with the stateowned tracts in November, paying 10 cents a ton, or $73 million to Houston-based Great Northern Properties. In October, Arch paid Rio Tinto $769 million for another Powder River Basin mine, Jacobs Ranch. The region's coal goes primarily to domestic utilities that burn it to generate electricity. But Arch is also now better positioned to ramp up exports to Asia through West Coast ports linked to the basin by rail. Asia and other foreign markets are considered areas of huge growth potential for the coal industry, which faces substantial pressures in the United States due to tightening environmental regulations and competition from renewable power sources like wind. Tuesday's bid was received by Montana's Department of Na t u r a l Re s o u r c e s a n d Conservation, which manages state land at the direction of the Land Board. DNRC staff will make a recommendat ion Wednesday on whether to accept the bid. "It's a good bid," said DNRC director Mary Sexton. "We're very pleased with it, and it certainly reflects well on the process we've gone through." The Land Board includes Montana's five top elected officials: the governor, superintendent of public instruction, attorney general, state auditor and secretary of state. They approved the 15-cent minimum bonus bid for Otter Creek on a 3-2 vote, meaning there should be enough votes to complete the sale.
Arch bids $86M for Montana-owned Otter Creek
Published: Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
Click Here To See More Stories Like This | <urn:uuid:37fc3f1e-0daa-4bb3-8bfe-cf7abad4fa8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.havredailynews.com/cms/news/story-170701.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964863 | 723 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Looking at extra insurance
Your employer may offer other benefits in addition to health insurance and retirement. Life insurance and disability insurance may be part of your benefits package. The importance of this extra insurance depends on your personal situation.
Life insurance pays a lump sum cash payout in the event of your death. When you sign up for the policy, you designate who you would like to receive the payout. The person who receives the payout is the beneficiary of your policy. Life insurance can be especially valuable if others are dependent on your salary. If you have a spouse or children, the life insurance benefit could be important coverage for them. If you are single with no children, life insurance will probably be less important for you.
Disability insurance is coverage that replaces your income if you are sick or disabled. Disability benefits usually replace from 45 to 60% of your total income. If you pay for your own disability insurance out of your own pocket, the benefits will be tax free; if your employer pays for your disability insurance, your benefits will be taxable. The benefits normally stop if you return to work or earn income through another type of job.
If you have a medical condition or a high-risk job, disability insurance may be very valuable to you. In hazardous occupations, such as logging and roofing, you are more likely to be injured on the job. Disability insurance may cover costs not covered by worker's compensation. On the other hand, if you are healthy with a low-risk job, disability may be a less important benefit.
Consider policy costs
When weighing the value of life and disability insurance, it may help to consider what it would cost to pay for the coverage yourself. Life insurance costs for young and healthy individuals are fairly low. As you age and develop health conditions, life insurance costs more to obtain.
Disability coverage tends to be more expensive than life insurance across the board. You can expect to pay two to six times more per month for disability than for life insurance. A disability policy through your employer may therefore mean significant savings for you. | <urn:uuid:7c4e5251-c4ae-4b2e-bc37-d38885e847a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cashcourse.org/cos/articles/id/1853/categoryid/121/looking-at-extra-insurance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955531 | 416 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Janet Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison on July 6, 1927 in Merced, California. She was the only child of a couple who often moved from town to town. Living in apartments, Jeanette was a bright child who skipped several grades and finished high school when she was 15. A lonely child, she would spend much of her time at movie theaters. She was a student, studying music and psychology, at the University of the Pacific until she was "discovered" while visiting her parents in Northern California. Her father was working the desk at a ski resort where her mother worked as a maid. Retired MGM actress Norma Shearer saw a picture of Jeanette on the front desk and asked if she could borrow it. This led to a screen test at MGM, a name change to Janet Leigh, and a starring role in The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947). MGM was looking for a young naive country girl and Janet filled the bill perfectly. She would play the ingénue in a number of films and work with such stars as Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Kirk Douglas and John Wayne. She starred in a number of successful films, among them Act of Violence (1948), Words and Music (1948), Little Women (1949), Holiday Affair (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952), Houdini (1953), The Naked Spur (1953), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), Living It Up (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955), Safari (1956), and the Orson Welles film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958).
Janet's films ranged from comedies to westerns to musicals to dramas. Of her more than 50 movies, she would be most remembered for the 45 minutes she was on screen in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Even though her character was killed off early in the picture, she won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Her next film was The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which she co-starred with Frank Sinatra. For the rest of the decade, her appearances in films were rare, but she worked with Paul Newman in Harper (1966). In the 1970s, she appeared on the small screen in a number of made-for-television movies. In 1980, she appeared alongside her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980), and later, in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). Janet Leigh died at age 77 in her home in Beverly Hills, California on October 3, 2004.
|Robert Brandt||(15 September 1962 - 3 October 2004) (her death)|
|Tony Curtis||(4 June 1951 - 14 September 1962) (divorced) 2 children|
|Stanley Reames||(5 October 1945 - 7 September 1949) (divorced)|
|John Carlisle (II)||(21 August 1942 - 28 December 1942) (annulled)|
Platinum blonde hair
Sparkling blue eyes
Deep sultry voice
Was 'discovered' by Norma Shearer from a photo on the desk of Janet's father.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#99).
Eloped at the age of 14 - marriage was later annulled. Thus, Tony Curtis was her third husband when she married him in her 20s.
Actually made Touch of Evil (1958), with a broken arm. Her arm was in a cast when she showed up for production, so they took her arm out of the cast and used every trick they could to hide it.
She was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California on May 14, 2004. She delivered an inspirational speech to graduating students, faculty, and administrators in accepting her award. Author Maxine Hong Kingston and US Solicitor General Ted Olson were also awarded honorary degrees on the same day.
Graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.
She and her actress daughter Jamie Lee Curtis appear together in John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), though they do not meet until the film's end. They also appear together in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) early in the film when Janet reports to Jamie on a problem with the girls' shower at a private school.
In 2006, the city of Stockton, California renamed and dedicated a downtown cinema and plaza in her honor. "Janet Leigh Plaza" is in the central core of the redeveloped downtown 2 blocks away from the "Bob Hope Theater".
Daughter of Frederick Robert Morrison and wife Helen Lita Westergard.
Interviewed in Tom Weaver's book "Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes" (McFarland & Co., 1991).
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 326-329. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
In June 2010, Pacific Theatre, the campus movie theater of the University of the Pacific, was renamed and dedicated as Janet Leigh Theatre. The theater houses Janet Leigh movie posters, movie stills, college and family photos, and a display cabinet with many personal and professional Janet Leigh artifacts. The lavender gown worn by Ms. Leigh to the 1961 Academy Awards (and created by Edith Head) is on display in the cabinet in the lobby.
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1777 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
She was an active Democrat and appeared alongside Tony Curtis at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, California.
[when asked if it was true that she doesn't take showers] It's actually, honestly true. And not because of the shooting of it. It was the seeing of it. It never dawned on me how truly vulnerable we are. But that's what [Alfred Hitchcock] did. A shower. A bird. All these things that are absolutely ordinary, he made extraordinary.
I don't know what it is I exude. But whatever it is, it's whatever I am!
[on working with Alfred Hitchcock] Hitch relished scaring me. When we were making Psycho (1960), he experimented with the mother's corpse, using me as his gauge. I would return from lunch, open the door to the dressing room and propped up in my chair would be this hideous monstrosity. The horror in my scream, registered on his Richter scale, decided which dummy he'd use as the Madame.
[on Night of the Lepus (1972)] I've forgotten as much as I could about that picture.
|The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947)||$50/week|
(1984) Release of her autobiography, "There Was Really a Hollywood".
(1995) Release of the book, "Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller" by Janet and Christopher Nickens.
(1995) Release of her book, "House of Destiny".
(2002) Release of her book, "The Dream Factory".
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British Prime Minister David Cameron was Sunday to begin meeting with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan for talks on supporting the Afghan peace process, as Britain prepares a withdrawal of troops.
Cameron was to host a private dinner with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari at his Chequers country retreat near London on Sunday evening before holding trilateral talks at the same venue on Monday.
Ahead of the meetings, Afghan officials on Sunday said that Taliban roadside bombs killed five civilians, including a family of four, and two police officers in the country's troubled south at the weekend.
Pakistan, the chief diplomatic backer of the Taliban when the group was in power before 2001, has been regularly accused by both Kabul and Washington of helping destabilise Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan remain uneasy, despite some recent improvements.
Monday's talks will be the third trilateral session since last year, after meetings in Kabul in July and in New York in September.
Back in December, Cameron announced Britain would withdraw 3,800 of Britain's 9,000 troops from Afghanistan in 2013, as NATO prepares for a full security handover to Afghan forces at the end of next year.
There are growing concerns that a civil war could erupt as the US-led NATO troops leave the country.
"The prime minister will host the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan at Chequers on Sunday and Monday as part of his ongoing efforts to help to strengthen Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, support an Afghan peace and reconciliation process and promote regional peace and stability," a spokesperson for Cameron's Downing Street office said on Saturday.
"For the first time, we will bring together the political and security establishments from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with foreign ministers, chiefs of army staff, chiefs of intelligence and the chair of the Afghan High Peace Council attending the meeting.
"Discussions are expected to focus on the Afghan-led peace process and how the Pakistanis and international community can support it. We also expect the Afghans and Pakistanis to make further progress on the Strategic Partnership Agreement they committed to in September."
Karzai flew to London on Saturday for a three-day trip, during which time he will also meet Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
"The talks in this summit will be focused on ways to accelerate peace process in Afghanistan and further strengthen cooperations between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the fight against terrorism and extremism," said a separate statement issued by Karzai's office.
Karzai last week accused foreign countries of plotting against his war-weary nation's peace programme, saying all negotiations should take place under his administration.
Without pointing a finger at any particular country, Karzai said he had told the US government during a recent visit to Washington that "no foreign party must try to take the Afghan peace process in its hand". | <urn:uuid:863b34fc-1d95-4060-88fc-1892758272e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130203/british-pm-meet-afghanistan-pakistan-leaders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960777 | 581 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The aged losing out in a fast eroding extended family system
6/7/2011 10:21:10 AM -
Cape Coast, June 6, GNA- Mr Barton Odro, Member of Parliament for Cape Coast, on Saturday said the fast eroding extended family system in Ghana was negatively affecting the welfare of the aged.
He said due to the phenomenon, many families had developed unconcerned attitudes towards the aged who needed the care, love and support of their immediate family and the society at large.
Mr Odro was commissioning a clinic for the aged in the Cape Coast Ministries block, which consists of a consulting, counselling, treatment and a store room.
He said the clinic was established with his share of the common fund to provide special and accessible health care to the aged to ease the burden of accessing medical care.
Dr. Joseph Teye Nuertey, the Cape Coast Metropolitan Director of Health Services, said the decision to provide the clinic for the aged was based on a feedback from an outreach programme organized in the metropolis.
He said the 1970-2000 population census indicated that people aged 60 and above were rapidly increasing and therefore the need to place high emphasis on issues relating to their medical care.
Dr Nuertey recounted that aging increases the risk of chronic diseases and its associated disabilities and stated that the onus lies on the health service to provide active services for the aged.
He said the clinic will among other things have a medical assistant, senior nurses, health extension workers and community nurses with the requisite training to manage the aged.
Nana Kweku Duah II, Ninfahene of Offinso who presided, appealed to society to make health care needs of the aged its major priority by providing all the necessary assistance to them and implored the Ghana Health Service to ensure the survival of the facility.
Mr. Anthony Egyir Aikins, Mayor of Cape Coast, commended the efforts of the MP and appealed to the public to patronise the clinic. | <urn:uuid:2dddea77-7519-468f-aefc-bd8e6bac5e5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.modernghana.com/lifestyle/2326/16/the-aged-losing-out-in-a-fast-eroding-extended-fam.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972147 | 413 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Editor’s Note: I know you’re up to your neck in alligators and may not have time to read this entire article. If that’s the way it is, please do the right thing andto add your input to the most important freediving research ever.
The human body has been studied inside and out since the beginning of, well, human bodies and few who read these lines lack appreciation of the the medical arts, or of progress in the related sciences and technologies. If we know of an event, a structure, process or state in the body of a living human being, more than likely we can measure it with terrific precision and even see it – often in real time and non-invasively. Be that as it may, when Kirk Krack launched his career as a freediving pioneer , he quickly found out that pioneers don’t get a lot of help from road maps or signs.
Uh, that’s how come they’re pioneers. The same medical and scientific culture which could nonchalantly replace the heart of a living person had precious little to say about apnea diving. Much of the conventional medical wisdom could be summarized thus: No, you can’t do that. It’s impossible. It is beyond the capabilities of the human body.
But… we were doing it, and had been doing it.
As Kirk’s infant Performance Freediving initiative developed he made heavy and ongoing investments in science, which in the context of a struggling and often impoverished enterprise was nothing less than visionary. It takes a lot of belief and no small courage for a struggling entrepreneur (a guy living on students’ and colleagues’ sofas) to sink time and money into projects which have no immediate prospect of an economic payoff. Kirk’s own curiosity, the same unquenchable thirst for exploration and adventure which took him from the Saskatchewan prairie to a global oceaneering career, was certainly one motivator but more importantly, Krack understood that there’s a deep symbiosis between freediving’s vitality as a recreational and competitive sport, on the one hand, and the empty shelf he’d discovered in the great Library of Science.
Freediving needed science, and science needed freediving. Both are in the business of boldly going where no-one has gone before, and there sure is where to go.
A number of physicians and scientists have, over the years, passed through the Performance Freediving world as clinic students, each adding new knowledge to Kirk’s growing database but also taking away observations that have fueled new research and analysis.
An early partnership struck with Simon Frasier University in Vancouver,BC, continues with a regular program of activities, measurements, analysis and reporting. So, too, it’s no coincidence that the Performance Freediving Team’s newest member is a physician and an inventor of medical devices. Dr. George ‘Doc’ Lopez, 58, is a US National record holder in the Free Immersion discipline and Founder/CEO of ICU Medical Devices, a global leader in safey medical systems. Doc Lopez is a walking ( and freediving) example of the synergistic effects of practical experience and a scientific background.
More recently a distinguished pulmonologist from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Dr. Ralph Potkin, has been organizing an ambitious program of freediving-related research. Dr. Potkin is no neophyte to dive medicine. He’s been an active scuba diver since 1971 and has dived all over the world – including Antarctica, for all you been-there-done-that braggarts. He’s made hyperbaric medicine his primary specialty for the past ten years and has founded the Beverly Hills Center for Hyperbaric Medicine. Potkin, an alumnus of the Performance Freediving clinics, resided with the team during the train-up for the Sink Faze Cayman 2006 World Record event and recorded pre- and post-dive physiologicals from team and support freedivers.
Dr. Potkin’s scientific interest in freediving has roots in his earlier study of decompression sickness in marine mammals. The finding that whales, seals and dolphins can indeed suffer DCS prompted him to wonder about the vulnerabilities of human freedivers. His current work is in the nature of a pilot study, the intent of which is to develop a basis for a formal research program. Read on – there’s a role for you in this project.
Ralph Potkin wants to explore three basic research issues, the first of which is whether, indeed, the phenomena associated with DCS can be observed in freedivers.
The measurement technologies are well-developed and have served the field of scuba diving, buthad never been applied to systematic data collection in freediving. The basic tool here is Doppler bubble detection. A small, rugged device non-invasively detects bubbles in the blood vessels as the nitrogen dissolved in tissues under hydrostatic pressure (at depth) expands under ambient surface air pressure.
Ancillary questions address the frequency with which significant nitrogen absorption occurs during freediving, the depth, time and other factors associated with incidence, and, as a practical matter, mitigation. When and how are freedivers at risk for DCS, and what can we do to prevent it?
Dr. Potkin recently disclosed that he’s found bubble formation in some freedivers examined shortly after diving. He’s understandably reluctant to be more specific at this early juncture, but it’s fair to say that his findings on Grand Cayman and elsewhere favor moving forward with the research.
A second broad area of research underway centers on the issue of long-term neurological effects of freediving. This is, of course, a hot-button item with the general public and more than a few freedivers themselves. Who hasn’t had a non-diving friend or relative declare that holding one’s breath deprives the brain of oxygen and leads to certain neurological damage? So? Is it true? Are we dumbing ourselves down?
It’s one of those things that ‘everybody knows’, but which turns out to be not exactly so.
The evidence for the protective effects of the mammalian dive reflex under apnea – diversion of blood to the most vital organs, bradycardia and so forth – is strong and is, as Dr.Potkin reminds us, surprising to the conventional medical wisdom. Having learned of a theretofore unknown homeostatic mechanism which seems to allow for some degree of apnea without harmful consequence, Dr. Potkin argues for asking the question at the margins. It may be that a seemingly innocuous activity, one ‘provided for’ by human physiological response, has consequences which become apparent only over time. Or, it may be that there are immediate limits to the adaptation afforded by the diver reflex: limitations of depth, time, frequency, other factors or combinations of factors.
Dr. Potkin is addressing the neurological issue with a preliminary program of brain imaging, focused on subjects who have a lengthy history of deep freediving. I’ve been a subject in these imaging studies, and it is an astounding and more than a bit disconcerting thing to see one’s own thinkum-dinkum at work in high–res. I guess mine still works to some degree – there were significant changes in my brain activity following a very annoying session of computerized cognitive puzzle-solving.
The phenomenon we colloquially term ‘squeeze’ is the third major area Dr.Potkin is interested in, with etiology (i.e., causes) and prophylaxis (prevention) as his immediate medical concerns. He is, after all, a chest doctor. He’s taken spirometry data from the Performance Freediving team members and support freedivers during the Sink Faze trainup and collected anecdotal data from as many freedivers as he could. Here, too, it is premature to report anything in the nature of a finding. There is this, though: Dr. Potkin has observed very significant increases in lung volume after what we call ‘packing’. Common knowledge, you say ? Duh ? Not so – Dr. Potkin assures us that the medical community would poppycock the notion that human lung volume can be increased from a non-pathological baseline by any known intervention. You do it, but just so you know: it can’t be done.
I did it in June, 2006 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Surrounded by Dr. Potkin, some skeptical colleagues and technicians, and a few gazillion dollars’ worth of state-of-the-art high-res full-motion imaging gizmos, I have watched my own heart pumping blood: valves opening and closing, blood flowing through the chambers just like in the textbooks. I filled my lungs, stuffed 35 packs into ‘em, and watched the doctors’ numb fascination as my right heart chambers were squeezed flat, blood backwashing toward the lungs, and my blood pressure dropped in seconds to undetectable. All this sitting upright, fully conscious.
If only I had one of those gizmos at home ! Ralph is in the know, but his colleagues were shocked by what they witnessed. One told me that under normal circumstances, the images he saw and the vital signs readouts accompanying them would have thrown the hospital into a full-out emergency response.
The medical community has been surprised by previously unknown adaptive responses in human apnea divers, homeostatic programming which enables us to dive far deeper and longer than traditionally thought possible.
Dr. Potkin points out another thing that surprises the academics – the common knowledge ( in the freediving community) that the dive reflex is conditioned. Learned, and teach-able, too. Kirk Krack, for example, has shown ( over more than 1,000 clinic students) that ‘naïve’ (i.e., completely inexperienced) students can quickly be trained to accomplish breath-holds that only a few years ago were the province of the sport’s elite.
The possibility that many, or most human beings have much more extensive apnea capabilities than previously thought – much better, in a sense, than are neccesary – goes back to the tantalizing Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. The threads are woven together.
Dr. Potkin’s three research areas address issues of considerable practical concern for freedivers. DCS used to be thought of as an issue for scuba divers, but Dr. Potkin’s Doppler measurements have made it clear that there is a real, though as yet unquantified exposure for apnea divers as well. As performance parameters increase and more freedivers dive deeper and longer this issue will very likely become of greater concern to more people.
Nor can one regard the prospect of neurological damage with equanimity – we need to know more, and the sooner the better.
Finally, chest squeeze is a problem which has put a goodly number of our friends and colleagues out of the freediving business temporarily or, in some cases, permanently. Dr. Potkin sees the state of our knowledge in this area as primitive. He concedes there is no decisive evidence for the origin of the blood components seen in freedivers’ sputum from time to time. What, exactly is it, where is it coming from and why? If there are ways to prevent or mitigate this class of barotrauma, it were better we knew and practiced them
Since the Potkin research has direct and immediate consequences for the survival, health and well-being of all freedivers, it seems to me we should be willing to share our experience and knowledge with the investigator. What we have is folklore – there’s a lot of good knowledge there, as the doctors acknowledge – but it’s not systematized and doubtless includes some bogus theorems and superstitions. We can teach science things it never knew about the human body, things that may well have prophylactic and even therapeutic implications way beyond the freediving scene. Science, in return, can help us put our knowledge in order, guiding us to safer practices and better performance.
There’s a way you can join in this effort and make a significant, immediate contribution. No, don’t grab you wallet, it’s not money that’s needed from you – it’s your experience and knowledge. Please take the time to visit the Potkin research website.
The brain you pick may be your own. | <urn:uuid:b6ec7ee6-8bf9-4d80-aab5-df4f58c9dd1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deeperblue.com/picking-your-brain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952225 | 2,637 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Coaches are cordial when it comes to refsPublished 12:31am Sunday, March 18, 2012
NATCHEZ — Natchez High School head football coach Lance Reed’s philosophy on coach-referee interaction is simple: keep a line of communication open.promptly
“When we’re able to communicate, and I’m asking a question and things of that sort, or getting (clarification) on what’s transpiring, I think that makes me more comfortable,” Reed said.
While coaches and referees are never going to see eye-to-eye on every little detail, Reed said he thinks, ultimately, everyone’s just trying to do their job .
“In the heat of the moment on Friday nights, there are some intense things that occur, but the bottom line is I think everyone’s out there to put on a good program and good game,” Reed said.
“You have to communicate and get to the common ground.”
The dynamic between a school’s coaching staff and the team of officials varies from person to person, as far as a coach’s approach is concerned. Each coach is ultimately trying to work the referees to give his or her team the best possible outcome.
Trinity Episcopal football and basketball coach David King said he believes most referees are doing what they do for the athletes, and he admitted that there’s certainly a motivation to “working” officials.
“It’s my job to work them as much as I work my players,” King said. “I’d like to work them as hard as I can to manipulate them in my favor, because we’re all humans. Not that they intend to do that, but sometimes you can tell if one of them is going to give into you or not. It’s like a head game with officials, a strategy.”
Ferriday High School football coach Richard Oliver said there’s definitely a line you don’t want to cross if you can help it. Even though Oliver said referees aren’t supposed to be looking to flag a player because a coach gets on his case, anything’s possible.
“There’s an old cliché, you get more flies with honey,” Oliver said. “I don’t want to go and (get someone upset) who’s going to have to make a judgment call. If you’re nice to someone, it’s just human nature for them to be nice to you.”
Oliver also said there are instances when tempers can flare.
“Sometimes you get into heated discussions because you see something one way and they see it another way, but ultimately, they have the right to do what they do, and we don’t have that right, so we have to respect that,” Oliver said. “But I figure that being nice couldn’t hurt.”
For someone like Adams County Christian School girls basketball coach Melanie Hall, who wears her emotions on her sleeve, there’s definitely a need to be clear to officials that nothing is ever personal, Hall said.
“I’m fortunate because I’ve been doing this a while now, and the officials know me and they know that I’m just passionate about the game, and I’m just intense, and if I’m hollering, I don’t mean anything by it,” Hall said.
“They usually give me a lot of leeway, understanding how I am, and it’s not a personal thing by any means.”
Other coaches, like Cathedral High School girls basketball coach Randy Smith, just don’t interact with referees much at all.
“When I got past 30 years old, I started getting a little more mature,” Smith said. “It doesn’t really help to get on them, because there are certain referees where you say any one word, they will hound you the rest of the game. So I learned just be quiet, learn their personality and figure out the ones you can talk to.”
Smith said when he does talk to referees, he’s usually just trying to point things out in a polite manner.
“I’m trying to point out that there’s a girl who’s really hacking on our girl, or going over our backs, or they’re really walking a lot,” Smith said. “Whatever I think at the time they’re not calling.”
If there’s ever a time when coaches feel it’s absolutely necessary to have dialogue with officials, it’s when a coach feels his players might be in danger of being hurt by overly aggressive opponents. Reed said protecting his players is of the utmost importance.
“Sometimes you can go in some environments and kind of sense some things,” Reed said.
“You’d hate to think that, but you really have to stand your ground sometimes, in a respectful way and a professional way. But, you definitely have to protect your kids when you feel like something’s happening in cases where they may get some harm.” | <urn:uuid:ac969d7b-7c51-4ee5-be75-c265d86a2447> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2012/03/18/coaches-are-cordial-when-it-comes-to-refs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968104 | 1,128 | 1.65625 | 2 |
LETTER: Too much segregation in Aiken
Too much segregation in AikenIt was an honor and privilege to participate in the Black History Parade of Feb. 17. The chilly day was warmed by the family atmosphere and festive mood.
There were, however, several ironies that bring me pause of discomfort. I have attended numerous parades in Aiken, all of which have encompassed a community route of Park Avenue to downtown Laurens Street – except for the Black History Parade given the more isolated route of Hampton Avenue.
This choice coupled with the Aiken Standard’s choice of parade day headline “Cotton is king” next to the smaller headline “Black History Parade moved to today” is an unfortunate message to our community – a message perhaps only trumped with the Black History Museum on York Street sitting empty and unfunded for many years while other community buildings continue to be funded.
Segregation, in a word is not the enemy, it is we who are upholding it.
Editor’s note: According to Sgt. Jake Mahoney of the Aiken Department of Public Safety, the Black History Parade organizers requested the Hampton Avenue route rather than using the traditional downtown parade route. | <urn:uuid:b8a3bffd-4c8c-47df-a1ed-6aad549e37ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aikenstandard.com/article/20130221/AIK0203/130229929/1031/get-festive-with-ugly-christmas-sweaters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936213 | 248 | 1.695313 | 2 |
“There are no good girls gone wrong – just bad girls found out.”
― Mae West
Last Thursday I got to attend a storytelling event featuring one of my personal feminist and academic heroines. I even got to meet her after the show and had to stop the litany of fangirling going on in my head as I went up to shake her hand, “Don’t say anything stupid, don’t freak out, smile don’t drool, stop grinning like a hyena…” After I thanked her for the work she’s doing in multiple mediums, she gave me a hug and I went away skipping.
But next to meeting this woman, the coolest moment was when audience members were invited to contribute a story of their own on the evening’s them: Good Girls Don’t. I’d always wanted to try it so I volunteered as available, and to my surprise I was picked. Here’s a brief riff on the story I told. The story at the event was a lot less polished, but it’s still worth the retelling. (Sorry in advance, Mum, but it’s my favorite story of you ever.)
My mother has a good life, I think, but parts of it could have made a Lifetime Original Movie. She’s overcome abuse, depression, and family issues to come out on the other side with three degrees, four kids, world travel, and a survivors mindset hidden behind a beautiful house, antiques, and academia. My mother believes in being strong minded, independent, and educated – but in addition to this, she believed in being a lady.
Ladies aren’t rough, they are firm but polite. They speak well and keep their elbows off the table. They sit up straight. They converse intelligently but in measured tones. Above all they are not crass: bad or rude language was not permitted in our house. We could ask any questions we wanted, all the kids were given a lot of independence, and we were given a lot of intellectual leeway in some ways, but we could not swear. This got to be difficult for me as I got older because frankly I love a good “damn!” and think some words, while perhaps less than savory, are absolutely the appropriate words to use in some situations. But not for Mum. Ladies don’t use coarse language and heaven help me if I did in her presence.
I think, and this is just speculation on my part, that being ladylike was so important to my mother because she’s overcome a lot and coming out of it with the moral high ground was important to her. Behaving properly and speaking well are markers of success, intelligence, and sophistication – my mother earned all those descriptions and it was important to her that her children acquire them as well. To become ladies in the case of her daughters, and gentlemen in the case of her sons.
But I was there the day my mom broke.
When we were living on that tiny island in the Pacific, my father had achieved considerable rank in his career and with that came some perks. We had designated parking spaces, respectful nods, and my mother was able to be a part of organizations with some prestige in the community, even rising to become the president of one. One day she had to run some errands and pulling into a parking lot towards her designated spot, she accidentally cut someone off.
It was a man, who promptly lost it. He started banging on his steering wheel, screaming obscenities that we couldn’t hear and culminated with lifting one hand and flipping my mother off.
And my mother, in her nice suit and pearls around her neck, sitting in her minivan with four children, with a lifetime of hard knocks behind her just looked at the guy. Years later I’d still give anything to know what went through her head because I never saw what was coming. I have no idea why this was the moment that snapped her, but apparently the time had come. Her jaw tightened for a moment, she raised both her hands…and returned the gesture. Double barreled.
All four kids stared at her. The man, his jaw hanging open and his face draining of color as he recognized the markings on our car that indicated my father’s rank, faded in the rear view mirror as my mother turned into her designated parking. And my mother, composure restored, shut off the car calmly in her spot before turning around in her seat to look at us. “Never do that, children,” she said in precise, correct tones. “It’s rude.”
Mum thinks that this “might not have been her best mothering moment,” though I disagree. All four of us kids still speak of that day in hushed tones, it was that earth shattering and awesome. Without a doubt, even at the height of our teenage angst and parent despising, every last one of us respected Mum for this out-of-character act. She somehow became more human, less image conscious, taller, braver, and far more imposing in that moment than we had ever given her credit for. In spite of what we knew she’d gone through in her life, there were suddenly sides to our mother we realized we didn’t know, and we knew that wherever they were hiding, we didn’t want to mess.
Well behaved women might not get angry, fight back, or use bad language… but then again they might and it’s okay, no one is going to revoke your pearls. In fact, some people might even grudgingly admire you. Good girls don’t raise both fists to the skies, but I learned in one spectacular moment that sometimes…just occasionally Ladies do. | <urn:uuid:bd31a3b6-0728-4458-ae08-e94f29d4869f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smalldog.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/good-girls-dont/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984722 | 1,217 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Oscar Romero was made Archbishop of El Salvador because the powers that be deemed him a cautious nebbish who wouldn't rock the boat. But when his friend, Father Grande, was murdered in 1977 for espousing liberation theology, the scales fell from Romero's eyes. He denounced the military regime until, in 1980, he too was shot one of 70,000 victims of the civil war.
Romero is the first theatrical release of Paulist Productions, run by an order of the Catholic priesthood. It is stiffly written by people who know more about good works than they do about good drama. They simply can't tell a story: The characters are cardboard cutouts in a crudely constructed morality play.
Every American should know about Oscar Romero's martyrdom, and this movie is a more strictly factual account of the war than Oliver Stone's aesthetically superior Salvador. But thanks to Raul Julia's intense, understated performance and the gut-wrenching nature of the atrocities Romero saw, the movie has its gripping moments. Unfortunately, they are too few. Despite its moral excellence, Romero fails utterly to bring the activist archbishop to life. C | <urn:uuid:e2f89978-f10d-4dff-bcd1-868fe3f602f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,316840,00.html | 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 | 0.969861 | 234 | 1.632813 | 2 |
PART VI: The Teens
Haiti, obviously it's one of the most poor countries in the Western hemisphere. It's very close to the United States, really. It's had a long relationship with lots of countries that I've been involved with, you know, the United States, France. And it's like a desperately poor place. And when these terrible disasters happen in a very poor place, the result is magnified over and over and over and over what it would be in a country that is more accessible, with more infrastructure left and so on. So this is like a huge, massive disaster for one of the poorest, poorest countries - and it's so poor, it's very hard to describe how poor it is compared to all the other countries in our hemisphere... (The Haitians) have a wonderful spirit, they have an amazing attitude to life, a very vibrant culture, a very vibrant cultural life in music, in dance, poetry... carving, painting is amazing, so they have a very varied cultural life, but they've had terrible poverty that they've endured for hundreds of years since the independence of Haiti two hundred years ago. So they've had to endure a terrible lifestyle, mismanagement and so on, so this perhaps for Haiti could be the most terrible moment but it could also be a turning point where Haiti would get all the help it needs to restructure its society, so they can take advantage of the wonderful human resources that they have.
In 1971, I certainly wasn't thinking, Oh, it's a new page or The '60s are over. Because the '60s were very different at the beginning than they were at the end... (M)aybe some decades have that acceleration on, and others, not so much. I mean, we've had a lot of acceleration now. Technology is just incredible. God knows if we'll survive it.
The whole question of legalizing drugs is fraught... You usually try these things out in very small places... You know, like you try a new product out in a small kind of society or an island somewhere. And in England they always try out new mobile phones in Isle of Man. They've got a captive society. So I said, you should try - you should try the legalization of all drugs on the Isle of Man and see what happens. Human beings seem to have a propensity to want to take drugs in some form... It seems to be the propensity of human beings to want to use them... I think you have to take that as read, you know. But then what do you do when it affects so many people's lives, and not in a good way. And then also you get a lot of violence at both ends of the scope. So you get violence in some countries... which, like, we have in Mexico now, and you get violence at the other end of people trying to obtain drugs. That's the part that speaks to some sort of legalization. Because that, you would hope, would help the violence from both ends of the supply line. | <urn:uuid:466de173-4273-4558-b254-70ab7c076d89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeisonourside.com/universe6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982202 | 621 | 1.757813 | 2 |
One of the major announcements at last week’s mHealth Summit was made by Qualcomm who introduced a new platform for wirelessly connecting medical devices. The 2net platform abstracts away the details of connecting a sensor to a cloud-based server.
Right now, if a company develops a great lightweight sensor to measure, say, walking speed, it will also have to engineer a way for that information to be transferred wirelessly, sometimes across a couple of stops, to its eventual destination somewhere on a server. Although these same challenges repeat for every device, each company has to “reinvent the wheel”.
Additionally, once it arrives at the company’s servers that rich collection of data would still be isolated – in a “data silo”. If another company comes along with a terrific heart rate sensor and suggests, “why don’t we combine the two data streams and make a useful new app”, not only would they have to recreate the entire chain of communication for themselves, the two companies would have to agree to methods for their two servers to talk and share information.
2Net makes almost all of the above problems Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at iMedicalApps*
If ever a medical device company crossed a line with their marketing, this one has. Essure, which makes a sterilization device for women, is trying to scare men away from vasectomy in order to drive women to use their device.
“We made men watch footage of an actual vasectomy,” says the female voiceover — and then they proceed to show men’s reactions to watching a surgical procedure, with “That’s frickin’ gross, man” being the most memorable quote. The final tagline: “You can only wait so long for him to man up.” Yeah, and to be sure he doesn’t, they’ve created this ad.
The ad is slimy, harmful, obnoxious, and just plain stupid. A couple’s decision as to which sterilization procedure is best for them should be one informed by real information, not frat-boy marketing.
How dare they? The FDA should pull this ad — now.
Addendum: I just emailed the FDA at BadAd@fda.hhs.gov. Feel free to copy my message below and send your own email:
To the FDA,
I find this ad for Essure both inflammatory and unethical. I am incensed at the impact this ad could have on couples’ informed choices about sterilization. I ask that you mandate that the company who makes Essure immediately pull this ad, both from the Web and from any media outlet where it’s playing.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
On September 27, 2010, the peer-reviewed scientific journal Europace published online-before-print a case report entitled “Spontaneous explosion of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator” by Martin Hudec and Gabriela Kaliska. In the pdf of that case report a figure containing a color photo of the affected patient’s chest, chest X-ray, and two pictures of the extracted device (one seen here) were included.
The pictures and case presentation were dramatic and the case very rare. Both were perfect reasons to report such an important case to the medical literature. And so these doctors sent the case to Europace on June 29, 2010, and the article was accepted after revision on August 16, 2010, with the article appearing online September 27, 2010.
The authors must have felt very proud to have an article published relatively quickly, and the editors and reviewers of Europace must have thought the case was unique enough and important enough to have the article revised according to their specifications, then published online — until I reported the case on this blog on October 5, 2010, and included images from a portion of the case report’s figure.
Remarkably, later that same day, Europace removed the case report from its website without comment. The article simply vanished. I attempted to e-mail the editor of Europace to inquire about the reason for the retraction but received no reply, so I contacted the lead author, Martin Hudec, M.D. He kindly responded and I included his email response in the comments to my post two days later. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes* | <urn:uuid:81207612-ea67-4811-a378-f86e6eb1cf16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://getbetterhealth.com/tag/medical-device-industry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961391 | 946 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Read this article in: عربي
IRAQ: State food aid package slashed
More than half Iraq's 29 million citizens receive government food aid (file photo)
BAGHDAD, 1 April 2010 (IRIN) - The Iraqi government has decided to cut by half the number of items in state food aid parcels - something that could affect roughly half the population, according to the Trade Ministry.
In future, parcels would contain only flour, rice, sugar, cooking oil and milk.
“The food rationing system has become a burden on the budget,” Deputy Trade Minister Waleed al-Hilo told IRIN. About US$3 million has been allocated to the Trade Ministry for state food aid - half the sum requested, he said.
“These allocations are not enough to keep the system running until the end of the year because of an increase in prices… So we decided to focus our attention on the most important items,” he said, adding that they would continue to distribute some of the soon-to-be omitted items for several months while stocks lasted.
The move comes just a few weeks after a decision to exclude
from state food aid distribution lists those considered to be better off.
Iraq’s food rationing system, known as the Public Distribution System (PDS), was set up in 1995 as part of the UN’s oil-for-food programme following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but it has been crumbling since 2003 due to poor management, insecurity and corruption, a senior official said.
Monthly PDS parcels have hitherto been supposed to contain rice (3kg per person); sugar (2kg per person); cooking oil (1.25kg or one litre per person); flour (9kg per person); milk for adults (250g per person); tea (200g per person); beans (250g per person); children's milk (1.8kg per child); soap (250g per person); detergents (500g per person); and tomato paste (500g per person).
Many people are shocked by the latest move.
“As a construction worker, I don’t have a steady daily or monthly income. I’m highly dependent on government aid for food and non-food items,” said Kahalf Hamid Dawood, 52, from Sadr City in east Baghdad.
He explained that by selling some of the food items he did not need, he was able to earn a little extra money. “The government must compensate poor people with money so that they can buy what they need. The cut will place another burden on us,” he said. | <urn:uuid:aedd7f79-6e03-4253-9937-6ec94ca78833> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irinnews.org/Report/88646/IRAQ-State-food-aid-package-slashed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945928 | 560 | 1.789063 | 2 |
|Back to January Ed Reporter|
|NUMBER 252||THE NEWSPAPER OF EDUCATION RIGHTS||JANUARY 2007|
|Libraries Toss Out the Classics|
Many of those books were doubtless no great loss: yesterday's beach reads or self-help books, or duplicates on the same topics. As the system director, Sam Clay, put it, "If you have 40 feet of shelf space taken up by books on tulips and you find that only one is checked out, that's a cost."
But what about Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings, which one branch recently eliminated? Or Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls? Or Voltaire's Candide?
The loss of titles such as these has provoked questions about the purpose of the modern library. Should it reflect consumer tastes like the local Borders or Barnes & Noble? Leslie Burger, president of the American Library Association, seems to think it should. "I think the days of libraries saying, 'we must have that, because it's good for people,' are beyond us," she says.
John J. Miller, for one, disagrees, and said so in a recent editorial. Rather than competing with the mega-bookstores, he wrote, libraries should "seek to differentiate themselves among the many options readers now have," by serving as "cultural storehouses that contain the best that has been thought and said."
In Fairfax County and elsewhere, individual librarians cast the final vote on each book. Fairfax branches have rescued many unpopular classics from the heap, and say certain books will always make the cut.
The nearby Arlington County Public Library has its own idea. While responsive to patron demand, it has a new program to display under-circulated classics prominently in the library.
"Part of my philosophy is that you collect for the ages," says Arlington library director Diane Kresh. "The library has a responsibility to provide a core collection for the cultural education of its community."
With computers, audiovisual materials and meeting space requiring more room in libraries everywhere, the discussion about how to weed out books, and which should remain, will continue.
Meanwhile, if you live in Fairfax County and your favorite books aren't topping any charts, go check them out. At least that will guarantee they'll be there for others to discover until 2009. (Washington Post, 1-2-2007; Wall Street Journal, 1-3-2007) | <urn:uuid:a941bee5-e2c7-4f21-bcde-ea087290f5fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2007/jan07/classics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95546 | 507 | 1.6875 | 2 |
What’s for dessert? Forrest Estate Botrytised Riesling 2006
What’s for dessert? No matter how many courses there may be for a meal, whether it be 2 or 8, I always look forward to the dessert or pudding (as they call it here in England) course. An amusing story regarding the word”pudding”. Years ago when I first came to London from California, fresh out of university, I got a job as a waitress in the West End. One night an English customer asked me if we had any puddings. I replied, unwittingly, I should add, “I’m sorry sir, but we don’t have any pudding. We do however have some very nice desserts.” Needless to say, he gave me a very strange look. At the time I didn’t realize that “pudding” was the English version of what we call “dessert” in the States. Pudding in America denotes something like a tapioca pudding, not as creamy as a mousse but similar. “Two countries divided by a common language,” indeed!
After a rather delicious lunch of tapas at The Providores not long ago, Vintage Macaroon (pictured) and I were debating what to have for dessert. Rather then sharing a dessert we ended up with two desserts and two wines! Yes, we are greedy and insatiable. We’d had a bottle of riesling with lunch so we carried on with a racy New Zealand botrytised riesling from Forrest Estate and a Noble semillon from Pegasus Bay. I enjoyed the semillon but the real stand out for me was the riesling.
Forrest Estate has an interesting story. It’s a winery that was founded by two Drs., John and Brigid Forrest, one a molecular biologist and the other a medical doctor, who chucked it all in to try their hand at winemaking. As they say on their site, they did it because they wanted “…a mixture of the wine ‘passion’ and a desire to achieve and be recognised and rewarded for ones efforts. In hindsight we struck upon a career which suits our personalities – a perfect blend of art and science…” The doctors bought a vineyard in Marlborough in the Wairau River Vallely where they produce their scrumptious, voluptuous botrytised riesling.
The grapes come from three different vineyards in the region, two of which have stoney, gravely soils and the other crushed stones and clay mixed together. These two different soils give the wines their distinctive profile. The former, crisp acidity and citrus aromas and the latter, a pure spiciness and stone fruit flavours. Harvest occurs 4 – 8 weeks after the regular harvest and usually, depending on the climate variations of the year, 40-90% of the grapes have botrytis. A quick side note, botrytis is a fungal disease that affects grapes left on the vine too long. Although it attacks the grapes and makes them shrivel, the result is a pure concentration of sweet fruit whilst still retaining high acidity.
The 2006 Forrest Estate botrytised Riesling certainly had that zippy acidity running through it. I love the combination of sweet, rich wine with that time delay of acidity that really gets your mouth watering. The ’06 had developed those secondary characteristics of truffle and a certain earthiness but still had quite a bit of fruit character, limes, apricots and tangerines being predominate both on the nose and palate. There was also a sweet toffee note and more oranges, this time, candied oranges sprang to mind. Matched with the mint, chocolate chip and raspberry Arctic Roll with riesling poached fruit, was fantastic. It was like eating an alcoholic orange creamsicle. A dessert for grownups. It would have been a most satisfying way to end the afternoon but we just had to stop off for a glass of champagne on the way home. Well, it was Friday! | <urn:uuid:346fa429-6ef6-44db-a91f-28ff2d2e2868> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thewinesleuth.co.uk/2010/09/27/whats-for-dessert-forrest-estate-botrytised-riesling-2006/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=1ba466d084 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965793 | 863 | 1.546875 | 2 |
LAFAYETTE —Temperatures may be going down but there are things you can do to keep you energy bill from going up.
Officials at one of the area's leading energy suppliers offered us some tips on how to save some green during these bitter cold winter days.
"The best way to conserve energy in the cold months is to turn your heating thermostat no higher than 68 dregrees, preferably lower if you can stand it," said Mary Laurent of SLEMCO.
You should also lower your thermostat when you're gone because the heating bill really does get a lot higher than the summer bills if the temperatures get extreme for a long period of time.
Don't forget to continue to protect your plants, pipes and pets during this cold weather. | <urn:uuid:0d0730bf-e3c5-4900-b1ce-1abf1cdb05a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kadn.com/holiday-events/lowering-your-energy-bill | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946813 | 160 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Successful test well increases the potential for the BakkenAn oil well in McKenzie County is being called a “game-changer” for the Bakken. Continental Resources announced this month the first well to successfully produce oil deeper into the Three Forks zone of the Bakken oil system, a milestone that could mean there is more recoverable oil in North Dakota than originally estimated.
By: By Amy Dalrymple, Forum Communications, The Jamestown Sun
WILLISTON, N.D. — An oil well in McKenzie County is being called a “game-changer” for the Bakken.
Continental Resources announced this month the first well to successfully produce oil deeper into the Three Forks zone of the Bakken oil system, a milestone that could mean there is more recoverable oil in North Dakota than originally estimated.
John Harju, associate director for research with the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota, said Continental’s test deeper into the Three Forks is significant for the state.
“This is really exciting news and dramatically heightens the even bigger potential of the Bakken system than previously estimated,” Harju said.
The development this month is a successful test with an oil well called the Charlotte 3-22H in McKenzie County.
“We’re very excited about what we’ve seen here,” said Jack Stark, Continental Resources senior vice president for exploration. “This brings us one step closer to proving there are more recoverable reserves from the Three Forks than we originally thought, but we’ve got to do a lot more testing.”
Continental Resources has pioneered exploration in the Three Forks formation, which lies below the Bakken formation. Oil in the Three Forks is the same light, sweet crude that is being produced from the middle layer of Bakken shale, Stark said.
Historically, drilling in the Bakken oil system targeted the middle Bakken shale and the upper Three Forks, Stark said.
In 2011, Continental Resources, the largest lease-holder in the Bakken took deep core samples that extended through all layers of the Three Forks.
Those core samples, which were taken from wells in a large area, showed that instead of just two oil-producing layers, there are potentially five: the middle Bakken plus four layers, known as benches in the oil industry, of the Three Forks, Stark said.
At that time, Continental changed its estimates of the total amount of oil in place in the Bakken system from 577 billion barrels of oil to 903 billion barrels of oil, a 57 percent increase.
The amount of oil that can be recovered, however, is a very small percentage.
In 2010, Continental estimated that the Bakken field would eventually yield 24 billion barrels of oil equivalent based on technology available at the time.
New developments with the Three Forks may increase that number, but more testing needs to be done, Stark said.
About a year ago, Continental announced the first successful test of the second bench of the Three Forks.
The latest successful test well was in the third bench.
In a news release, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm said “this could be a real game-changer.”
The company has a 14-well drilling program in 2013 to further test the deeper layers of the Three Forks.
Continental expects to have a test well in the fourth bench of the Three Forks as early as mid-2013, Stark said.
Geologist Kathy Neset said she expects other companies will begin drilling deeper into the Three Forks.
The U.S. Geological Survey said in 2008 that there is an estimated 4 billion barrels of oil that is technically recoverable from the Bakken, but those estimates did not include the Three Forks. The USGS is updating its estimates to include the Three Forks, and Continental is providing information from its tests, Stark said.
Alison Ritter, spokeswoman for the Department of Mineral Resources, said the department can’t comment on the specifics of the Continental Resources test well because it’s on confidential status until mid-March.
But from what Continental has announced publicly, it is big news for the state, Ritter said.
“When you look back at the history of the Bakken, there have been milestone wells along the way,” Ritter said. “This one definitely has the potential to be a well like that.” | <urn:uuid:63b16de5-a8e4-4201-8341-6fa6ac57c30e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/176109/publisher_ID/10/ | 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 | 0.952511 | 936 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Read More: Laughter Therapy, Laughter, Laughter Yoga, Intent, Intent of the Day, Laughing, Daily Intent, GPS for the Soul, Laughing Health, Laughter Health, Laugh Yoga, Laughing Yoga, Healthy Living News
People have long said that laughter is the best medicine, and we know now of its many positive physiological effects. There is plenty of evidence on why we should laugh, so why don't we?
For the newbie, the most difficult thing in Laughter Yoga is allowing yourself to let go. We are vulnerable when we laugh. That is why so many people tend to be afraid of laughter, joy and glee. | <urn:uuid:a97d0031-e32c-42f8-936b-4d57f5afeacf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/laugh-yoga | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936949 | 136 | 1.71875 | 2 |
BHUBANESWAR: The state government is planning to open 18 model degree colleges in low gross enrolment ratio (GER) districts. These are Boudh, Deogarh, Malkangiri, Nayagarh, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Rayagada and Sonepur, higher education minister Badri Narayan Patra told the Assembly in a written reply on Thursday.
Official sources said the proposed model colleges are part of the Centre's new scheme to provide assistance to set up a model degree college in each of the identified 374 educationally-backward districts in the country where GER for higher education is less than the national average. This scheme is also part of government's policy for access, participation and expansion of higher education.
Under this scheme, the centre shall provide assistance one-third of the capital cost for establishment of each college, limited to Rs 2.67 crore. Higher education secretary Gagan Kumar Dhal said the state government had already sent the model college proposals to the Centre, adding that the state had allocated funds in the budget to set these up.
Replying to a separate question, the minister said a decision of the state government, dated June 1, 2010, to bifurcate Plus Two from Plus Three colleges and make them function under the school and mass education department will be implemented from the coming academic session.
According to the minister, Odisha has a total of 551 Plus Two colleges, including 51 governments, 255 aided category-one and 245 aided category- two colleges.
Patra replying to another question said the government was taking steps to collect detailed information of each college through performance tracking cell (PTC) of the higher education department and place them in their portal. | <urn:uuid:76be7f3c-93cc-4cbc-a177-7cc1c749a9f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-11-30/bhubaneswar/35484299_1_model-degree-colleges-higher-education-low-gross-enrolment-ratio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956203 | 357 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Controversial police estimates of turnouts at major protests and marches are scientific, the head of police operations insisted yesterday.
"There are no political considerations behind the figures," director of operations Paul Hung Hak- wai said. "We count actual numbers of how many people pass our counting devices."
There have been persistent criticisms that police tend to underestimate turnouts for the June 4 candlelight vigil, July 1 rally and the series of anti- national education marches.
Estimates differ widely from protest organizers' numbers.
Unlike other academic bodies whose turnout figures are worked out statistically, Hung insisted the force has always provided "actual numbers."
He said demonstration turnouts only matter in police deployment and decisions on security arrangements, and so are used mainly for internal references and not usually made public.
Hung also said it was a fair decision for the police to use a fire extinguisher-like pepper spray against crowds demonstrating during the visit of President Hu Jintao on June 30.
"Have you seen press reports that some tried to break through giant barricades before we used larger pepper spray?" Hung asked.
The larger sprays were used after verbal warnings and warning banners were unfurled, and after protesters were undeterred by smaller pepper sprays, he said. "I assure you the difference between the two types of pepper spray was only in their appearance," he said.
Hung spoke at a press conference reviewing crime figures for the first half of the year, when overall crime was largely stable at about 37,500 cases. | <urn:uuid:be16e057-04ad-455a-8c1d-222061b86897> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=4&art_id=125013&con_type=1&d_str=20120803&fc=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971457 | 310 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Great Sermon! Trevor, perhaps you should have qualified the phrase as a "symbolic" meaning of the word demon. Humans don't create demons! literally. So if your listeners don't create their own demons, then they don't believe in demons..... Well, not to belabor the point, but just to say that there are demons besides the ones we "create."
Ken Ham is a pioneer in science and Bible education for America. He stays with the authority of God's word. You may or may not agree with everything he says, but he has courage and dignity, and stays with the Bible, which is what we all should do.
Great Sermon! What is wrong? All things are permissable, but all things are not helpful. Don't cause your brother to stumble. If my drink causes a brother to stumble, I will not drink it. If my freedom is a stumbling block for a weaker believer, or even a non-believer, I will not accept, nor will I reach for, so that they might not stumble. Love covers over the freedom to partake.
Great Sermon! Good class. Did they ask you if Assyria and today's trouble in Syria have any connection to the book? Obama is helping out the rebels in Syria you know. So I thought that Syria might have its roots in Assyria. But Isaiah 8:12 warns the Hebrew nation not to call everything a conspiracy that those people who were confusing them were calling a conspiracy. (alliance, confederacy...)
Great Sermon! If we had only read, or remembered recent Russian history -- one of the reasons Reagan was able to get the Soviets to tear down the wall in Germany was that the Soviets were bankrupt from a long war with Afghanistan - a place of rocks and dessert and no real value. We should have left the place a year after we went in! No one goes into Afghanistan to WIN. We went in to get Bin Laden. When we could not verify his death, we should have moved to Pakistan.
But Trevor, to say that the war is lost -- well that is just like Harry Reid. And our government's military has NOT lost its mind. If you are flabbergasted, then go complain to the US government military, and not to your audience. Complaining to us won't help.
Great Sermon! Most Americans here have no desire to share the gospel. The Koreans come sacrificially laying down their lives. The British missionaries are excellent at learning language, as other European missionaries -- strong heritage, though now few in number. Brazilians and Filipinos come to work in factories and a few are faithfully having Bible studies. We are a few Americans still who care about Japan. We gather with believers from around the world, and we will continue to reach out to Japan, even if our churches back in the USA will forget us -- for our life is lowly and forgotten by America for the most part. Please pray for us. The language is difficult, and the spiritual attacks are silent and deceptive. We are not without hope, but we are often without support.
Great Sermon! Good for people to study Bible history, and read their Bibles from home and church worship pulpits. We go to an international house church. We have overheads, but also the Bible. I use the Bible in three languages at my home. I love my HCSB Illustrated Study Bible, and I study it and learn the history of God's word. Also got KJV, two Japanese translations, and many other Bibles. I give the gospel of Luke out to unbelievers every weekend. It is a gift from the big city church in the big city, but we are reaching the countrysides too! Pray that the unbelievers as well as the believers read the gospel, and the whole Bible!
Great Sermon! This message was very thoughtful and respectable. Our Lord had the perfect way to rise from the dead, and give us hope through those who saw him and recorded it in four trustworthy gospel accounts. Thank you for your presentation.
Great Sermon! An excellent message, so why did you quit without developing the proper response to such developments in our times? It is as if your counsel would be most useful, if you would but express it AND develop it, rather than just leaving it as a conclusion to sum it all up. Please continue your series as to what God is calling us to as reformed believers in today's world, for we have many who are friends and also who are faithful to the charismatic movement. It hurts the life of the Christian faith, teaching, and life expression in our lost and deceived world. By all means, please continue training us in how then we should react, live and deal with this.
Great Sermon! "A person's a person, no matter how small." Wow !
Kevin quotes Horton Hears a Who, to fight abortion! I would have never have thunk it! Well, great, and everyone protect the unborn any creative way we can !
Ian Paisley sought to take righteousness to political law making. That is, the government authority is set up by God , and uses it for good, and the supression of evil. Simple. He did his job, and we say well done
Canada is in trouble. There is no reason they will not be judged, save the mercy of God. Remain faithful Christians, and fight all homosexuality with strong families, biblical faith, and counseling for gays, that they may be delivered from such a reprobate and humiliating lifestyle. If they don't repent, HIV could be on the way. | <urn:uuid:f361f63e-1917-4af0-818f-ce6eb7ca09dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermonaudio.com/comments_view.asp?onlyname=true&keyword=Mic | 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 | 0.967375 | 1,149 | 1.546875 | 2 |
During the Feb. 11 meeting, Beno clarified that not every street would have a limited ban in effect, echoing Perry's previous statements, which said the limited parking ban would be for a span of about five hours, most likely from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., once per week on the regularly scheduled collection day. Beno said this would increase trash collection efficiency by 25 percent, which is equal to roughly $60,000 in savings.
Beno also expressed concern that without a limited ban on parking, the division would have trouble collecting recycling for the entire city. He said that the division could potentially shorten collection times with a ban, and could go down to three trucks, rather than the four the city currently operates. Beno also estimated between $160,000 and $180,000 in personnel savings. Beno clarified these savings would be from retirements, not layoffs.
He said a 50 percent increase in the recycling participation would show more than $100,000 in savings to the city, with the program expected to save the city between $240,000 and $250,000 annually, with the city expected to recoup the investment by year seven.
Councilman Shawn Juris, chair of the committee, was still concerned this would be a problem for residents. Perry noted there are 18 homes in Lakewood without driveways, and those residents would be granted hardship permits.
Councilman David Anderson, a guest of the committee, said he didn't want the city to get hasty, and he wanted the city to take its time to consider other alternatives, such as collecting waste and recycling on different days.
The committee did not make a decision, and more discussion is expected before the issue goes before Lakewood City Council. | <urn:uuid:20420f7d-4ab9-45fe-9f7f-461d54af4df6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index.ssf/2013/02/lakewood_continues_discussion.html | 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 | 0.979216 | 357 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Full title reads: "Brooklands. Towed gliding from race track. Mr. Lowe-Wylde, holder of first glider pilot's licence, provides thrills a'plenty for holidaymakers!"
Mr Lowe Wylde climbs into the cockpit of his glider. The aircraft is towed along the track at Brooklands,...
Brooklands car racing.
Percy Wild wins the cycling race at Brooklands race track.
Motorcyclists take part in a race at Brooklands in Surrey.
Bicycle race at Brooklands race course.
Racing cars speed round the track at over 100 mph watched by crowds at Brooklands.
Light car race in Brooklands where drivers must do their own repairs.
Record breaking speeds achieved at motor car race.
Drivers of 50 small cars brave reliability tests at Brooklands in Surrey. | <urn:uuid:d007a0c4-ab4c-4330-a3ed-304441578d4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishpathe.com/video/towed-gliding-from-race-track/query/brooklands | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930235 | 174 | 1.726563 | 2 |
BCSC Diploma in
Shopping Centre Management
Designed in partnership with the British Council of Shopping Centres and widely recognised by leading employers in the UK and internationally, this newly updated course has been specifically designed for those ready to take the next step in their career development within the retail industry.
This course aims to develop students' knowledge and understanding of retail property management. Many students on this course are employed in active retail environments that have peak seasonal trading periods during the year. Uniquely, the Diploma has been structured to fit around these busy times.
- The 'must have' qualification in Retail Asset Management
- Further your career
- Improve the management of shopping centres for the benefit of customers, retailers and owners
- Develop business skills and gain a wider understanding of shopping centre management
- Build on personal and practical experience in the workplace
- Benefit from on-site presentations and tours of leading UK shopping centres and a broad range of innovative online learning activities
No prior knowledge in related subject areas is assumed in recognition of the varied backgrounds of participants.
Applications are welcomed from employees of Members of the British Council of Shopping Centres (BCSC) or International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
BCSC Diploma in Shopping Centre Management
2 - 4 years
Application and start
16 December 2013 to start 13 January 2014
12 May 2014 to start 9 June 2014
£1,100 per module, x 8 modules
Total programme fees: £8,880
The course has been developed jointly by the BCSC and the College of Estate Management
Formed in 1983, the British Council of Shopping Centres represents the retail property industry. Its primary objective is to encourage improvement in the standards of management, planning and design of British shopping centres. Membership is open to all professional consultants, retailers and contractors involved in the ownership, development or operation of shopping centres. Free student membership of the BCSC is given to all students of this course upon entry.
BCSC organises regular lunchtime lectures, centre visits, seminars and conferences to keep its Members updated on the latest trends and developments in the UK and overseas.
At least two years' experience of, or employment within, centre management, or appropriate experience of management in the retail or related industries over the same period, or one of the following:
• 1 A Level pass or local equivalent qualification, including Scottish Highers or Irish Leaving Certificate
• Edexcel BTEC National Certificate or National Diploma
• NVQ Level 3
• Pass in one 6-unit Vocational Certificate of Education at Advanced Level (AVCE)
• Other equivalent qualifications at NQF Level 3
• CEM Diploma in Surveying Practice/Construction Practice
• Relevant professional qualifications
If you are not directly employed in the shopping centre industry, you must demonstrate a commitment to obtaining qualifications in order to progress to centre management.
Management of Retail Centres
knowledge and understanding of the roles within the organisation including the work of shopping centre managers and shopping centre operations managers; overview of the retail industry; management structures; day-to-day requirements of managing or operating a shopping centre; effective service charge budget management; understanding, planning for and mitigating the risks involved in the daily running of a shopping centre.
Marketing the Shopping Centre †
Principles of marketing including: brand image development and exploitation; new challenges in communications from media expansion; public relations; events; promotions; new research techniques; e-commerce; customer relationship management and permission marketing; customer service.
Creating and Refurbishing Retail Space
The five principal stages of the physical development of a shopping centre and its subsequent refurbishment following a period of use, to include planning, design, delivery, operation and refurbishment; knowledge and understanding of the processes through which modern retail space is created and refreshed throughout its lifecycle; relationship between an individual centre and its surrounding area.
Valuation of the Retail Asset
Investment and valuation skills central to shopping centre ownership and management; valuation methods and their application in shopping centre real estate; sources of income including rent, car parking, and commercialisation; outgoings including service charges, business rates and insurance; ways of working more effectively with asset managers to increase the value of a centre; measuring, maintaining and increasing the financial performance of a shopping centre.
Managing People in Shopping Centres
Introduction to the principal theories relating to how and why people behave in particular ways within organisations; aspects of behaviour including motivation, planning and communication; management of both directly employed and contract staff; general principles of employment law, Health & Safety and security law.
An insight into retailers, retailing methods and thier application in shopping centres; shoppers, retailers and centre owners as customers; shopping centre management of the tenant / landlord / customer relationship that exists with its retailers; leisure elements.
Contract and Lease Management †
Common basic English legal problems relating to contracts and leases, including such matters as termination of leases and liabilities.
Production of a Research-based project in the context of shopping centre management, using appropriate research methodology, providing an opportunity for sustained personal investigation into a focused topic area.
January and June Semesters for both Parts 1 and 2 will include an introductory workshop and a shopping centre study tour.
Overnight accommodation is not provided as part of these sessions.
We recommend that you also attend the annual BCSC/CEM Shopping Centre Management Conference in September
Assessment consists of assignments and/or examinations with the exception of the major project in Part 2, which is totally based on coursework submissions.
You will complete and submit one assignment per module for assessment according to the timetable of the course - apart from the Valuation of the Retail Asset module, which is assessed by examination only. Modules marked with † will be assessed by coursework alone.
Exams will be held at the end of May and in October (Week 20 of each semester) as follows:
- One 2-hour written paper for all modules (except those marked with †)
- In Part 1's June Semester there will be a 1½-hour examination for the Valuation of the Retail Asset module | <urn:uuid:a24f7fe5-52c4-406b-9617-0ad8d29e7e9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cem.ac.uk/our-programmes/undergraduate-study/bcsc-diploma-in-shopping-centre-management.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939969 | 1,256 | 1.5 | 2 |
|TRENTON –– Though the prom season is months away, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is already asking high school seniors throughout the state to give some serious thought to the dangers they face on that exciting night and how those dangers can be avoided.
Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa and Alcoholic Beverage Control Director Michael Halfacre today announced the beginning of the sixth annual “Proms and Alcohol Don’t Mix” public service announcement contest, a program that highlights the danger of alcohol for high school students.
“Proms are wonderful celebrations and momentous milestones – milestones that should be looked back upon with only the happiest memories,” said Attorney General Chiesa. “But we know that the bad decision to drink alcohol on prom night can have devastating effects on a teen’s future. We want students to enjoy a healthy and safe prom season, and my hope is that this contest will help students focus on the dangers of alcohol,” Chiesa said.
A letter was sent out today to all New Jersey high school principals, asking schools to have their senior students work together on teams to develop scripts for a public service announcement. One overall winning entry will be selected and a number of additional entries will be chosen as runner-up winners. High school students who participate in developing these winning entries will be invited to a special party to recognize their accomplishment. The one overall winning entry will be produced and distributed for broadcast on local television stations.
Last year’s contest winner, created by students from Pascack Regional High School in Hillsdale, was selected from more than 50 submissions from throughout the state.
“We want to see innovative and thought-provoking scripts on the importance of staying safe and sober on prom night,” Halfacre said. “We like this contest because we’ve found that young people can be best educated when they’re engaged by their peers. We believe this sparks a peer-to-peer dialogue of what consequences come when you drink underage.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), youths who consume alcohol are more likely to experience alcohol-related car crashes and other accidents, such as burns, falls and drowning. The United States Department of Health has found that approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die each year as a result of underage drinking.
The following rules apply to the contest:
- Each high school may submit up to three public service announcement scripts. High school students may work in teams to develop the scripts. The Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control encourages as many senior students as possible to participate in the development of the scripts. Only senior high school students are eligible to participate in this program.
- The phrase “Proms and Alcohol Don’t Mix” must be included in the public service announcement.
- The senior students will be asked to participate in the taping of the public service announcements by appearing in the actual video and/or assisting in the production and editing. Only senior high school students from the winning school may appear in the video.
- The public service announcements must meet broadcast, on-air criteria and must be a maximum of thirty seconds in length. Students should time the scripts by reading them out loud prior to submission. It is critical that students adhere to this requirement since the winning entry will be professionally produced.
- All scripts must be typed and submitted on 8 ½ -inch by 11-inch paper.
- No copyrighted characters, music, or celebrities can be used or inferred. Scripts must reflect originality and imagination, and must be easily filmed and produced.
- Content should not be graphic in nature.
- Senior students must include details of what each scene should look like when it is produced on camera.
- Include the following information with all entries: Name of school; Name of teacher and contact information (phone number and email address); Name of students and verification they are seniors. Also include the Senior Prom and Graduation dates at the school.
The deadline for submission is Friday, December 14. All entries must be sent to the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 140 East Front Street, P.O. Box 087, Trenton, New Jersey 08625, Attn: Kelly Troilo, High School Prom TV PSA Contest.
To view last year’s winner, visit the ABC website at www.nj.gov/oag/abc/annual-psa-contest.html. | <urn:uuid:b8d796af-3317-41aa-9abd-49fe0d3665f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases12/pr20121016b.html | 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 | 0.951471 | 928 | 1.828125 | 2 |
| | Fear of HIV/AIDS infection
3 and 1/2 years before, I had only a protected oral sex (used condom) with a German female sex worker. From past one year I had sore throat and fever for a couple of times. Other than this, I do not have any other health problems. When I did my general health checkup, the Rapid-Card HIV test showed negative. But when I mentioned about my oral sex (3 years before), a doctor asked me to do a Western Blot test for HIV/AIDS. I did the Western Blot test for both me and my wife. For both of us the test showed negative for both HIV-1 and HIV-2. However after reading some internet articles, I got confused suffering from extreme fear and anxiety, although my doctor confirmed me that I don't have any HIV infections. Anyone, please clarify me about this and help me to come out of my fear and lead a normal life. Thanks a lot for you in advance. | <urn:uuid:70ac001e-a900-451a-a3d8-de7d2a116923> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthboards.com/boards/hiv-prevention/919113-fear-hiv-aids-infection.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961406 | 204 | 1.515625 | 2 |
So you’ve started sending email from your site/application, your application is doing well and you are now sending more e-mail daily. With this comes the fun of finding out that most of the email you now send ends up stuck in your customers spam filters – how did this happen? You aren’t a Nigerian scammer, and people opted-in to hear from you! At this point signing your mail may be the next step.
Nearly all websites these days send email and because of this the majority of developers assume that they “know how to send email from a website”. They continue under this assumption until they have a site or server of their get black listed by a Spam blacklist. Then they are forced to scratch their heads to try and figure out why this happened. Before you hit send on that email requesting to be removed from that Spam blacklist, let’s recap what you should be doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. | <urn:uuid:6f380ae9-983f-4be0-b7f1-3c6bddf02277> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diaryofaninja.com/tag/mail-server | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964054 | 202 | 1.59375 | 2 |
By Dahleen Glanton and Melanie Mason, Tribune Newspapers
February 13, 2013
As Hadiya Pendleton's parents sat next to the first lady and listened, President Barack Obama told the nation Tuesday that his gun proposals deserve a vote in Congress because of victims like the slain Chicago teen.
Delivering his State of the Union address, Obama said that in the two months since the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., "more than 1,000 birthdays, graduations and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun."
"One of those we lost was a young girl named Hadiya Pendleton," the president said. "She was 15 years old. She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend.
"Just three weeks ago, she was here, in Washington, with her classmates, performing for her country at my inauguration," he said. "A week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house."
Hadiya's parents, Nathaniel Pendleton and Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton, guests of first lady Michelle Obama, stood and applauded as the president demanded that Congress consider his gun measures, saying that the parents of Hadiya and other shooting victims "deserve a vote."
More than 30 gun violence survivors and loved ones were seated in the chamber during the speech. Many of them were part of a group that traveled to Washington this week to lobby for the president's gun proposals. Several were from Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois.
Gun rights advocates have said the president's agenda would unfairly affect law-abiding gun owners and that any crackdown should target criminals who are violating existing laws.
At a hearing on gun violence a few hours before Obama's speech, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked those in the audience who had been affected by gun violence to stand. Dozens of people, about half of the crowd, rose in silence.
"Look about this room," Durbin said. "Understand that the debate we have before us has affected so many lives."
Whether they watched in Washington or at home in Chicago, the speech was particularly significant to parents who have lost children to violence. By singling out Hadiya, they said, the White House gave special attention to the violence in Chicago that claimed more than 500 lives last year.
LaWanda Sterling said she doesn't usually watch the State of the Union address. But on Tuesday, she said, the president talked about the issue that changed her life — gun violence.
"I'm interested now because it hit home for me two years ago," said Sterling, whose 16-year-old son Jeremiah was killed in 2010. "Now it seems like the nation is catching up with Chicago."
But, she said, the president cannot do it alone.
"President Obama is in Washington and he's trying to do everything he can to get the nation as a whole right. It puts the spotlight on Chicago and shows how crime and murder and these guns are running rampant in our communities," she said. "But we have to start in our own neighborhoods. It has to begin with us."
Siretha Woods volunteers at a group home on Tuesday nights, but she planned to take a break to hear the president speak.
"He's dealing with the gun violence. Getting guns off the streets is very important to me," said Woods, whose 10-year-old daughter, Siretha White, was shot and killed at her own surprise birthday party. "I was one of the first ones to experience having a kid at home and being gunned down. It's really crazy and it's still going on."
White was shot in the head by a stray bullet in 2006 after a gunman, aiming at some men standing on the street, sprayed bullets through the window of a house where 30 children were gathered for a party.
After six years, Woods said she feels as if everyone has forgotten about her daughter. Though she is glad that the president addressed violence in his speech, she wanted to hear him talk about all of the children.
"It's not just one parent involved," she said. "I'm not trying to make it personal, but if my daughter could have made it to be 15, maybe she would have been at the inauguration, too. But she was killed at 10. All of us are in this together."
In Washington, relatives of slain victims held a Capitol Hill news conference and meetings with individual representatives and senators. Those meetings will continue Wednesday.
The flurry of activity in Washington — coordinated mainly by Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence — aimed to show a more muscular gun control movement than the one that has come up short in past legislative battles.
"Politicians are beginning to understand that people that maybe they thought wouldn't mobilize or be active on this issue are going to mobilize and are going to be active," said Peter Read, whose 19-year-old daughter Mary was killed nearly six years ago in the Virginia Tech massacre. "And they realize they can't ignore it anymore."
In a quiet moment before the news conference, Read introduced himself to one of those new activists.
With both hands, Read clasped the hand of Nathaniel Pendleton. They didn't say much, just held the handshake for an extra beat.
"Whether we've known each other for years … or just met them, we have a common bond, common objectives because we've all been touched" by gun violence, Read said later. "You almost don't have to exchange any words to understand each other."
Glanton reported from Chicago, Mason from Washington.
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April 30, 2012 Category : Careers & Training
MUMBAI: He is all of 19, sits in a corner office, has convinced hard-nosed venture capitalists to invest $1.1 million (Rs 5.8 crore) in his startup, and designed Pinterest, the virtual pinboard that has the world of social networking agog.
"Kids build great things," reflects Sahil Lavingia about his impressive resume. "You almost need to be inexperienced and ignorant to be successful."
The son of Singapore-based investment bankers of Indian origin, Lavingia is reminiscent of the stereotypical Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He dropped out of college, tinkered around with ideas, and wants to change the world.
After living in Singapore, Hong Kong, London and New York, he decided to pack his bags and go to the Mecca of innovation - Silicon Valley. While there, Lavingia made a modest attempt at going to college, enrolling at the University of Southern California to study computer science. But within a semester, he dropped out to join Pinterest as its main designer.
"I'm going from paying USC thousands of dollars to making thousands of dollars. What's more fun - writing an English essay or an iPhone app? For me, it's the latter."
Lavingia designed the virtual pinboard that is also the fastest-growing social network with 12 million users. When it won its last round of funding of $27 million in March, Pinterest was valued at $200 million.
Restless, Lavingia set out on a new adventure because he "wanted to solve more interesting problems". In August 2011, he founded Gumroad, a platform whose mantra is to "sell anything you can share".
"The best things happen when crazy people believe in crazy things and slightly less crazy, but more experienced people try to guide them," he says.
GUMROAD HAS A UNIQUE MODEL
Lavingia found such a guide in Josh Elman, a principal at Silicon Valley venture capital fund Greylock Partners who is mentoring him with his startup Gumroad.
"Sahil has a unique ability to create elegantly simple experiences for users. With Gumroad, he's tackling a problem of selling digital goods online that is currently a cumbersome process," says Elman. Gumroad sells all things digital and its model aims to convert social networks such as Twitter and Facebook into marketplaces.
It works by letting creators of content share a link to the service that is up for sale. "The exciting part of platforms like this is that you can't always predict all the ways users will use them," says Elman.
Gumroad's investors include Accel Partners, Max Levchin of PayPal and social music service Turntable's founder Seth Goldstein.
For a 19-year-old, Lavingia knows a lot about making money. When he was 14, he turned around a comatose video streaming website. He bought it for $400, tweaked things around, put surveys up and generated enough web traffic to sell it for about $10,000.
"I soon got bored of it because I do not think it was world-changing. And, I want to change the world," Lavingia says. | <urn:uuid:a7738c4e-9c7b-4ab0-bd64-e3510c5c843f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freshersworld.com/news/ahil-Lavingia%3A-19-year-old-Indian-college-dropout-gets-Rs-5.8-crore-for-his-startup-Gumroad | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965916 | 668 | 1.65625 | 2 |
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
The great breakthrough in one's life comes when you realize that you can learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal you set for yourself. This means there are no limits on what you can be.
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
We're not meant to fit in. We're meant to stand out.
If you love life, life will love you back.
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself.
Making a living is not the same as making a life.
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think of you.
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod, my shadow does that much better.
If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
Judge yourself by your actions and not your intentions.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.
Call it Nature, Fate, or Fortune; all are names of God.
Remember to work hard. Look to the future with enthusiasm and hope. Accept responsibility, not only asking for your own rights, but also accepting responsibility for yourself, for other people, for nature and for future generations.
Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it�s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.
Ethical existence is the highest manifestation of spirituality.
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.
One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck.
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
Adults are obsolete children.
You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life.
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances.
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
We can't measure out goodness by what we don't do, by what we deny ourselves, or by what we resist, and who we exclude; but we should measure our goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.
Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own. It is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
The difference between adults and children is that adults don't ask questions.
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
Why is there something rather than nothing? We do not know. We will never know. Why? To what purpose? We do not know whether there is a purpose. But if it is true that nothing is born of nothing, the very existence of something - the world, the universe - would seem to imply that there has always been something: that being is eternal, uncreated, perhaps creator, and this is what some people call God.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
The shortest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
A life, if well lived, is long enough.
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.
If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.
Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of humankind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.
Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're still alive.
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Overcome your fears and you can reach your potential.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
Only Ideas have long and lasting consequences, and ideas come mainly from books not television, movies, or video games.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint.
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
It's not how much money you make that's important - it's how much money you keep and how long you keep it.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
The only way to change your life is to change your mind.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway to the human spirit.
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
If you are going through hell, keep going.
I have six great friends that taught me all I knew; their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
If you cannot accept fear of failure, you will never be successful.
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help.
Nothing is as weak as a relationship that has not been tested under fire.
Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Money can contribute significantly to happiness if spent wisely.
Money often costs too much.
Passion is the genesis of genius.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully. When a man hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; when a man takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. Again, if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do as much. And if you lend only where you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to each other to be repaid in full. But you must love your enemies and do good; and lend without expecting any return; and you will have a rich reward: you will be sons of the Most High, because he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
If a problem cannot be solved, then you need to find the best way to manage it.
The greatest wealth is health.
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
You may think that you are the product of events that are largely beyond your control, but you do control the moment. The present is the time you take control of what your future will be.
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Self-pity is our worst enemy.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely.
Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
An intellectual is a person who is always seeking knowledge and has the ability to change his mind when he learns new information.
Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.
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Compared to the U.S. Senate’s recent refusal to approve a mere $60 billion in new infrastructure spending when we really need to spend an estimated $2 trillion just to make up for all the years of neglect of our country’s roads and bridges, the recent report in the New York Times that the U.S. Agriculture Department will stop collecting and reporting data on a wide range of agricultural commodities, including catfish, sheep, goats, hops, honey, and mink, is no big deal. But it is just one more bit of evidence that the U.S. is on its way to becoming a third-world country. Compared to the revelation that the U.S. now ranks 25th in the world in Internet connection speed, behind both Greece and Romania, the future lack of production data from the country’s 389 catfish farms and 265 mink farms is hardly a calamity. All joking aside, however, one of the many things that distinguish developed countries from less developed ones is the extent and reliability of the economic and business information they provide.
True, there are outliers. India, which remains a poor country despite its pockets of advanced technology, has always compiled voluminous data on every conceivable economic activity. Data from some wealthy countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, on the other hand, tend to be unreliable and out of date. For the most part, though, the richer and more developed a country, the better the information. To some degree, the two go hand in hand. Companies use these data to make investment, recruitment, sourcing, and marketing decisions. Potential investors could, it is true, rely on figures from the Catfish Farmers of America – www.uscatfish.com – or the Fur Commission USA – “Representing U.S. Mink Farmers Since 1994” (www.furcommission.com) instead of Agriculture Department census data, but these associations are hardly disinterested parties, and might present a rosier picture of their respective industries than the facts would warrant.
According to the Department of Agriculture, eliminating the monthly reports on catfish and trout will save $480,000 a year. Getting rid of the mink report will save another $130,000; cutting out reports on hops production will save $40,000 (the annual cost of the hops reports is $55,000, but the Hop Growers of America – www.usahops.org – has been kicking in $15,000 of its own money to help support the activity). The association could possibly come up with another 40 grand a year, but this might come at the expense of the annual “Hoptoberfest” celebration at the American Hop Museum in Yakima, Washington. I don’t have precise figures on the savings from axing the sheep and goat census.
It’s hard to escape the sense that eliminating these activities has less to do with the actual savings than with the pursuit of a more radical vision to shrink government, a vision that has little or no place for public broadcasting, public libraries, or public education, not to mention publicly-funded roads and bridges. It’s a vision that would make it impossible to undertake public projects like the Interstate Highway System, the Internet (created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA), or grand public structures like the pavilions at Saratoga Springs and Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood, constructed by the WPA in an earlier time of both greater deprivation and a greater sense of public spirit.
Voltaire, in his poem Le Mondain, refers to “the superfluous, a very necessary thing.” What he means is that if we, in our private or public lives, devote ourselves only to the material necessities, we sacrifice much that is equally, or even more, important. It is possible to make a utilitarian argument for almost anything – the space program, it is said, gave us Tang, the powdered orange drink – but some things are worth doing just because they are worth doing, even if the immediate payoff is hard to identify. Maybe the annual mink ranching census is not one of those things, but a vision of government that refuses to countenance the possibility that it might be worth doing and that it might be worth spending public funds to do it, offers us a cramped view of human possibility and leaves us all poorer in the end.
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