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No Sacred Lies
As my recent posts would suggest, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s o.k. to write poetry in the first person about experiences one hasn’t had, even knowing that such poems defy convention and that one’s audience might mistakenly believe such verse to be autobiographical. I think such defiance is justfied when: 1) it serves some greater truth, and 2) the author knows enough about his or her subject to pull it off.
Having said that, I believe there are boundaries beyond which one should not go, or must tread very, very carefully. For example, while I’ve written a number of poems about the holocaust, I would never dare to write one in the first person as a survivor, or the child of a survivor, or to in any other way invent any kind of first-hand experience I didn’t have. Here, when I’ve written in the first person, I’ve stayed within the confines of my own personal facts, and scrupulously avoided fabricating details or events. Even writing in the third person, I’ve been careful to stick to verified history and facts.
Why? Well, I’d say there were at least two compelling reasons. First, the holocaust, I believe, is a sacred topic. This on the basis of its enormity and uniqueness in the history of human suffering and enduring, and its profound importance to so many. While sacred doesn’t mean taboo in terms of writing, it does mean one should refrain from trivializing it, and I think masquerading as someone who has experienced it risks in the starkest way a kind of selfish exploitation, and does trivialize it. Second, the cruel and despicable efforts of holocaust deniers are only assisted and emboldened by such “fictions” since it is their contention that witnesses and survivors are liars and have invented or exaggerated their accounts. The holocaust is one of the most well-documented events in human history, but this documentation is clouded by innuendo, half-truths, and exploitation of the media, such as the internet. Anything, even a well-intended poem, that serves such evil is difficult, no, impossible to justify.
There are, I believe, other topics which similarly should give one pause before one embarks on a first person “fictional” poem, or otherwise invents experience in one’s verse. The Armenian genocide. Vietnam. The list, I believe, is actually quite long. Deciding what should be on it is a matter of wisdom, judgment and taste. | <urn:uuid:c8f09261-eafb-4f0b-9347-de56a25f01d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://davidmoolten.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/no-sacred-lies/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=134bd2d71b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95928 | 550 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Established in 1980, the Bernard Brodie Distinguished Lecture on the Conditions of Peace celebrates the memory of Bernard Brodie as an eminent scholar and teacher. This annual lecture series provides a special forum for dignitaries and scholars of politics, strategy, warfare, and peace to present their views to the UCLA community and the public.
VIDEO: To watch the Bernard Brodie Lecture delivered by Zalmay Khalilzad
NEWS: UCLA Newsroom (May 20, 2008)
Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad was confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations on March 29, 2007. On April 23, 2007 he began as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
From 2005 to 2007, Dr. Khalilzad was the United States Ambassador to Iraq. From 2003 to 2005, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and also as Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan. Before becoming Ambassador to Afghanistan, he served at the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Islamic Outreach and Southwest Asia Initiatives, and prior to that as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Southwest Asia, Near East, and North African Affairs.
He also has been a Special Presidential Envoy and Ambassador at Large for the Free Iraqis. Dr. Khalilzad headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense and has been a Counselor to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
Between 1993 and 1999, Dr. Khalilzad was Director of the Strategy, Doctrine and Force Structure program for RAND's Project Air Force. While with RAND, he founded the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Between 1991 and 1992, Dr. Khalilzad served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. Then-Secretary of Defense Cheney awarded Dr. Khalilzad the Department of Defense medal for outstanding public service. Dr. Khalilzad also served as a senior political scientist at RAND and an associate professor at the University of California at San Diego in 1989 and 1991. From 1985 to 1989 at the Department of State, Dr. Khalilzad served as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs working policy issues, advising on the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. From 1979 to 1986, Dr. Khalilzad was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.
Dr. Khalilzad received his bachelor's and master's degree from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Dr. Khalilzad is the author of more than 200 books, articles, studies, and reports. His work has been translated in many languages including Arabic, Chinese, German, Japanese, and Turkish.
Cost: Free and open to students, faculty, staff and the general public.
Please RSVP to firstname.lastname@example.org. Parking is available in structure 8, $8.
Parking is available in structure 8, $8.
© 2013. The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:d2850561-a102-4405-860f-5712fd1db370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://international.ucla.edu/calendar/showevent.asp?eventid=6464 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956022 | 645 | 1.6875 | 2 |
In the case, the defendant,
O is a company that manufactures vinorelbine ditartrate in Belgium in its raw form for export purposes. The substance produced was sold to a company in the United States, which used it to manufacture and market a medicinal product whose therapeutic indication was identical to that for the drug produced by the exclusive licensee of the vinorelbine ditartrate patent, F.The patent owner, C, and the exclusive licensee, F, pleaded
on the basis of the legislative history to Regulation 1768/92, that the terms “for any use of the product as a medicinal product ” are solely aimed at excluding from the scope of protection of the SPC such uses as do not fall within the pharmaceutical field. These terms therefore have to be construed in their broad sense as covering any use covered by the marketing authorization where what is ultimately concerned is the manufacture of a medicinal product.
The court followed this argument: the protection conferred by article 4 covers not only any use in a medicinal product (finished product), but also any use of the product covered by the patent (active ingredient) where that is destined for use as a medicinal product. The court briefly stated the reasons for its decision as being that the patented product is essential to manufacture of the medicinal product.
O also argued that the words “use of the product as a medicinal product” necessarily mean that the patented product (active ingredient) must be used as a medicinal product in the territory of Belgium for there to be an infringement, because the scope of the Belgian SPC is limited to that territory. According to that interpretation, there is no infringement in Belgium when all one does is manufacture the active ingredient and export it to the United States where it is transformed into a medicinal product.C and F argued to the contrary that it is sufficient for there to be infringement that O should have manufactured the active ingredient in Belgium, even if for export purposes. In support of this interpretation, they made reference a contrario to EC Regulation 816/2006 which states that manufacture of an active ingredient protected by an SPC in state A with the sole aim of exporting it to state B with public health problems must be accorded a compulsory license. According to them, this regulation confirms that the patent-holder’s consent is necessary for any manufacture of the active ingredient, even if it is manufactured only for export purposes.
After stating very succinct reasoning on this point as well, the court followed the latter interpretation. It pointed out that the manufacture and offering for sale of a product protected by intellectual property rights are regarded as illicit acts and concluded that, for there to be infringement, it is sufficient for a protected product to be manufactured and sold in Belgium and be used in the manufacture of the medicinal product. | <urn:uuid:cbbd4898-e444-49a3-a3e1-6e879767de7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thespcblog.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957551 | 567 | 1.8125 | 2 |
A weekly program combining Jewish culture with the performing arts is now available to area teenagers, thanks to a team effort between the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, and J-SITE.
Teenagers in grades eight through 12 who are interested in singing can participate in HaZamir: the International Jewish High School Choir. Teenagers who like to dance can join Pittsburgh’s first Jewish Israeli dance troupe. Both groups will rehearse concurrently on Sunday afternoons at the JCC in Squirrel Hill.
“We are hoping to create a space for Jewish performing artists to meet and create art together every week,” said Beth Goldstein, director of teen education at the Agency for Jewish Learning.
While Pittsburgh has had a HaZamir chapter for the last six years, this will be the community’s first foray into creating a performing dance troupe for teenagers, said Goldstein.
“HaZamir is a phenomenal program,” she said. “Each year, the kids go to New York in March, where they meet with 260 teens from all over the United States, Canada and Israel. They all have learned the same new music [in their respective programs], and they rehearse for a weekend together. Last year, for HaZamir’s 18th anniversary, they booked Lincoln Center for their performance. They sold out in a month. They will be singing at Lincoln Center again this year.”
Last year, Pittsburgh’s HaZamir conductor, Nizan Leibovich, took 10 area teenagers to perform with the larger group in New York City. When they returned to Pittsburgh, they performed at various events here, including at the communitywide Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration.
HaZamir Pittsburgh currently has 12 members, but expects to grow the group this year. No audition is required, nor is the ability to read music.
Teenagers who are interested in joining HaZamir, can attend an open rehearsal Sunday, Sept. 18, 4 p.m., at the JCC, Goldstein said, where they can listen to the group perform, and meet Leibovich.
At that same time, teenagers interested in Israeli dance can get information about the newly forming dance troupe. The troupe will be led by Lynn Berman, who recently honed her craft in Israel at the summer course for foreign teachers, part of the Karmiel Dance Festival.
Berman believes her new dance troupe will provide an invaluable opportunity for local Jewish youths.
“A lot of kids do Israeli folk dance at camp, and have a really good time,” she said. “This will be a community thing. The kids can come and meet kids from other areas of the city.”
She and her troupe will be creating a piece to perform at area venues along with HaZamir.
“Hopefully, in a couple of years, we will have the depth and excitement to create a community of artistic Jewish high school kids who want to do these things together,” Berman said.
J-SITE, in collaboration with the JCC, hopes to expand its performing arts program for teens, adding different disciplines to the curriculum over time.
“Our long-term vision is that we are hoping to add some sort of band as well, maybe Klezmer,” Goldstein said. “We want to take it one step at a time. But we really want to create a space for these artistic teens.”
(Toby Tabachnick can be reached at email@example.com.) | <urn:uuid:e78bb4f0-3ac7-4ab6-8d0d-e1420579dfd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/15528773/article--J-SITE-offering-performing-arts-- | 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 | 0.95007 | 753 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Assault from mid-July may have been racially motivated; officials continue investigation
PORTSMOUTH — Portsmouth police say since identifying a black man they believe to have assaulted a white man outside The Page restaurant earlier this month, they are continuing to investigate whether the attack was racially motivated.
The suspect is currently being held at York County Jail in Maine for probation violation and authorities say while a warrant has been issued for his arrest, it is unclear when he will be transported across state lines to face New Hampshire charges.
Josiah Mayo, 24, with a last known address of 48 Clinton St., Portsmouth, was identified by witnesses as the man who allegedly attacked a white man in the Vaughan Mall area at approximately 1 a.m. on Sunday, July 15. Mayo has been charged with second-degree assault, a Class B felony. Witnesses from an approximate 20- to 25-person group exiting the bars around that time reported a black male with curly hair punched the victim and then kicked him before leaving the scene.
The victim, a 32-year-old man from North Berwick, Maine, was found unconscious by officials, with a fractured skull, and transported to Portsmouth Regional Hospital with injuries believed to be non-life threatening. Sgt. Dave Keaveny reported as of Thursday afternoon, the victim had been released from the hospital in stable condition.
When police could not find the assaulter last week, they issued several notices to the public, asking for help in identifying the perpetrator. Keaveny said after several more witnesses to the assault came forward with details, they were able to declare Mayo their suspect.
Keaveny said the matter is still under investigation as to what led to the initial altercation. Police report the victim was traveling with a group of people when Mayo allegedly walked by with another group of acquaintances. Police have determined several words were exchanged between the two groups which sparked the initial incident, but it is unclear at the time if the victim said anything to provoke Mayo and his alleged assault.
While he could not comment as to whether the incident was racially triggered, Keaveny confirmed racial epithets were uttered.
“There were racial slurs thrown back between different groups but if the victim actually said anything, at this point, we're looking at it because it doesn't sound like he was the one saying those racial slurs,” he said. “Whether the attack was predicated on it, I don't want to get into it.”
Keaveny said Mayo's probation status was changed to Maine after he moved there recently, though he could not comment on the man's previous criminal history. He said his probation stemmed from crimes based out of New Hampshire, but could not confirm what those charges were. He said at this time, a New Hampshire arraignment has yet to be set as Mayo awaits a hearing regarding his probation charges in Maine. From there, he said, there are two options for furthering his arrest.
“One is, his probation will be transferred back to New Hampshire, because originally, that's where the probation was out of,” Keaveny said. “The second is that he's being held as a fugitive from justice on our charges, and whichever comes first, if he goes before court in Maine and waives his extradition, Portsmouth police would go to pick him up.”
Keaveny said police are also waiting on blood-alcohol level tests to come back from the involved parties as alcohol consumption is believed to have played a role in the case as well.
Keaveny said while he believes Portsmouth is a “safe city,” incidents similar to this tend to arise in the summertime with larger crowds and visiting tourists.
“We're always concerned about the summertime crowd, the drinking, and when the bars are let out,” he said. “We actually have additional resources directed to downtown when the bars are closing.”
Police say they are still interested in speaking with anyone who witnessed the assault. Involved parties are asked to contact Detective Robert Munson at 610-7506.
Call Seacoast Crime Stoppers at 603-431-1199 if you wish to remain anonymous and have information on unsolved crimes or under age alcohol parties. You can also leave an anonymous tip by logging on to www.seacoastcrimestoppers.org, or send an SMS text to CRIMES (274637) and include TIPSCS in your message. You could be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000 if your information leads to an arrest and indictment. | <urn:uuid:5512a350-3199-44ec-a541-d13c5f5d5d69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120726/GJNEWS_01/707269723/-1/NEWS26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983201 | 944 | 1.5 | 2 |
The first owner, George Hickson, one of eight children of John Hickson & Ellen Trant, was born about 1750. He was a Catholic. He died, unmarried, in 1821.
James John, the nephew of George and son of John James Hickson and Sarah Day, inherited the lease of this modest residence, Hillville Lodge, from his uncle.
James John died at the relatively early age of 53, but left his family well provided. James, the eldest surviving son, who was also an attorney, inherited the legal practice and the family property. Unfortunately James neglected his legal work and spent the money inherited from his father in building a new and grander residence at Hillville. Mary Agnes Hickson, his daughter and the Kerry historian, was a frequent guest in the new house.
The house passed, in 1928, to Captain Paget who added a large veranda in front of the house as can be seen in the photograph. Mr. Le Marchant and Lord Harrington both used the house as a hunting lodge. In the 1960's, the Crutch family turned the house into a hotel which they sold about 20 years ago to Ron and Sandra McDonnell
From Tralee (Trá Lí) take the road through Blennerville to Camp and continue along the same road (R560). Pass the turnings to Castlegregory, continue through Stradbally, pass the turning marked "Golf" towards the Connor Pass. Take the next turn right downhill, indicated by a sign to "Crutch's". The Hotel is about 50 yards on the left marked simply "Hotel" | <urn:uuid:c537f228-aee0-41c3-9102-1bfa58bace99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hicksons.org/Kerry/Dingle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977106 | 332 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Meet Mabel: The robot that does a 9-minute mile
MABEL here is a fast lady. At 6.8 miles per hour, she’s the quickest human-like runner in the robot world. She is also the owner of some of the freakiest knees, right up there with Dr. Seuss’s ominous pale green pants and the spider-like prancings of BigDog, the defense robot you hope you never meet coming through the woods at night.
Running robots could transport baggage and participate in rescue operations where rugged terrain makes wheeled vehicles useless, which is why DARPA funds projects like the quadruped BigDog, which is already fairly well developed and has a top speed of about 5 mph. MABEL is a biped bot, which means she’s probably less stable than a quadruped, but more able to potentially stand in for humans in activities like climbing stairs (and certainly a more useful instance of human biomimicry than some robots we could name). Watching her strut her stuff around a little indoor track in the video above, you’ll notice the springing motion of her legs, which is very similar to a human running–both spend about 40% of their time in the air, according to her builders, a team of roboticists at University of Michigan.
Ooo, ahh, and pity the lab downstairs.
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A few days ago a Brazilian student, Marcio, claimed CNN was showing old scenes of celebrating Palestinians, claiming they were celebrating the WTC disaster. Well, the scenes were not old, but were manipulated!
"In a recent statement CNN insisted that the famous footage was shot on the day of the WTC blast. Meanwhile, German reporters of the prestigious "Panorama" TV magazine investigated how the scenes were shot. What they found out was amazing. On German TV they aired, supposedly for the first time, parts of the entire 4-minute footage not previously shown.
"It became clear that a person was animating a couple of children to cheer in front of the camera. The woman cheering was offered a candy to act cheerful. She later said she was shocked that her pictures were shown in the context of the terrorist attacks. She had no idea what they were for. A total view of the scene shows a street largely full of at best apathic people doing business as usual. Only a handful of people standing in front of the camera are celebrating.
"You can see the video online on http://www.ndrtv.de/panorama/sendung/index.html. The link is below the second picture and in German. But you can still see the pictures in the report. Forward to 7 minutes 45 seconds and watch it until the end.
"Furthermore, the highly regarded German magazine "Der Spiegel" has had an article on this. The article shows the picture of the woman getting candy and another one people showing more people in the background of the cheering kids. These people are passing by as usual.
"Read the article on: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,158625,00.html
Unfortunately, in German as well. You can still see the pictures, though."
Here's a little synapses of the article in Der Spiegel (titled "What is the truth?"):
Der Spiegel reports on the analysis conducted by Panorama. They point out that the pictures that went around the world only showed close-ups, never the whole street full of people celebrating. What Panorama found out, when watching the whole thing, was that there were shots of the street surrounding the cheering groups. These shots indicated that there were only a handful of people cheering while the majority of people passed by without participating (the second picture in the Spiegel article shows that). | <urn:uuid:d5902492-85b4-4ace-a5ee-70d650939f78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themodernreligion.com/terror/wtc-celebrating.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978922 | 499 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Outsourcing in the pharmaceutical industry, until recently, has been largely confined to commercial manufacturing, packaging,
and support for clinical trials. The industry is rapidly changing; companies are facing rising costs, a fast evolving global
market, and weak pipelines. Many companies are outsourcing activities that have historically been kept in house, freeing themselves
to concentrate on their core competencies and become more agile in responding to changing conditions. These new outsourcing
models include discovery and R&D, regulatory, chemistry and manufacturing controls (CMC) support, and back office sales and
marketing activities—virtually no activity is out of bounds. Instead of building or acquiring specialized technologies and
facilities, many companies are seeking access to them elsewhere.
Smart outsourcing provides the following operational and business benefits:
- Reduced operating costs and greater return on investment (ROI)
- Shorter time to market through faster accesses to increased capacity, new technologies, specialized facilities, intellectual
property (IP), and expertise
- More efficient use of critical internal resources (e.g., human and facilities)
- Avoidance of large expenditures to bring new or expanded capabilities in house as well as the cost of staffing those capabilities
- Increased velocity and flexibility in responding to rapidly changing global markets.
To reap the full rewards of outsourcing over the long term and significantly enhance shareholder value, however, companies
need to take a comprehensive approach. Companies that adopt a smart outsourcing strategy include:
- Pursuing outsourcing in the context of an end-to-end, global supply chain strategy that is directly aligned with the company's
strategic business goals
- Managing outsourcing as part of a continuing, mutually beneficial, long-term strategic partnership
- Assessing and effectively managing the increased risk that comes with more extensive and diverse outsourcing.
Companies can use outside expertise to help carry out such an approach. This article outlines the benefits of using a third
party in strategic outsourcing.
Leveraging external expertise
Effective use of outside experts who have the requisite industry-specific technical, quality and compliance, operational,
and business experience can provide an invaluable, independent source of perspective, methodologies, and tools to help ensure
the best decisions are made each step of the way. Experts can help to tightly align outsourcing strategies with a company's
strategic business and supply chain plans, re-affirm core competencies, and make informed recommendations regarding which
current outsourcing needs represent the highest ROIs and competitive advantages going forward.
The right consulting partner can give advice on how best to support these strategies with ongoing operational excellence and
risk-management programs, as well as develop and maintain highly effective and mutually beneficial strategic relationships
with prospective outsource providers. But whether a company engages external advisors or not, the company will need to be
able to skillfully blend strategy, risk management, and a new mindset and approach to outsourcing partnerships to remain competitive
in today's, and tomorrow's, rapidly changing and increasingly challenging global markets.
A new kind of partnership
The effective selection, qualification, and management of outsource partners begins with the way one thinks about those partners,
no matter what the nature of the partnership (e.g., innovator–CMO or innovator-to-innovator). Short-term thinking about outsourcing as a stopgap measure or commodity solution to operational
needs based largely on cost or capacity must be replaced by thoughtful and robust evaluations of both the current and future
benefits of developing long-range strategic partnerships that deliver flexibility and value to both parties involved.
Consider not only what outsource partners can provide in the near term, but also what they may be able to do as the relationship
grows. Long-term strategic partnerships can have substantial benefits to each of the outsource partners in revenue, capacity
planning, and potential access to new technologies and markets.
For example, consider that two large pharmaceutical companies enter into mutually beneficial, long-term (>10 years) strategic
relationships. These are innovator-to-innovator partnerships that are based on a progressive schedule of mutual exploration
and cooperation. Among their short- and long-term goals are the use of each other's available capacity and specialized facilities,
technical and scientific information-sharing, and potentially, the codevelopment of future products and technologies.
Maintaining such long-term, strategic partnerships requires a significant shift in thinking and organizational culture on
both sides—from a purely transactional relationship to one of shared planning, shared risk, and collaboration.
This shift requires developing and nurturing a highly cooperative working relationship that incorporates trust, a shared vision,
open communication, and a dedication to quality, timeliness, compliance, and continuous improvement. | <urn:uuid:90923589-f688-432a-bad9-f41047c4655d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biopharminternational.com/biopharm/Quality/Smart-Outsourcing-Strategic-Alignment-Risk-Managem/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/763579 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938609 | 966 | 1.65625 | 2 |
SAN DIEGO Officials of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine met with the U-T San Diego's editorial board on Tuesday, March 5, to discuss how the state stem cell agency is changing to reduce vulnerabilities from conflicts of interest.
What followed was a wide-ranging discussion in which CIRM representatives were queried on conflicts and governance issues and the agency's financial prospects as its $3 billion in funding begins to run low.
I took video of the discussion and am posting it here. I've broken it up into segments on various topics so you can watch only what interests you.
CIRM's Jonathan Thomas says look at the science, look at ViaCyte
Jonathan Thomas, chairman of CIRM, points to scientific progress made by San Diego's ViaCyte as an example of what the press is under-reporting in favor of conflict of interest charges. ViaCyte is developing an implantable diabetes device consisting of insulin-producing cells derived from embryonic stem cells. From an editorial board meeting with U-T San Diego on March 5, 2013.
Thomas said the recommendations he proposed are the quickest way to address conflict issues, because they can be adopted by CIRM's governing oversight committee on its own authority. Another avenue, to seek legislative action, would be a much lengthier process.
Goldstein and Thomas said that while the press is mostly interested in the conflict of interest issue, a truer measure of CIRM's performance lies in the scientific results of the scientists it funds. Those results are not getting the attention they deserve from the press, they said.
CIRM governance issues
CIRM chairman Jonathan Thomas discusses governance issues of California's stem cell agency. To the left is UCSD stem cell researcher Larry Goldstein, to the right agency spokesman Kevin McCormack. Around 7 seconds into the video, I pan over to the U-T's editorial writers. Chris Reed is on the left, William Osbourne, and on the right Dan McSwain. Taken at an editorial board meeting with U-T San Diego on March 5, 2013.
"There is a real story, that to a large extent is being missed," Thomas said.
Reed challenged that view, stating that when public money is used, the public has a legitimate interest in how the money is spent. Moreover, CIRM puts out the good news about its research, and the press needs to scrutinize the parts of CIRM it would rather not talk about, just as with any other publicly funded agency.
Thomas said that the perception of conflict, whether true or not, had become an obstacle to CIRM, so the changes he proposed, and which CIRM is due to vote on March 19, is a response to those concerns.
If you think research is expensive, try disease
Larry Goldstein, head of UCSD's stem cell program, gives a pithy reason for supporting disease research.
One subject that didn't come up was the ugly conflict of interest scandal in Texas, with its publicly funded agency to fight cancer. Called CPRIT, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the agency has been scarred by alleged favoritism in doling out grants. The agency is a near-clone of CIRM, funded by $3 billion in state bonds, the same as in California. CIRM has not endured nearly the same magnitude of scandal as CPRIT; its grants are reviewed by a scientific board composed entirely of researchers living outside of California.
That's three videos so far; here's four more:
Funding and outlook for cell therapy
CIRM chairman Jonathan Thomas discusses the outlook for cell therapy, and questions of funding. He says that interest in cell therapy is growing in big pharma, because its drug research over the past decade has yielded disappointing results.
Jonathan Thomas explains how CIRM conflict of interest policy was adopted
Thomas, CIRM chairman, discusses the state stem cell agency's conflict of interest policy, to be voted on March 19. His goal was to not to leave the room until a policy had been voted on.
CIRM conflicts of interest vs the science
U-T San Diego editorial writer Chris Reed (unseen in the video) challenges CIRM on saying that conflict of interest charges at California's stem cell program have stolen focus from the science. Reed says the focus is properly on the science. UCSD researcher Larry Goldstein (left) says that while conflict charges are important, CIRM should mainly be judged on the quality of the science it funds. CIRM chairman Jonathan Thomas is in the middle. Kevin McCormack, a CIRM PIO, is on the right.
Independence of CIRM board, better process for funding appeals
Jonathan Thomas, chairman of CIRM, explains how California's stem cell agency is not worried about interference from the Legislature, and its new proposed process for handling appeals of funding decisions.
More information about CIRM's March 19 meeting can be found at this link. | <urn:uuid:66924454-c61b-4a48-9700-378454a43d1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/09/cirm-stem-cell-leaders-discuss-conflict-charges/ | 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 | 0.956832 | 1,032 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Prescription weight-loss drugs are not magic potions. The WIN recommends they be used in conjunction with behavior modification and nutritional counseling so you can make long-term changes in your diet and activity patterns. You'll also need to see your health care provider regularly. Studies indicate if you don't lose four pounds in four weeks, it is unlikely the drug will contribute to significant weight loss.
Weight-loss drugs will not keep the weight off forever. Their safety has only been studied over a short period of time. And most studies have found that even with weight-loss drugs, most people will not be able to maintain weight loss over the long term. Drug therapy is only effective when used along with a structured diet and exercise program. Maintaining the weight loss requires a healthy change in lifestyle for the long term. If you don't make lifestyle changes, the weight will return. | <urn:uuid:5ae36c9a-90d3-4328-9085-b318a6eb18e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ketv.com/Miracle-diet-No-such-thing/-/9675214/17996764/-/item/1/-/b7awdyz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946913 | 177 | 1.796875 | 2 |
AT&T Employees Honor National Day of Service and Remembrance Through Volunteerism in Their Communities
Through AT&T Cares, More than 140,000 AT&T Employees and Retirees to Participate in Food Drives, Cell Phones for Soldiers and Job Shadow for Teens
Dallas, Texas, September 07, 2011
In commemoration of the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance, AT&T Cares, the company’s volunteer initiative, is supporting the efforts of more than 140,000 AT&T employees and retirees who will honor this day by participating in acts of service. In remembrance of the 10-year anniversary of the attacks, 9/11 nonprofit group MyGoodDeed and HandsOn Network, the volunteer activation division of Points of Light Institute, are co-leading efforts to organize one million Americans in acts of charitable service.
Across the U.S., AT&T employees will volunteer to benefit their communities through the Pioneers Dish It Up food drive kicking off on 9/11; a recycling drive in 100 locations to benefit Cell Phones for Soldiers; and a 4,000 employee recruitment drive for Job Shadow, designed to help at-risk students connect the importance of education with workforce success.
“We’re especially grateful on this National Day of Service and Remembrance to honor our country with our community service,” said Charlene Lake, senior vice president and chief sustainability officer. “We serve to unite and strengthen the critical bond between our business and our communities. And we challenge others to find inspiration in the heroes of 9/11 to embrace the value of service in their business.”
To honor those who perished and those who rose to service after the tragedy, AT&T employees, through AT&T Cares, are focusing efforts on three main initiatives:
- Pioneers Dish It Up: AT&T Pioneers, a volunteer organization of AT&T employees and retirees, will participate in the national Pioneers Dish It Up food drive campaign from September 11 through September 25. During this time, AT&T Pioneers in 110 cities across the U.S. will collect healthy, nutritious, non-perishable food items, transport donations to food banks and serve at local shelters or soup kitchens. AT&T Pioneers will ask their coworkers and the community to drop off healthy food at designated sites in hopes of collecting 700,000 pounds of food during the two-week campaign.
- Cell Phones for Soldiers: AT&T employees will conduct a 100-location recycling drive to benefit Cell Phones for Soldiers, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing free calls home to deployed members of the armed forces. In 81 cities, the community will be encouraged to donate and recycle their used cell phones at drop-off sites across the country. Since 2008, AT&T Pioneers and employees have collected more than 40,000 cell phones for donation to Cell Phones for Soldiers. The cell phones are sold to a company that recycles them, and a portion of the proceeds are used to purchase calling cards that are sent to soldiers around the world.
- AT&T/JA Worldwide Job Shadow Initiative: AT&T Cares will hold a special 4,000 employee Job Shadow recruitment drive to encourage additional employees to volunteer and team up with students. Through the Job Shadow initiative, AT&T employees are helping students learn about careers and develop an understanding of the educational background and skills they will need to succeed on the job. Since the initiative started in 2008, more than 82,000 students have participated in 211 cities. AT&T employees have volunteered more than 28,000 times for Job Shadow, dedicating more than 225,000 volunteer hours, to help students learn. Job Shadow is a part of AT&T Aspire, a $100 million program to help improve high school success and workforce readiness.
In 2010, through AT&T Cares, AT&T employees and retirees, including AT&T Pioneers, donated 9 million hours of time in 2010 to community outreach activities, valued at more than $192 million. In addition, more than $148.2 million was contributed through corporate-, employee- and AT&T Foundation-giving programs.
The financial equivalent is determined by using $21.36/per volunteer hour, which is based on the 2010 industry standard from Independent Sector, a leading nonprofit organization that determines the financial equivalent for a variety of volunteer initiatives.
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation's fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet and voice services. A leader in mobile broadband, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T | DIRECTV brands. The company's suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.
Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT. Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ATT to discover more about our consumer and wireless services or at www.Facebook.com/ATTSmallBiz to discover more about our small business services.
© 2011 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. Mobile broadband not available in all areas. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
About Philanthropy at AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is committed to advancing education, strengthening communities and improving lives. Through its philanthropic initiatives and working with other organizations, AT&T has a long history of supporting projects that create learning opportunities; promote academic and economic achievement; and address community needs. In 2010, more than $148.2 million was contributed through corporate-, employee- and AT&T Foundation-giving programs.
AT&T Cares is a company-wide initiative providing a range of volunteer options and support, encouraging employees to engage, and remain engaged, in community service that is meaningful to them and their communities. Since AT&T Cares launched, in the summer of 2009, employees have shown an overwhelming desire to participate and employee volunteerism is up more than 500,000 hours over the previous year. In 2010, employees and retirees, including the AT&T Pioneers and Employee Resource Groups, donated 9 million hours of time to community outreach activities – worth more than $192 million.
About AT&T Pioneers
Founded in 1911 as the Telephone Pioneers of America with Alexander Graham Bell as one of the first members, the Pioneers continue to build on the millions of hours dedicated to helping others. More than 300,000 AT&T employees and retirees are involved in the AT&T Pioneers volunteer organization AT&T Pioneers are leading hundreds of projects in 2011 that celebrate and honor the organization’s 100th Anniversary of community service. | <urn:uuid:27ec68de-9c6d-49ac-af3d-76fe8b03a7dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=20973&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=32714&mapcode=community%7Cmk-att-aspire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934995 | 1,593 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Originally Posted by el_heb
and i really want the shimmer effect LOL. But i havent found anything of LEDs and plants.
I can't upload a picture from my iphone. Once i have access to a pc i'll post one
have you entirely skipped out DIY section?
I was playing with 10W LED's 5050SMD LED's... and 3W 660nm led's...
The hard part is, constant current vs constant voltage... I am playing with constant voltage... i want to play with constant current after i finished my stress tests on the 10W.
Do a little studing... red filled my thread with a bunch of info on LED's.
But an array is not hard to make... and the LED's are fairly cheap if you get them from hong kong.
The hardest part will be trying to get your heat sink array to look nice.
But u can see here, its not hard.. very simple:
10W LED's are nice... they are super bright... however at the same time they are super HOT.
How hot? they will burn out in 5-7 seconds unless u have a heat sink attached.
Not only that they will turn a stock intel cpu heat sink HOT if u dont have an active fan in 15 min.
3W LED's are nice... i havent fully gotten a chance to play with cree's tho on a constant current driver.
12V-10W LED's wont last long especially the 10W versions (1yr if your lucky), because they draw more then 900mA on 12V = 10.8W!!! which is bascially overboosting it.
But they costed me 4 dollars each, cover roughly 2 sqr ft with intensive light.... and being able to hotswap with those disconnects wont leave me crying when one does burn out.
20W, 50W, and 100W... man.... im scared on the heat output alone on a 10W's.. id hate to imagine the 50, and the 100W. | <urn:uuid:753c278c-49b1-4524-8b3e-196a4e3f2512> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showpost.php?p=1583498&postcount=23 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931583 | 424 | 1.585938 | 2 |
June 30, 2011
At 6:01am, Portland firefighters responded to reports of heavy smoke coming from an upper story window of a 2-story home located at 5716 SE 84th. Upon arrival, firefighters confirmed that individuals were jumping out of the upper story window.
Initial reports indicate that two individuals were sleeping in the upstairs bedroom when the fire broke out. They were awakened by working smoke alarms and were able to make it to a nearby window and both jumped to safety.
Two other occupants were downstairs at the time of the fire. A 52-year-old female, who requires use of a walker, was able to evacuate safely on her own. An 83-year-old female was helped out of the home by a neighbor.
“Fortunately, all four residents escaped this fire safely and without injury. This is due in large part to the fact that this home had working smoke alarms,” said Public Information Officer Paul Corah.
The fire was brought under control at 6:27am. Firefighters were challenged by the fact that there was an excessive amount of contents in the home. They will remain on scene for the next several hours cleaning up from this fire.
Fire investigators are currently on scene working to determine the cause of this fire. Damage is estimated at $40,000. The Red Cross was called in to assist the four occupants who were displaced by this fire with finding alternate living arrangements.
Portland Fire & Rescue reminds citizens that working smoke alarms significantly increase your chances of surviving a fire. Make sure that every sleeping area in your home has a working smoke alarm.
Portland Fire & Rescue
We Respond: Always Ready, Always There
June 30, 2011 | <urn:uuid:6e976794-fe5b-488f-9af3-2976af73bd24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.portlandoregon.gov/fire/article/355136 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985799 | 345 | 1.640625 | 2 |
“I’ve got to believe at this point in the campaign neither the president or Governor Romney is going to want to give a quote on any of this,” said Richard Taylor, a business diversity advocate and former Massachusetts transportation secretary under Romney. “If I was preparing either candidate for the debate, this would be on the checklist, … but I don’t think either campaign will be anxious to talk about it.”...
“It took three long years to pull [a federal government policy statement on the use of race in education] out of the Obama administration. It was only after we pestered and cajoled them that they finally got it out,” John Brittain, a civil rights activist and law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, said in an interview soon after the document was released. “The administration had a paralysis of analysis. …. Overall, the Obama administration just has a reluctance to take on race and equality, and when they do so everything is so carefully sanitized and scrubbed to make sure it’s the least offensive thing possible.”
There’s almost no chance that Romney would take a strong stance against affirmative action, according to Stuart Taylor, a veteran legal commentator and author of a new book on the policy.
... “No major national political figure has attacked affirmative action publicly since 1996 or before. It’s kind of remarkable. The Republicans who during the ’90s for a while were seeing some political profit in attacking affirmative action given the polls, don’t do it anymore.”So both candidates — like many Americans — exhibit a bland, uncommitted acceptance of the long-term practice of affirmative action, and they don't want to have to talk about it in crisp, clear terms, looking at all the arguments for and against, and scrutinizing the constitutional texts and precedents. But that's exactly what the Supreme Court must do and will do on October 10th. | <urn:uuid:2c5b98e0-8d5d-4f57-b7cb-60204a04b187> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/09/will-supreme-court-affirmative-action.html?showComment=1349107334124 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970762 | 410 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Beyond Hogwarts Guest Article
by Galadriel Waters and E.L. Fossa
It's not enough to have a feeling that Dumbledore's not , or to want him not to be . What you need is a way to prove he's not .
We at Wizarding World Press are happy to help you work on techniques needed for doing that.
Now, if life was a Jasper Fforde novel, you could just walk right into Book 6 and do a little poking around like his Jurisfiction operative Thursday Next. You could get there before Hagrid, for instance, and listen to ALL of that conversation Dumbledore had with Snape. That would rock, especially if it meant you heard something that meant the book was supposed to have ended differently.
Sadly what would be standard operating procedure for Thursday Next would be fanfiction for us. So what to do, what to do...
You could always engage in what has come to be known as "HP Sleuthing."
Sleuthing Harry Potter has become a popular sport -- er, pastime -- for thousands of series fans. The serial publishing of seven books, in essence seven parts of an epic mystery, has led to fans trying their best to stay one step ahead of that redoubtable Games-Mistress who has kindly told her fans to call her "Jo". Can fans figure out what's going to happen before Jo makes it happen? Before the last book? Before the last page? Maybe. Can we figure out the great Dumbledore question, once and for all? Maybe.
Long ago in the English classes you were forced by law to take, they tried to teach you a technique they called "close reading". Pull your memories of that s out and dust them off. The teachers who told you it was useful weren't lying, any more than the ones who told you that you would need math.
Some familiarity with great literature won't hurt, but isn't absolutely necessary. And if you decide you need to know what TS Eliot (for example) has in common with Harry Potter, there's always the Internet. WWP deeply admires the work of www.bartleby.com, which has gathered a reference-library full of wonderful stuff and placed it at our busily tapping fingertips.
Finally, you need to read the Harry Potter books. Again, and again, and again, and again. How often is really necessary, you ask? Well, if you have a bookcase with a copy of Goblet of Fire that's been reduced to a series of soft-cover pamphlets, you've probably read the series enough to get started.
Like most talented magicians, Jo is a mistress of misdirection, and has created books that are able to be read on so many different levels.
There are the readers who genuinely admire the story, and who are happy to wait to find out what happens when each book is released. They share the series with their friends, they share it with their children -- especially with their children, of course, it's a children's series, isn't it? ;) These readers don't sleuth.
Then there are the learned readers, who know all about literary tradition and criticism. They sleuth, but in the time-honored fashion. They didn't have to dust off their knowledge of close-reading. There's a lot in Harry Potter for these folks to find -- hero's journey, mentor's revival, Greek traditions, Egyptian legend. It all relates, it's all there, you can find the parallels, you can do a LOT with close reading and literary analysis in Harry Potter. For those readers, sleuthing is just one of many means of dissecting and analyzing the septology.
Then there's the rest of us.
We have watched the evolution of Jo's trio over a series of six books now, and we have seen the patterns develop on her loom as surely as the wildest paisley. We have realized that Jo does nothing without reason, even if the reason is to camouflage her plans. Where in the world did Hagrid get that flying motorcycle? Poor Harry, getting sent to that old bat's house to look at pictures of cats so he won't blow up the house... Isn't it funny that Montague got shoved in that cabinet and disappeared!
Look for Jo's odd words, sprinkled like fancy stitches woven into the tapestry. If you have ever come across a name, magic spell, or other word in Jo's books and said to yourself, "Gee, this sounds like the word..." then you have encountered a Rowlinguistic. Many times those strange names and words in the Harry Potter books have been made up by Jo from French, Latin, or other derivations. It is no coincidence that the names seem to relate directly to the personality of the character or the purpose of a spell. Remember those two words: No coincidence. It is very important that you remember them if you are going to sleuth.
The shuttle goes from left to right, then back again, and the cloth lengthens, and the story grows. Here a Muggle-born witch, there a pure-blood boy, there a half-blood with a past -- and always in the background of the design, the elderly wizard with a twinkle in his eye and a secret. Maybe many secrets.
The hardest part is to not get so involved in the story that you forget to keep looking for the clues. With Jo's works, that is quite tricky. You may need to start passages, pages, or even chapters all over again, when you suddenly realize you haven't been paying attention because you got caught up in her world. The slight-of-hand is Jo's cleverest move. She draw your attention one direction while handing out clues off in the corner. Keep your eye on the lady!
For instance: In Chapter 16 of Book 1, J. K. Rowling writes that Harry "watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth." Even after reading the book several times, it still catches readers by surprise when they realize that this note was probably the message used to trick Headmaster Dumbledore into leaving the school for a trip to London. That clue doesn't help us solve the plot of the book and it was never explained or mentioned again, but when we see similar clues in other books, we know that we need to pay much closer attention.
It is the charge of the HP Sleuth to predict the pattern as it grows and changes. Does a repeated mention of goblin wars mean something? Why was it Hermione never told all of what she read in the library about house-elves? Can you believe what you've been told about, say, Aberforth?
Because you couldn't believe what you were told about Gilderoy, could you?
Prediction is, as Trelawney herself would admit, an uncertain thing. HP Sleuths theorized, from Jo's "running bits" in Book 5, that water would be important in Book 6, but who could have imagined the kind of watery world in which Jo was going to immerse us? Look for her repetitions, it's a tool HP Sleuths use often, and to good effect, to construct theories.
HP Sleuths also use a tool in theory construction that serves much the same purpose as the carpenter's adage, "Measure twice, cut once". It's called Two Degrees of Separation.
We all love fanfiction, there's just a big difference between fanfiction and theory. Basically it is this: a theory is based directly on canon. If I say, "Snape was a Eater", that is canon - verifiable from what Jo has specifically stated in the novels. If I say, "Snape was a Eater, therefore he might have been there when the Potters were ed", that's a theory based on the canon we all know to be true. If I say, "Snape was a Eater, therefore he might have been there when the Potters were ed, so he might have preserved Lily's soul in a potions bottle he had on him for that purpose and now he's keeping her soul upstairs at his house in preparation for the day when he's able to restore her body just like Voldy's body was restored! And that's why Wormtail's there, he's watching it!", that falls under Two Degrees of Separation, otherwise known as fan fiction. (Okay, it's, um, six degrees -- Snape keeping Lily's soul in a potions bottle was two -- but once you get to two why bother counting any further?)
You want to prove Dumbledore's not ? Go for it! We at WWP would dearly love for him not to be . Just remember, though, if you get to the point where he's being kept in a bottle upstairs at Snape's house, check your Degrees of Separation. They probably got a bit too separated. ;)
Galadriel Waters is a professional HP Sleuth and author of several books that explore the mystery of Harry Potter, including The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter (Analysis of Books 1-4), The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter (Analysis of Book 5), and editor of The Plot Thickens... Harry Potter Investigated by Fans for Fans.
Published September 7, 2006
This article is Copyright © 2006, Galadriel Waters and E.L. Fossa, and may not be reproduced on other web sites or in print, in whole or in part, without expressed permission | <urn:uuid:88cf742e-16e1-421d-8c8d-297860f2e1f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/harry-potter/articles/csi-hogwarts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975581 | 1,976 | 1.703125 | 2 |
"We were actually old to be getting married. I was seventeen, he was nineteen. Usually people marry as soon as they reach adulthood. In my case I would've been twelve. Its more difficult to tell with men though, so the normal age is generally fifteen. Its an old custom, but its falling out of tradition the more people's lifestyles change. Before, the only reason you'd delay a marriage would be to preserve or wait for something. Now people wait because they want to. I was lucky in that I got away from a stricter life and was had the freedom to choose," Aurelia smiled happily at the thought of having been free. Total freedom was not something many people managed to have, but most of her choices have been her own. "As far as two men or women being together... it can get tricky. Nobody cares, a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman. It's not such a big deal, unless you're a firstborn. In peasant families it often does matter but for nobles it does. Firstborn nobles are generally expected to carry on the family name and line, male or female. So normally they marry someone of the opposite gender, whether they want to or not. The rest of the children can marry whoever they like. It can get even trickier if the firstborn dies or can't have children, because then it falls to the second oldest. I've seen sad situations where two lovers are forced to separate so that the lineage can continue.
There was a plague a few years back. A friend of mine, who was married to a woman and was the seventh daughter out of seven, had to give up her wife and marry a man because all her siblings died due to plague. She's never been quite the same. Its strange to me that in America you can't marry who you want. I mean.... why?"
|Because this message is archived you cannot respond to it.| | <urn:uuid:2dfbcc7b-941d-45e6-8240-6d6afb8b1df2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.behindthename.com/bb/author/4258549 | 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 | 0.989218 | 396 | 1.515625 | 2 |
LTBEWR From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 12337 posts, RR: 12 Posted (7 years 10 months 1 week 4 days 6 hours ago) and read 2036 times:
With the extreme heat we have seen in a number of places in the world, as for example high temps in LAS of 115F daytime and a 'low' overnight of 95F, how much of an adjustment occurs in terms of reduced number of seats that can be occupied, reductions in freight/baggage loads on aircraft in such conditions, especially at high altitude airports?
Orion737 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (7 years 10 months 1 week 4 days 5 hours ago) and read 1968 times:
Extreme heat is a particular problem for European charter airlines operating from Med destinations in Summer back to the UK with a full load of holidaymakers in a high density configured aircraft from some of the shorter runways on the holiday islands.
a full load of Brits and all their suitcases full of dirty washing and bootleg alcohol can cause problems for a full 737-300 or 321.
BCAL From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2004, 3384 posts, RR: 18 Reply 3, posted (7 years 10 months 1 week 4 days 4 hours ago) and read 1926 times:
I think you might get replies that are more accurate if this thread was posted in Tech/Ops, as this calls for a reply from a professional pilot or similar.
I think that with NG aircraft and high-performance engines, adjustments to loads in high temperatures are probably not so common these days. Going back several years, adjustments were common when operating to/from airports with high temperatures or high altitude. The special DC10-15s produced for Mexicana and others, a version of the DC10-10 but with higher performance engines for take-offs from hot/high airports, immediately come to mind.
Going back even further to aircraft like the Hawker Siddeley Trident, I recall that she was limited in operations at hot/high airports. We were departing IST on a Trident 2 one hot day and after push back and taxi to the main runway, the Captain announced that we were returning to the stand to have fuel off-loaded, as we were too heavy to take off in the temperature. There were only about 30-40 passengers on the plane, a light load, and we were departing for ATH, a short hop on the return to LHR. Returning to the stand, the engineers refused to off load any fuel, so we had to wait for the temperature to drop before we could take off.
MOL on SRB's latest attack at BA: "It's like a little Chihuahua barking at a dying Labrador. Nobody cares." | <urn:uuid:9aa4da23-2668-43d3-a69f-9238ff0a6320> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/2228998/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962299 | 575 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Anonymous Light and Personal Darkness
In one sense the term can be seen as magnanimous, in that it eliminates the obnoxious and simpleminded idea that God condemns anyone who doesn't literally accept Jesus as their personal savior (for who would presume to say exactly who, what, where, why, when, and how Christ is?). But if the recipient of the designation is not equally magnanimous, I suppose they might see it as presumptuous and condescending -- in other words, you're only doing good because you're secretly a Christian.
But the point is more subtle than that. Rather, the idea is that just because God takes a form, it doesn't mean that he is limited by that form. I mean, obviously. Indeed, to enclose God in a particular form is what we call an intrinsic heresy, not to mention idolatry. It's fine for savages, but not for Raccoons. As Magnus wrote in a comment yesterday, "The first Christians were not going 'Hey we've got a new and better religion!', they were saying 'That which you have worshiped without knowing it, we know it and we've come to tell you.'"
But the essential formlessness of God should should not be taken to imply its converse: that God is not the form through which it has pleased him to incarnate. In a way, this is in keeping with the simple fact that God is always both immanent and transcendent, so that he will of necessity "spill out" of whatever form we use to try to contain him.
Nevertheless, we must make the effort to contain him, especially through the channels he himself has authorized. These acquire a particular power, as seen in phenomena from Torah study to the Eucharist to the sacred spaces that are simultaneously revealed and created by great cathedrals.
If the revelation represents a vertical ingression of divine energies, then tradition represents the horizontal nurturing and prolongation of those energies. One might compare the former to rain, the latter to a river. But the river, of course, ends in the open sea, which is the point of tradition. In other words, tradition should not be revered for its own sake, but only insofar as it floats your boat down that sacred river.
As mentioned yesterday, every culture is situated somewhere along its own sacred river. Even (especially!) the secular left has its own creation myths, its own prophets, its own unexamined (pseudo)vertical sources. But in naively denying the vertical, the radical secularist simply sells us all down the river, a river with no destination. And in turning the cosmos upside down and inside out, he locates Eden up ahead, not behind.
Thus, according to this myth, once the state is large and intrusive enough, we shall all live in Obama's socialist paradise, in which the wealth that is no longer created is well and truly "spread around." Others will just call it poverty.
But what would be the purpose of such a world? Even supposing the leftist's utopia were possible, what would people do with it? The dim ones would continue playing video games, seeking tenure, and watching MSNBC. But the gifted ones would do what they already do with their slack: use it to explore and colonize the vertical. I say, why place one's hope in the left, when eternity is already available to you while you wait?
If there are anonymous Christians, then the corollary is that there are "anonymous adversaries," or whatever you wish to call them. Not only are they necessary, but they are inevitable, given the nature of the pneumacosmic economy, for if there is O, then there must be Ø. And if there is Ø, then there are beings who will "incarnate" it. These people are "flesh made word," even though such a thing is strictly impossible (again, it is the surd made flesh).
Back to Balthasar and the supramundane Light that lights this otherwise endarkened world. Among other things, this is the light that enlightens the anonymous Christian, and furthermore, exposes the artificial light of various manmade ideologies. In other words, when the Light shines on them, it is analogous to the sun shining on a little lightbulb that only appears bright because the shades are drawn. Open the shades, and ideology is revealed for what it is.
The "landscape of humanity... is lit by a glow of reconciliation," "which in an almost inexplicable manner brings the estranged world back to reality." In light of this Light, man's strongest searchlights are turned back upon themselves, since all light is only the one Light. And "it is precisely this 'anonymous light' of Christianity that lights up all places and all characters, unique, unparalleled, penetrating, that irritates the ideologists and stirs them up to persecute and fight for its extermination" (Balthasar).
Now, "can anyone forbid this light to shine?" You can only kill someone once, and that obviously didn't work.
Which reminds me. Why is the whole world up in arms about a kook who wants to burn a Koran, when, if it were a Bible, he could apply for an NEA grant? I suppose because for a Christian, the worst blasphemy has already occurred, and the Light overcame it. Burning a Bible is like trying to set fire to the sun. Good luck with that.
Thought for the day: "'[A]biding in the source'... is understandably an act of a very personal nature that we perform consciously and involves us in being open, ready to listen to and obey God's word, and in being prepared to give time and contemplation in order to allow the rain from heaven to soak its way in. For only when we have received the word of God can we rightly return it in the words of prayer from the depths of our own hearts" (Balthasar).
Hey, don't try to box O into a tight little space: | <urn:uuid:8a80d374-488e-48cd-a26e-2d5bfa7fd3e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2010/09/anonymous-light-and-personal-darkness.html?showComment=1284219445141 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969196 | 1,241 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Sometimes God brings us the most unusual partners in ministry. Sue Plumb Takamoto (PhD '02) and her husband, Eric Takamoto (MDiv '99), on the mission field in Japan, have found an invaluable ministry partner in their little Maltese dog, Molly.
Operating through the mission organization Asian Access, the Takamotos worked with Sendai L'Abri Bible Church, in Sendai, Japan, for two years before recently relocating to the Osaka area to do church planting. Their focus throughout has been on building relationships in their community, developing the friendships that will bring neighbors into the church and into relationship with Christ. All along the way Molly, a fluffy charmer who weighs less than five pounds, "has opened doors for us that wouldn't have opened otherwise," says Sue. She helps so much with the Takamotos' "dendo"--Japanese for "evangelism"--that they call her their "dendo dog."
Sue quickly discovered there were certain times of the day--early morning and late afternoon--when dog owners typically took their pets out for a walk...and Sue timed her own outings with Molly accordingly. It didn't take long for Molly to strike up friendships with the other dogs, opening the door to conversation between the owners.
"Molly was so friendly that pretty soon everyone in the neighborhood knew us," Sue says. Through Molly they became acquainted with the Yoshidas, who began coming to the Takamotos' English classes, barbeque gatherings, and eventually, worship services at church. Molly was also a draw for the Bible studies Sue held in their home, where guests loved taking turns holding the little Maltese in their laps.
But Sue's favorite story is about Kazue, the "block leader" of their neighborhood--a respected position in Japanese culture. Soon after the Takamotos moved to the area, Kazue drove Sue to a special supermarket she wanted Sue to see, and they left Molly alone in Kazue's car while they shopped. They returned to discover the dog had deposited a little "gift"...right on Kazue's seat.
"I was mortified," says Sue. "But then Kazue started laughing, and couldn't stop! It broke the ice in our friendship." After that, she and Kazue had coffee together and began to visit often. Kazue started coming to English class...then to church...then to Bible study...and last year, she became a Christian. Together, Sue and Kazue continued to remember that early car incident with a laugh.
The Takamotos--Sue, Eric, and their two children, Owen and Annie--are now settling in to their new home in Sanda, near Osaka, where they moved this summer. "We're counting on Molly to open doors for us here just like she did in Sendai," Sue says. This dendo dog surely will. | <urn:uuid:b37d14b1-585e-4048-888d-a6ddcf274505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fuller.edu/printable.aspx?id=7767 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981014 | 597 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Camillus Health is one of four Miami-Dade community health centers that will share more than $6 million in funds from a provision in the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration reported on May 1, 2012.
The funds are broken down as follows: Borinquen Health Care Centers will receive $4.3 million, Camillus Health $800,000, Community AIDS Resource $500,000 and Community Health of South Florida $500,000.
All the funds are intended for renovation and construction projects. The grants are aimed at expanding primary care for the poor and uninsured to reduce expensive visits to emergency rooms.
“These funds will be used to help pay for part of the much-needed improvements to our 15-year-old facility, which will allow us to increase our behavioral health, dentistry and primary care for our patients," noted Ray Kayal, Sr., Executive Director & CEO of Camillus Health, Inc.
Kayal added, "We are equally grateful to our private benefactors and donors whose continuing support affords us the ability to maintain these services.”
The Affordable Care Act offers clear choices for consumers and provides new ways to hold insurance companies accountable. The new health law here takes effect in 2014. | <urn:uuid:b905c026-ae9c-429d-806e-5b2e07ce888e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.camillus.org/index.php?src=news&submenu=ministries&srctype=detail&category=Special%20List&refno=35 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94428 | 253 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Thank you for kindly reaching out to us and suggesting a more open-door policy for what you call the “prochoice” movement and which we generally refer to as the pro-choice and reproductive justice movements. We have often discussed here how difficult it is to be a young person in the movement. Much of the money and power is concentrated in big, mainstream organizations like NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List, and many others. We grew up with, admire, and often look forward to working with these organizations. But many of us suffer a great deal of disillusionment. While our painfully cheap labor is welcome, our voices, ideas, and innovations often are not. We appreciate your recognizing this problem, and beginning to bring it to the attention of your peers and colleagues from your much higher platform.
Unfortunately, your essay serves to highlight some of the many cross-generation intra-movement issues we so often encounter as we undertake this vital work. Our profound generational differences go far beyond “Twitter and hashtags.”
First, there is the “prochoice” framework itself, which many of us find limiting. We use “reproductive justice” because our needs are so much greater than abortion, and because we recognize that choice is meaningless without access. The Hyde Amendment, and other restrictive policies, mean that abortion simply isn’t a choice for many women. In addition, people need access not just to abortion and family planning services, but also to support when they choose to become parents. This means help for young mothers with continuing their education and access for all parents to paid family leave, paid sick days, affordable child care, and high quality education for their children. It means treatment for infertility for everyone, not just families with means. These issues are as important to us as abortion access, yet we don’t see our values reflected in the work done in the past or present by the Boomer generation. And as access has become ever more restricted, mainstream orgs like NARAL, located largely on the coasts, have dug in their heels and insisted that because abortion is technically an option, the fight is still about choice. This is no longer the case.
Equally important to us is challenging the heterosexist and gender-normative framework of the language employed not only by our society but also within the pro-choice movement itself. Without meaning to, you continue to insist that this fight is about women. By women, for women. But we are a generation in which men get pregnant, in which many people in our movement do not identify as women, in which we believe that all people must fight together for us to be free. Male-identified individuals belong in this fight too. They should feel responsible, and when called for, be held responsible for making sure we have access and support.
The assumptions often made about “millenials” are not in keeping with our real, lived experiences. You assert that “Millenials have never known what it’s like to live in a country in which abortion is illegal.” This statement is based on a Boomer idealization of Roe v Wade as a vital line, a last battalion between women and the annihalation of our rights. Our generation has grown up to see Roe so stripped of significance that even though abortion is technically legal, there are now entire states where people cannot access it. Abortion has always been less accessible to those of us who are poor, young, and not white. While your generation is full of stories of women who died trying to get abortions, ours is full of those who sold all their possessions, dropped out of school, or fed their children nothing but beans for weeks to pay for their abortions, and of women who simply give up and watch their lives become even more difficult and their dreams grow ever more distant as they struggle to raise children before they are ready. Such stories are only growing more frequent in an economic downturn that has left 25% of college graduates unemployed and far greater numbers of unemployed among those without a college degree. This inter-generational disconnect leads the direction of the vast resources of the movement to issues that do not reflect the needs and realities of those of down on the ground.
You speak of “what our generations share,” but we must ask, how do you know? How many people age 35 and under sit on your board? How many hold leadership positions in your organization?
When you say we will “flock to the polls,” what makes you so sure? Many of us will be working our third job, desperately trying to make ends meet, too tired to even vote. Some of us will be denied the vote because of voter suppression laws. Many of us feel that you are no more supportive of us in many ways than people who wish to deliberately deprive us of our rights.The message you have, however unintentionally, sent with this piece, is, “We need to embrace young people and tell them what to do, and what they need to do is what we did: save all the women that count.”
We appreciate the gesture of inclusion – however tired and angry generally we may be, please, do not think we do not recognize your good intentions – but the “women’s movement” needn’t bother to bring us in from the cold, as though we have been outside the door, shivering, unsure, and in need of the warm embrace of your guidance. We are already here. We are already organizing, without you, because you have not made us welcome. We are changing the world, right before your eyes. And we think it may makeyou afraid and unsure; what is the world becoming without our rules? It is going to look very different when we are done with it. It is no longer time for you to lead us. If you want to win – if you want abortion access and birth control and choice for your daughters and granddaughters – you need to get behind us. Throw your weight and your organization and your money behind us and stop making us build this from scratch. Share the wisdom you’ve learned from the battles you’ve fought, but do so in a way that acknowledges that we live in a different world and we need a different movement. That is how you can save the movement. We say unto you all, with respect, love, and gratitude, what you said to those who came before you: “Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall.” You can obstruct or you can help, but either way, ours is the vision leading the future. | <urn:uuid:2d20a2af-0c8e-461a-ab2e-5cae0a80f2ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abortiongang.org/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-nancy-keenan-and-the-boomers-from-the-abortion-gang-millenials/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974762 | 1,372 | 1.695313 | 2 |
- This week UnitedHealthcare told a 29-year-old stroke victim that her health insurance with them does not include the rehabilitation necessary for her to walk, eat, or speak again.
This “hip, young, vibrant and beautiful woman,” as her sister described her to us, entered the hospital in December. After more than a month in recovery from a highly unusual massive cerebral stroke, her sister said that UnitedHealthcare has now “pulled the plug on her rehab and is sending her home with me.”
The victim’s sister, who prefers to remain anonymous, does not live in the same state; nor is she equipped to provide the care needed. “My sister cannot walk, stand, wash, toilet herself, count or read, and speaks only garbled phrases.” The hospital insists that it will discharge her, or start to bill her sister daily, even though she has told them repeatedly that her “only current option is to take her to a handicapped-accessible motel room.”
When insurance representatives were questioned on the wisdom — or basic human decency — of sending her incapacitated sister home with her to a motel, she was told, “This is a ‘social problem’ not a ‘medical problem’ and thus, the insurer has no duty to continue rehab.”
Whoa, UnitedHealthcare! You think that’s a “social problem?”
Denial of coverage for this young American woman who worked for and earned her health coverage is not a social problem. It’s a “criminal problem.” It’s called stealing from the sick to feed the greed of the rich. Sadly, this is not an isolated case. In 2009, UnitedHealthcare in New York was investigated and found seriously wanting. Rather than go to court, UHC coughed up$350 million to settle the class-action suit. In 2007, UHC agreed to pay the largest settlement in the Nebraska Department of Insurance’s history when UHC was found to have violated 18 Nebraska laws more than 800 times in a one-year period. Our conclusion is that UHC has a “criminal problem.” But we’ll let the lawyers and courts sort that one out.
However, we can tell you what definitely is a social problem: the fact that across America today there are thousands of people who have insurance, yet are denied care.
Another social problem is that our elected officials appear impotent in the face of health insurance companies’ power and swagger. While we are glad for the tiny baby steps forward with the health-care reform legislation that we Americans achieved last year, this sad story shows how far we have yet to go.
For-profit health insurance companies, no matter what reforms or regulations we put in place, are not the answer. By their very definition, health insurance companies profit by denying sick people medical care.
That’s the way insurance works. You pay the insurer, betting that at some point you will get sick and you will need care. The insurer takes your money but doesn’t take care of you when you do get sick, at least if the insurer is UnitedHealthcare. As health care advocate Donna Smith said in a recent column, “Americans know that health insurance is not health care.” In this case, UnitedHealthcare has once again made the point.
“Writing a check to Blue Cross or Humana or Aetna or Cigna or UnitedHealthcare,” says Smith, “is not any guarantee at all of anything except that we’ve sent money to an insurance company. That’s it. Armies of administrative people make sure they guard the gates to the actual delivery of health care. The generals who make sure those administrative soldiers hold the line are far behind the scenes in white coats and locked offices to make sure no insurgent patients without payment in place actually get near them. In the health-care delivery world, the disconnect between those who would give us care and those of us who need it is systemic and growing worse.”
But back to our original point. Why does this make Jesus cry? Unquestionably one of Jesus’ hallmark characteristics was his concern for and ministry with the sick. From healing the lepers and the woman with an issue of blood, to healing Jairus’ daughter and the Roman soldier, Jesus publically called to account the levitical “health-care” system of his time.
The religious purity laws of the day — what we might call “pre-existing conditions” — created “a system of social boundaries,” writes biblical scholar Richard Ascough, which served “to remove socioeconomically burdensome populations, and especially the chronically ill, from society.” What the system said was just not possible to heal, Jesus showed was very possible with few resources and a little compassion. It wasn’t that the system didn’t have the ability or finances to heal the sick; it was that the system didn’t care.
“I am enraged, bewildered, and powerless to take on the U.S. health-‘care’ system,” this young woman’s sister told us. She has left phone messages with her UHC “inpatient Care Manager,” faxed letters requesting a written explanation for why coverage has been denied. To date, she has not heard back. “I want people to know what it means in basic human terms to watch a loved one sent home when medical help might give her back some minimum quality of life.”
Somewhere tonight we’re sure a UnitedHealthcare insurance representative is praying for forgiveness for what he or she has done to this young woman who is sick and needs support. We’re equally sure that Jesus will offer that forgiveness — but not without shedding a tear.
Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor at Sojourners, blogs at www.rosemarieberger.com. She’s the author of Who Killed Donte Manning? The Story of an American Neighborhood available at store.sojo.net. Heidi Thompson is publisher of Sojourners magazine. | <urn:uuid:3a7e1e24-ec35-4022-a18e-254c9fbe9371> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coffee-rock-thought.tumblr.com/tagged/politics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968128 | 1,304 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Puppies, dislocated // David LeGault
Here's a picture of my new puppy. Isn't she cute? Her name is Mackinac, as in Mackinac Bridge or Mackinac Island or Mackinac City, as in Michigan, as in a transitional point between upper and lower peninsulas.
She's a Staffordshire Terrier, more commonly known as a pit bull. My wife and I picked her up through a great local organization, Minnesota Pit Bull Rescue (and, of course, I'm going to go ahead and say you should check them out). It's amazing the reaction I've been getting whenever I tell someone what type of dog she is: a range of barely concealed shock to flat-out disbelief that we'd take such an animal into our home. And maybe the reaction is somewhat justified: pit bulls do fairly often appear at the top of Most Dangerous Breeds lists, and there are a number of horror stories connected to the breed (both in terms of human attacks as well as their popularity in dog-fighting circles).
But the truth is that these dogs are sweet and affectionate, like any dog really, but their natural strength draws bad people to them who train them to be violent. And part of me likes this about Mackinac: I like it that I'm going to have a friendly pit bull, an ambassador for the breed that can show others that we shouldn't judge the animal, but the owner.
And so Mackinac, at eight weeks old, is already defying the genre of her breed.
And breaking genre is a good thing: its one of the best ways (in literature, but all art really) to open the eyes of the audience to a different mindset. Start with what the audience knows (or think they know) and then show them why the subject matter can't be simplified. Show them a dog they think should terrify them, but that they can't help but love. Make it complex, different, amazing. | <urn:uuid:1bc286e0-b43a-40d2-a4e6-fa5deb1f65fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/disloc/dislocatemagazine/2010/06/puppies_dislocated_david_legau.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973786 | 409 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Pebble began as an excuse to spend lots of time exploring India and the first collections used facetted and tumbled semi-precious stones sourced throughout the country. Nine years later travels now include India, China, Africa, Thailand, and South America, expanding the collections to include metals, stones, wood, glass, coral, and amber. Other materials include ancient excavated beads and glass trade beads produced in Europe in the nineteenth century. Traditional tribal jewellery is a big influence as is a love of natural materials and Pebble try to keep the designs as simple as possible in the belief that one cannot improve on nature. Over the years Pebble have worked with or sold to many fashion designers including Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Cavalli, Issey Miyake, Mathew Williamson, Emilio Pucci, Allegra Hicks, Joseph, Nicole Fahri, and Donna Karan.
There are no products matching the selection | <urn:uuid:2bb8f50f-5639-404f-b0ee-d9e8fa658920> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.econe.co.uk/designers/pebble.html?color=21&limit=24&material=14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942206 | 187 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Financial Sense Newshour
The BIG Picture Transcription
February 2, 2008
- Here Comes the Recession - Here Comes the Stimulus
- Other Voices: Curtis D. Burton, Chairman & CEO, Buccaneer Resources, LLC
The Big Disconnect
JOHN: Well, it has been said before that reality is usually scoffed at and illusion is usually king when it comes to the world of politics, and quite often in finances; and as we've often pointed out on the show, Jim, they are inextricably married. They cannot be separated.
You know, you've been talking about perceptions and reality as it relates to the markets over the years. We've done this over and over again, and there are many times when we've observed what is happening within the markets doesn't seem to jibe with the reality that's there. So obviously, there is a disparity here between what's truly going on and how people perceive the markets. And so that's the topic that we're starting off the Big Picture with today.
So what are the major divergences or what you're calling now the big disconnect that you see in process today?
JIM: There are so many of them. There are a lot of anomalies, but probably the two biggest that strike me right now are the areas of energy and precious metals. [1:11]
JOHN: Let's take these one at a time. So it's energy and precious metals? Energy, that's a big part of the show this week, so that would be an obvious first choice.
JIM: Well, here is the one that really stands out to me. When it comes to energy, the big perception is that the US economy is slowing done and heading towards a recession, which means there is going to be less demand for energy, therefore prices are going to head lower. This is probably a common mistake that we see made on Wall Street, which has been wrong on its energy forecast for as long as you and I have been doing the show for six years. I mean every year, the price of energy goes higher, especially the price of oil; and then they are always telling us for one reason or another, the war ended, the terrorist premium, the weather, whatever it is, but they always tell us why it's going lower and we end up, basically, at the end of the year with higher energy prices.
So it is true, I mean if you take a look right now, the US is the world's largest consumer oil in the world consuming roughly about 25% of the world's oil production. But in reality, if you look over the last three or four years, the US has contributed very little in terms of incremental demand over the last couple of years.
Oil consumption over the last two years, in fact, has fallen slightly here in the US. What has driven prices on the demand side has come from China, India, the developing countries and most especially coming from OPEC. [2:46]
JOHN: Well, couldn't we make one assertion that’s the reason why the press gets this wrong when they point to falling demand over the last few years and then they complain about higher oil prices and oil company profits (although you notice by the way, that is disappearing from the presidential debate right now.) This is a common rant such as we hear from Bill O'Reilly all of the time on Fox.
JIM: Yeah. I suppose with profits released this Friday with Exxon, we had Shell's profits were spectacular, look for that to be a rant. But the media, our politicians, in fact, some of the analysts on Wall Street always get this wrong. The demand is coming from the developing world and the oil producers. This has, I think, for this country, ominous implications for not only the US but also the West. If OPEC countries consume more of what they produce, that simply means there is less to export. So the US and the West is going to have to compete with the rest of the world where like in China energy is subsidized and controlled by the state. So what we're going to see in the US and in the West, particularly the G7 countries, is falling demand because of higher prices are going to force us to consume less. [4:04]
JOHN: You know, we hear this argument all of the time about we have gobs of reserves off of the coast of California, up in Alaska, whatever, what about supply increases coming on stream from either new discoveries or reserves that we've been holding, or –and this is the thing that really made it big this week if you notice in both sides of the debate as far as presidential candidates – alternative fuels?
JIM: The first thing you need to know about supply is it has been more than two decades – I think Exxon tracks this, but I think 1985 was the last year that we made enough new oil discoveries to replace what it was that we were producing and consuming.
Also, oil discoveries peaked globally in the late 60s. There has been only two sizable discoveries made since 1969. One is the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan and then last summer there was a large oil field that was discovered off the coast of Brazil by the state company Petrobras. But if you take a look at that, that's been almost 40 years and we've only had two major oil discoveries. Every year we discover less. Every year we consume and produce more. But if you take a look at the conventional oil that we have –the thick gooey stuff that we take out of the ground – that peaked in May of 2005. And what we're seeing is that politicians are talking about the difference between demand and supply is being made up by coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids and biofuels. If it wasn't for that, John, we would be going through oil shortages. And despite the fact that the US economy is probably in recession right now, (we'll get to that in the second hour of the Big Picture today) you're still talking about oil prices that are still consolidating and hovering around $90 a barrel. [5:55]
JOHN: So basically, we're sort of flattening out the stress upon the supply that is available there by providing some ultimates, but ultimately, we're basically not finding what we're consuming already. This is what worries you?
JIM: Yes. And that's the big worry that people are really not paying a lot of attention to is the word depletion. If you accept the CERA report that came out a couple of weeks ago on depletion, worldwide it is running about 4.5%, that translates into roughly 4 million a day annually. That means each year we must find an additional 4 million barrels that we have to find just to stay even, so you’ll have to find 4 million barrels this year; next year another 4 million barrels plus the 4 million barrels we lost through a depletion this year, so that's eight million barrels. You're looking at 30, 40 million barrels and 50 million barrels that we're going to have to find and replace just from existing depletion rates in the next decade.
And the other factor, just on the supply front is the number of large projects that were due to come onstream. We've had one delay after another. We've seen massive cost overruns that are associated with many of the world's largest oil fields: the mega projects either at Kashagan in Kazakhstan, the Sakhalin too, or the Canadian or Venezuelan oil stands. So most of all of the increases in global oil production have occurred from deepwater fields and when it comes to deep water depletion rates, they are running much, much higher than this 4.5% figure that CERA is using. And the best example we can use is Cantarell where the depletion rates are closer to 18%. [7:44]
JOHN: That springs off of what was discussed in the last hour during the roundtable discussion and that's basically that demand is running faster than supply. It's not even an issue of whether there is a lot of oil left. It's simply supply versus demand and what we can possibly deliver given the infrastructure and given the current sources.
JIM: And we've talked about infrastructure here and we've had Matt Simmons on the program. Our whole energy infrastructure –pipelines, power plants, rig fleets, offshore platforms, shortage of personnel, all of the entire energy infrastructure – is aging and falling apart. It's breaking down. That's why you see so many problems with the refineries today. Some of these refineries were built 50 and 70 years ago. And, you know, when it gets to even new production, there are a number of new fields that are coming online over the next several years, but the depletion rate is going to siphon off many of the benefits of that new production coming on stream. [8:43]
JOHN: So the fact that the US economy is slowing down is really less relevant to the energy picture then?
JIM: The US economy is still the world's largest economy, but it's becoming less important. Far more important to the energy front is developing world demand and also OPEC demand. You couple that with depletion, project delays and now you see why oil prices are hovering at $90 a barrel. I would suspect that as oil prices rise over $100 a barrel, demand is going to continue to contract in the US and most G7 countries. And quite frankly, it's the only place it can contract. If you look at China, if you look at many of the OPEC countries, they subsidize energy.
In Venezuela I think they are paying like 21 cents or 30 cents a gallon; in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, they are paying 46 cents a gallon for gasoline. Besides, they are the ones that actually own the stuff. We don't own the stuff. 85% of the world's oil is controlled either by OPEC or the former Soviet Union, and they aren't as motivated as international oil companies to pump more out of the ground just so we in the West can enjoy lower prices. In fact, if you take a look at all of these factors, I think what you have to do is ignore the pundits when they talk about lower energy prices because the US economy is slowing down or inventories went up this week. It just shows, in my opinion, how uninformed they are. And by the way, if you hear these inventory numbers like they are taken like Gospel. Those inventory numbers have been dropping over the last couple of years and now we're at levels that we haven't seen since early 2005. [10:34]
JOHN: Yeah. When we talk about inventory numbers, there is also something that is deceptive behind those and that is people think that somebody is out there actually –
JIM: It's like the meter reader on your utilities.
JOHN: Yeah. They think they are actually out there with a little dipstick dipping the stick in the tank and measuring all of the tanks and what's out there in reserve. That's not happening. These are all based on computer theoretical models, and so both the institutions and the investors have been dumping oil shares thinking that a slowing US economy is going to cause oil prices to tumble and therefore oil stocks are cyclical. If we go in a recession, oil stocks will go in the tank with them.
JIM: Yeah. That's probably the prevailing consensus. That's the disconnect right now. But, you know, despite falling oil demand in the US –and it isn't down that much – oil prices have been holding firm at close to $90 a barrel. Now, part of the recent selling of energy shares has been forced selling by institutions trying to get liquid to shore up their balance sheets. I mean, if you look at some of the areas hardest hit in this selloff in this first month of the year (energy, technology, the industrials, base metals), those were probably some of the big profit areas last year.
So some forced selling of accounts is due to part of the selloff. But I think the other explanation for all of this is the US economic slow down, so everybody has been dumping oil shares because their profits were going to slow down. We know the economy was weak in the fourth quarter, but corporate profits aren't matching up with this misperception. [12:13]
JOHN: So you still hold to the view that energy prices are, what? Heading higher despite what is perceived as the US slow down?
JIM: Oh, absolutely. I think they are going to go over 100 this year and beyond that into next year and despite this fact that the economy is slowing down, which we know this week the economy grew at less than 1% in the fourth quarter of last year. But on the Friday that you and I talking, ExxonMobil and Chevron corporation, the two biggest US oil companies reported gains in the fourth quarter earnings after record crude prices. Net income at Texas based ExxonMobil climbed 14% to 11.7 billion (so look for Bill O'Reilly to bashing Exxon, the same with the politicians.) That translates to roughly about $2.13 a share. Also, San Ramon, California-based Chevron said its profit rose 29% to 4.88 billion or 2.32. So once again, the analysts have gotten it wrong by forecasting lower prices and lower profits for these companies. I mean it only stands to reason. I mean what did we see since August of last year? We saw the price of oil go from 70 all of the way up to $100 a barrel. At close to $100 a barrel or $90 a barrel, these oil companies are going to make a lot of money. And that gets back to this whole misperception again. [13:36]
JOHN: So basically if we're trying to put this together, the concept of this is a slower economy, lower oil prices which equals lower profits, but look at what you just read about Exxon and Chevron, and that shows there really is a disconnect between, I would say, expectations of the market and what's truly going on.
JIM: Yeah. I still hold strongly to the view that we're going to see higher oil prices, so I'm not aware of anything else besides, let's say, junior precious metals that hold as much upside. The energy sector right now is incredibly cheap. In fact, we get a number of independent research reports; John S. Herold & Company did a recent analysis of the energy sector because they were seeing this mispricing too, this misperception. And they looked at what oil price was implied in the share price of a select group of companies with a reserve mix of, let's say, greater than 40% oil production. Collectively, as a group, the implied share price for many of these companies as a group was below $60s a barrel. And, John, oil prices are 50% above that $60s a barrel as you and I speaking on this Friday. In fact, some of the more outstanding buys were selling at prices based at 40 and 50 dollar oil. So there is definitely a big disconnect here when you see these kinds of prices factored into oil share prices. And to me, that spells opportunity. Eventually perception gives way to reality, and that means great upside potential. Eventually Mr. Market in it's current panic state is offering investors what I call the perfect pitch. And I would swing for the fences because you're probably going to end up hitting it out of the ballpark because of this big misperception. And once again, the earnings reports, whether it was earlier in the week from Shell Oil or on Friday from Exxon or Chevron just bear out this great misperception that's held on the street. [15:35]
JOHN: Let's move on to the other big disconnect right now, which is if you look at precious metals prices and the price of the juniors or gold stocks in general, this is the one that has the head scratcher going on a number of people.
JIM: Yeah. I think this one really sort of puzzles me. I mean if you look at since last summer when gold corrected around $650 an ounce, we have now seen gold run up to where it is today, somewhere above close to 920. Yet hardly a dime has moved into the gold equities. I mean the only movement that we've seen has been in the handful of large cap gold producers, the big companies, the Barricks, the Agnicos, the Yamanas, the juniors have literally been tossed on the junk heap. The profitable trade with higher gold prices has actually been to short them. And that's the play being orchestrated by the big boys. So they've languished and they have not done well since probably May of 2006 where we had gold prices correct and there was a major correction in gold equities. But when you've seen what's happened since 2006, gold has been going up consistently every single year since 2001. We've seen gold prices head higher. We've seen silver prices head higher, and so to me, the second major disconnect in the marketplace right now is what's going on in the macro environment, in the price of gold and a lot of the gold equities. [17:05]
JOHN: You would think with the Fed cutting interest rates 1.25% in a week, the money supply is growing at 15%, headline inflation rising at above beyond interest rates, the shares would have taken off by this time. That would only seem reasonable, Jim.
JIM: You know, what has happened is that money has piled into Treasuries, driving down interest rates well below the inflation rate. I think the headline inflation rate last year on the CPI was 4.1%, but if you look at where we are today, two year Treasury notes are at 2.04% - 2%; the 10 year treasury note is at roughly 3.57%, while headline inflation, which is understated to begin with, is over 4%. In fact, you have bond investors calling for more rate cuts. So on the institutional side, large investors haven't figured out that this inflation thing. You've got the deflationists coming out of the woodworks, they are coming out and saying inflation is heading lower, we are going to deal with deflation and the reason for this is falling housing prices; they are not looking at growing money supply. So what you've had now is with rising inflation, with the Fed slashing interest rates injecting a gazillion dollars into the economy, the herd is piling into Treasuries. [18:34]
JOHN: Well, what about individual investors anyway?
JIM: John, you talk to people on the street. I mean gold isn't even close on investors’ radar screens. They are still piling into emerging markets, which, by the way, have been getting hammered here in the first month of the year. Gold isn't even in the lexicon of individual investors yet. In fact, my friend Brian Pretti over at Contrary Investor did a chart I found fascinating. He did a chart of gold bullion and the inflow and outflow of funds into the Rydex gold fund. A lot of traders and individual investors will move in and out of the Rydex funds, short the S&P, go long the S&P, go long the Q’s, short the Q’s. And boy, I'll tell you, do Brian's charts tell a story. Brian took the price of gold since the beginning of 2006 all of the way up to where it was on the end of last week, and he compared it to the inflows and outflows into the Rydex Precious Metals Fund. In the big run up in gold that we saw into May of 2006, money poured into the Rydex gold funds. In fact, there was a very sharp correction in gold that summer. John, you remember, the summer selloff that we saw in May of 2006. However, each rally in gold (and I'm talking about since May, each rally in gold since that time) has only produced a small increase but never at the level that's we reached in May of 06. So since probably the summer of 2006, as far as the individual investor is concerned, and I would probably say with a lot of institutions, they've been going elsewhere. In fact, if we look at Brian's graph, since March of 07, the money in the Rydex gold fund has actually been muted. It's down significantly. [20:27]
JOHN: Even after this move we've seen since last August where gold rose from 650 to where it is today.
JIM: That is what I find very revealing. I mean the price of gold has risen from around 550 in the summer of 2006 to today's price over $900 an ounce. So gold prices have risen 68% since then. They've risen 42% since last summer in August. Yet the money flowing into the Rydex gold funds has actually fallen by 44%. So you've got a 68% increase in the price of gold and a 44% drop in the money going into gold funds, at least at Rydex. These are the kinds of divergences that I like to see. That's why I believe the juniors have become the buy of this decade. [21:17]
JOHN: Yeah. Last week, you talked about three catalysts which could possibly change this big disconnect, and they were in order: number one, the take over of juniors by the majors; two, mergers between juniors; or the third option being finally the price of gold going north of $1000 an ounce.
JIM: I don't know which one it's going to be. It could be one of those three or all of them. But when this thing gets going, and I don't know which of the three will be the catalyst, I just sense it's going to happen. I mean you can just see it right now: the misperceptions, the lack of interest, people are chasing emerging markets or they are going into Treasuries at half the rate of inflation. Everything is in place, so you can have the Fed slashing interest rates, you've got other central banks getting ready to cut (the Bank of England has indicated it's already cut, it’s possibly going to cut again; The central bank of Canada.) You also have the money supply growing at double digits globally. Demand for gold and bullion, silver, is growing globally. So if you take a look at gold prices and gold demand, they've been going up every single year for several years now; and also you have the financial crisis, you have world political tensions, you have governmental discord. You've got rising inflation and the growth of the welfare state. There is always going to be a gold positive. [22:50]
JOHN: Do you remember way back, when Alan Greenspan was warning that once they begin to inflate the currency (which is really debasing it, you know, chopping down all of the trees doing whatever they can to increase the money supply) that's when investors had better start taking some kind of protective maneuvers.
JIM: Yeah. He wrote a piece back in 1953. In fact, I think we have it on our gold page on our website, but he wrote:
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. If there were, the government would make it illegal as was done in the case of gold. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. If one grasps this concept, one has no difficulty in understanding the state's antagonism towards gold.
And you can see this reflected on Wall Street, and you can see it reflected by politicians and central bankers today. [23:49]
JOHN: So basically what he's saying here is that in order for this whole scheme to work, everybody has to be coerced into it. If people start bailing out on their own, then it's not going to work.
JIM: No. Sooner or later, what's going to happen is all of these perceptions that we have right now eventually line up with reality. And this is one disconnect, like the one that we've seen in energy, that hasn't been figured out by the market yet. However, when it is finally discovered, I expect there will be fireworks in the gold sector. And that's exactly what we saw happen, John: The public and the institutions come in towards the end of the move.
And if you take a look at the 60s when the US began its guns and butter program with the Great Society programs and Vietnam war, we couldn't maintain a balanced budget, and as a result, we were depreciating, running deficits and foreigners were turning in their dollars for gold because the US dollar was being debased. And eventually there was such a run on gold, we couldn't honor the dollar with gold backing anymore. In August of 1971, Nixon took us off the gold backing of the dollar. And from that point forward, governments have run continuous deficits, money supply has run out of control, the dollar has lost, what, about 95% of its purchasing value.
But despite all of this going on, and you remember, John, with Nixon, with wage and price controls, and inflation got up to 4%, and they put in wage and price controls. We're over 4% now, and we know those numbers are jury-rigged and understated. They tried to put in place – what was it? Jimmy Carter wanted wage increases frozen at 7% while inflation was running at 14. These are all of the things our politicians are going to do because that's why we're headed for this hyperinflationary depression that we'll get into in our next topic. But the only way to protect yourself against that is gold, and right now, people don't understand that. Running into Treasuries at 2% when inflation is running above 4%, that is slow strangulation in my opinion because that means that you're not even getting the income to keep up with inflation; and even forget the fact that you pay taxes on that 2% rate which probably drops it down to about 1 ½ or 1. And the market hasn't figured this out, nor have institutions and individuals. [26:16]
JOHN: Reality sets in. All perceptions will eventually line up with reality. I guess when investors begin to feel it more than anything else. This is one disconnect, just like the one in energy we were talking about, that hasn't been really perceived by the markets yet. But when it is finally discovered, you would really expect some fire works in the gold sector. If you think it's gone up now, I would think we'd see another boost upwards like a JATO, you know, jet assisted take-off kind of thing.
JIM: You know, that's what I believe that we're going to see if gold crosses $1000, that should get somebody's attention. Image what's going to happen when it crosses 2000 and 3000. I mean investors all can't pile into the Barricks, the Newmonts, the Agnicos. Money is going to flow into gold funds. That's going to force fund managers – they are going to have no other choice. They are going to have to start buying the junior producers. They are going to have to start buying the junior developer's, the junior explorers.
Eventually, John, the market finally figures it out, it always does. But investors don't move en masse, for example, if we take a look at the last bull market in stocks that began in August of 1982, investors didn't move en masse into the stock market until 1995. Just like the last bull market in gold, investors didn't really move in until late 78 and 79. They missed the whole two-thirds of the front end of the movement and just like in the stock market, they missed the first 13 years of the bull market in stocks, not coming in in 95; just like they missed the first two-thirds of the movement of the gold bull market in the late 60s and 70s. [27:58]
JOHN: Well, this is really incredible when you think about it. Gold has moved from 255, that was back in 2001, to today's price of – what did we hit on Friday?
JOHN: 905. That's quite a move. Silver has gone from about 3.50 an ounce to 17 is what we slammed through this week. The HUI has gone up from 40 to over 450. That's 11 times. 450. You would think that this story would get bigger coverage.. And so you think that whether this move finally occurs, it's going to be both historic and rather incredible. But again, what does this mean for everyone? It really isn't for everybody because this sector of the stock market is volatile, so not everybody can take this kind of action.
JIM: If you don't understand or believe in the fundamentals, then you need to stay out of the sector, period. You need to have an enormous amount of patience. You need to remain focused and disciplined, and you need to be diversified. I mean, if you are investing in juniors, you should own between 10 and 15, no more than that because it's very hard to keep up with that many stocks. And you need to understand the story behind the stock. If you can't handle the volatility or you don't want to do your homework, then quite honestly, you'd be better off buying the bullion which has risen steadily over the last seven years; and I expect that if you and I speaking, John, on December 31st of this year, we're going to find that gold once again went up to an all time record. [29:28]
JOHN: That’s important to point out that you expect major gains in the juniors, but like small cap stocks, they are more volatile. So unless you do your homework and understand the fundamentals of this area and have an enormous amount of patience, you really just don't belong in this sector.
JIM: You summarized it succinctly.
JOHN: So the big disconnect, or at least the biggest misperception in the market right now is that the slowing US economy will need to lower oil prices, lower energy shares. And with inflation on the rise and investors going into T-bonds and treasuries instead of gold, the markets will finally figure this one out, and when it does, that's when you're going to see the fireworks.
JIM: That about sums it up. [30:05]
JOHN: You're listening to the Financial Sense Newshour at www.financialsense.com, online all of the time. New programs posted Saturday morning by about 7:00 a.m. Greenwich time. It's plus or minus an hour or so. Sometimes if we don't get those things up there right away, boy, Jim, do we hear about it from all around the world.
FSN Humor: Econo Bowl
This is Super Bowl weekend for people here in the United States when the whole country becomes totally dysfunctional – at least for a Sunday. And you know, a lot of times we talk about Joe Public, Joe Six-Pack not understanding economics and that's why he or she doesn't understand exactly why things are coming down on their head, what inflation means, how it destroys their buying power. So we thought, though, that since most Americans really understand the American sport of football, we would simply recast economic descriptions in a way that people who love football can understand. This is part of our educational program here at Financial Sense.
[Jim and John; sports commentators at the Econo Bowl]
JOHN: Well, welcome to the Washington Capitol dome for the first annual Econo Bowl where the Federales from Washington face off against the US Recessionistas. Jim, it should be quite a game. However, if you look around, there is quite a snow storm brewing which could affect conditions down on the field.
JIM:John, let's go down to the field and listen for the National Anthem.
JOHN:Well, the Federales win the coin toss and will begin the game on the offense. The quarter back for the Federales is Ben Bernanke with the M3 on his jersey there, with Dollar and Economic Growth at wide receivers. You know, this line looks a little puny with George Bush at center and Nancy Pelosi at left guard and Hank Paulson at right guard.
JIM:You know, I've been saying this all along, John. The front line is going to have its work cut out for it against that tough Recessionista’s front forward. Just look at these guys.
JOHN: Well, you're right, Jim, there’s Sub Prime, Stagflation, Unemployment and Volatility on the defense.
JIM: And it's no secret these guys keep getting bigger ever year.
JOHN: Yeah. It doesn't seem they can keep them under control either with all of the scandals coming out lately anyway. Okay, after the touchback, Bernanke will start his possession at the 20 yard line. Bernanke takes the snap. He's back to throw, he's looking, looking down the field. He sees the wide receiver, Economic Growth. He fires and it’s – it's incomplete. Corner back Rising Oil Prices bats down the pass and thwarts the completion.
JIM: That play fell apart before it even got started. The Federales are going to have to get more aggressive than that if they are going to beat this tough team.
JOHN: Well, let's see here, Jim, second down. Bernanke looks to the right with a rate cut. The blitz is on, and Sub Prime nails Bernanke in the back field for a loss. That's got to hurt. It looks like he didn't even see it coming.
JIM: How could you miss something that big?
Well, wait a minute, there's a flag down right now.
Referee: After the play was over. Personal foul: unnecessary stupidity, Number 52 on the offence, results in a 15 yard penalty. It is third down.
JOHN:Number 52 on the offence, that's Nancy Pelosi and apparently she was kicking the referee.
JIM: Well, that's a 15 yard penalty. What a costly mistake. She could even be fined 50 basis points if the league reviews this.
JOHN: All right, third down and long. This is another passing situation. Bernanke drops back and goes deep to the bottle– it's complete. He's running but Inflation is catching up. Inflation tackles the dollar, the ball is loose, it's a fumble. Inflation picks up the ball. Look at inflation run! And he's into the end zone for a touch down. I think Dollar is hurt. He's still down.
JOHN: Boy, it doesn't look like he's going to be back in the game any time soon judging from that attack. You know the Dollar has been a good performer in the past, but it's just not as strong as he was in previous seasons. Well, this game is going to be a long one. We'll return you to the studio for now, but don't forget to rejoin us later in the game.
JOHN: Well, we'll rejoin the Econo Bowl later on in this particular hour of the program. I think this is a great advance in educating people, Jim, in ways they can understand about this whole thing. I mean it's all played like a game, but it's very clear that obviously here at Financial Sense, we have far too much time on our hands. [34:18]
JIM: Drinking a little bit too much wine on a Saturday night.
JOHN: That will do it! Okay.
The Next Great Depression - Part 3
JOHN: Let's continue our series on the upcoming depression. This is called The Next Great Depression – Part 3. It's part three of a four part series. We expect this forecast to take place if we stay on the path that we're on right now, sometime in 2010, sliding into a recession around 2009 and then a depression 2010. This depression is going to be driven by bad policy moves by our politicians based on the things that they are saying now. So before we begin, let's review the various ways in which government interferes with the marketplace. Obviously when there is a lot of pain, governments are under a tremendous amount of pressure from their constituents to fix it. So we covered this last week, but why don't we summarize it once again, Jim, because this is going to be helpful to understand the various ways that they intervene. That’s because they are repeating the very, very same mistakes made during the real late 1920s and the early 1930s by FDR's administration as well (Franklin Delano Roosevelt.)
JIM: Well, there are a number of ways that they interfere and you're going to recognize some of these as I read through them because we are going through them now; and then I want to get to a Bloomberg story on Friday.
One way that they can prevent or delay and then eventually cause a depression is they prevent or delay liquidations. So they lend money to shaky businesses, so they call on banks to lend further, which is what they are trying to do now with Fannie and Freddie or bail out homeowners; so the second thing they do is inflate further. I mean that's what we're seeing right now with 50 basis point cut on Wednesday and we saw it last week with a surprise 75 basis point cut on Tuesday. So the further inflation blocks the necessary fall in prices delaying adjustments and really prolongs the situation. Further credit expansion also creates malinvestments. Remember, the recession of 2001 and the bursting of the tech bubble was followed by a slashing of interest rates, which gave us the real estate and credit bubble. So we're probably going to see another bubble here by the end of the year and into next year.
A third is they keep wages up. In fact, there was a call, and the response, in the President's State of the Union message about raising the minimum wage. And artificial maintenance of wage rates in a depression or a recession insures permanent mass employment. And the other thing that they do is they'll try to maintain prices, so look for that if prices start to fall.
Five, they want to stimulate consumption and discourage savings. Look at this whole stimulus plan that they are coming up with. Rather than encouraging more savings and less consumption, what they are trying too do is just the opposite and they are going to do everything they can to discourage savings and investment by raising taxes, particularly on individuals and corporations and estates. As a matter of fact, any increase in taxes and government and spending will discourage saving and investment.
And finally they will subsidize unemployment. The more you subsidize unemployment, it will prolong unemployment indefinitely and delay the shift of workers who are unemployed to other fields of endeavor. So, John, these are the six main mechanisms, and it was amazing, one of the big stories on Bloomberg on Friday is the title is “Wall Street embraces big government in order to avoid a recession.” So it's not just the politicians. It's also the financial people on the street who are calling who are saying “hey, we really screwed up here, bail us out.”
So these are all of the exact measures which are going to do nothing more than delay the recovery process and aggravate the depression. The most important government policy in a recession or a depression is to keep itself from interfering in the adjustment process. The economy needs to cleanse itself of all of these malinvestments, whether it was tech stocks and telecoms at the beginning of the decade or real estate mortgages in this current decade. In fact, the best thing government could do is to drastically lower its role in the economy, slash its own expenditures and along with the slash and cut back of its own spending, cut taxes, which interfere with savings and investment. The economy needs to shift the ratio away from debt and consumption (which is what they are advocating and what we've been doing) over to savings and investment. [35:58]
JOHN: You know, it's interesting you mention that because if you listen to some of the verbiage which comes out of the presidential debates, there is this subtle tendency to identify the welfare of the American people with the welfare of their government as if these two things were inextricably linked. I'm talking about the financial welfare. And so we hear expressions now: We have to make a little more sacrifice and we have to do this and that. I keep thinking: Why should we sacrifice for a problem you got us into by your poor fiduciary responsibilities.
JIM: What's that saying of yours? Don't elect –
JOHN: Don't appoint the people to get you out of a problem that got you into it in the first place.
JIM: Absolutely amazing and here we have on Friday a big call from all of the Wall Street banking houses and brokerage firms for more bail outs. It's basically, “Look, we really screwed up here. We're in trouble. Bail us out!”
But here is the key thing that's important to understand. The more that they try to inflate and keep the boom going, the more painful and severe the necessary adjustment process is going to be. And secondly, the boom, John, we know cannot go on forever. Eventually, the public wakes up to the fact that government policy [is] permanent inflation, much like we saw in the 70s and the public begins to flee from money and goes into goods. That's why they follow that inflationary expectations. By the way. It's risen lately. The result in the end is going to be run away hyperinflation.
Hyperinflation is far worse than any depression. It destroys the currency, which is the life blood of the economy; it ruins and shatters the middle class and it destroys the wealth of fixed income groups. I mean I can't believe institutions and individuals are jumping on board Treasury notes at 2% when the real inflation rate is probably running closer to 6 and 8%. The other thing, it also leads to wide scale unemployment. I mean the unemployment rate despite all of the government schemes and programs got to almost a third of the nation's employed; so it leads to wide scaled unemployment and a lower living standard. You get to the point there is very little point in working when taxes and inflation make wages worthless. I mean people shift to searching for goods to buy in an effort to find something that will hold its value. You saw it in Germany in the 20s. You saw it in Turkey during their inflation. You saw it in Russia in the late 90s in their hyperinflation and you saw it in Argentina in this decade. [41:39]
JOHN: When you really look at this it is really frightening to see the very things which you talk about –especially in retrospect looking back at 1930 – taking place all over again today, but the majority of people out there seem to be oblivious to that. We're headed down the same path with the Fed inflating, the government is deficit spending and talks about major tax increase coming next year – well, depending on the outcome of the November election. But either way that seems to be the direction that we tend to be headed. Senator Clinton said we're going to let all of the Bush tax cuts expire. We did really well in the 1990s, meaning under her husband's administration, but in reality we did well in the 1990s because of the fact that Alan Greenspan was creating little bubbles like the tech bubble by creating liquidity in the market and stimulating the economy that way. It really had very little to do with either the way the Bush administration prior to that or what the Clinton administration did. So why do you think they are embarking now on a program that is going to end up – well, if we keep on this path, it's going to be economic ruin for the country. It's going to be all over again.
JIM: I've looked at this. I've listened to these people talk, and I'm trying to think. I've watch a lot of documentaries. Last year I spent a lot of time watching the Great Depression, the biographies of Winston Churchill and FDR. I think it really gets down to something that we talked about last week. It begins with flawed economic theory or what I call quackonomics. I mean if you take a look at the Keynesian criticism of the Austrian cycle theory, it's that Keynesians believe that saving and investment are unrelated. They try to separate the two, and it's performed somehow by two separate economic actors within the economy and there is no linkage between the two of them. The task of government during a recession or depression is to stimulate investments and discourage savings so that people can spend more. So you boil this down to Keynesian thinking: Individuals can either one spend money on consumption; two, spend it on investment; or three, add to cash or subtract from cash. So Keynesians think that the individual decides first how much money am I going to spend, then allocates how much they are going to invest and then save.
Austrians, on the other hand, believe that individuals decide at one and the same time based on their time preference how much they are going to allocate between consumption and investment. And if you think about this logically, in order to have money to invest an individual must restrict consumption and save money in order to have the funds to invest. But by restricting consumption, savings are created and it's this savings that gives the individual the means to invest. So if people's demand for savings increase, it simply means demand for money has increased. This isn't, as Keynesians assume, savings leaking, or what they call hoarding. The Keynesians don't understand this concept and that's really what we're seeing play out today. One of the reasons that we got in this mess is we've gone into too much debt. We've taken out too much debt for individuals and we’ve consumed too much, so the prescription here is look, we've been on the economic sauce or credit sauce for so long, we need to allow the body to recover with this hangover so we can cleanse all of the maladjustments and put the economy on the right path again.
However, they assume that any increase in savings is matched by an opposite decline in investment. I mean their whole economic theory is flawed, and that’s something that you really have to understand here and why we're going to go down the same path, why we're going to commit the same mistakes.
And you don't even have to think back that far. Remember, John, in the 2001 recession, the first thing the Bush administration did was they came up with the rebates and they failed. Carter did the same thing in the 79 recession. They failed. And here we are knowing that they failed in 2001 and we’re coming right back in 2008 and we're committing the same mistake. [45:59]
JOHN: And also if you notice as people begin to feel this and they feel that the government policy isn't working, then they try evasive action or they try to correct it on their own, and then that seems to ruin the Keynesian idea; and then Keynesians try to force everybody into compliance. That seems to be the whole system. So in essence the government assumes that the linkage between savings and investment doesn't exist, and so then they implement policies that then distort this whole relationship between savings and investment.
JIM: This gets back to the ultimate weapon that Keynes used to explain a depression, which is what they called the so-called liquidity trap. They claim the demand for money may be so persistently high that the rate of interest could not fall low enough to stimulate investments sufficiently to raise the economy out of a recession or depression. This gets back to the misguided theory of liquidity preference versus time preference. So they have this whole thing wrong. I mean we had a depression in 1920 following the pull back of the inflationary policies of the World War I period, and you know what, the government stayed out of the process, we went through our depression in the United States. It lasted a little over 12 months and then the economy moved on. It recovered and we got back on the right track. But that's not what they did following the 29 market crash and the slow down in the economy and that’s unfortunately what they are going to do here. [47:27]
JOHN: It's amazing that the government doesn't come to the understanding of the relationship between savings and investment and why ultimately it's proclaiming to the public that it's going to fix the problems when in reality it's making the problem worse. They always urge people to go out and spend and borrow money. They actually penalize savings and investment and it's this philosophy that explains why the US has gone from the world's largest creditor nation to being the world's largest debtor nation. And it makes it vulnerable, not just from the financial standpoint, but also from a security standpoint as well. You know, we went from a nation that used to save and invest to a nation that now borrows and spends. And listening to all of these presidential candidates right now and watching them, politicians enact a stimulus package that emphasizes consumption. So what ultimately happens is the government is going to go deeper into debt with no return on the stimulus and the Fed will print more money. Nothing has changed. We're just deeper.
JIM: Yeah. And this is another false tenet of the Keynesian policies is this under-consumption theory. It alleges that something went wrong during the boom. Too much investment, too much production and too much income going to upper income groups who don't consume as much as lower income groups. Therefore, this causes consumer demand to be insufficient to buy up the goods produced, hence the crisis and the depression. It is one of the reasons why you hear stories today coming from the politicians on wealth redistribution schemes advocated by almost all individuals in the party. I mean John McCain voted against tax cuts, Mike Huckabee raised taxes. So you get back to “let's tax the rich” who don't consume enough and redistribute the taxes to the lower classes so they can consume more. And since the rich consume less than the poor, the masses don’t have enough purchasing power to buy the excess goods created by too much production. [49:28]
JOHN: This is exactly what government did during the Great Depression. I mean Hoover raised tax rates from 24 to 25% during the 1920s to 63%. And then Roosevelt came in, remember, “throwing the rascals out;” they threw the rascals out because things weren't getting better. So Hoover got pitched out, Roosevelt was elected. He followed Hoover by raising taxes in incremental steps to 81% and then 88% and eventually 94%. So at this point, an economy which was trying to recover, groaned once and rolled over down into the Great Depression. So he and Hoover virtually killed the economy destroying investments, savings and really creating the largest unemployment rate in our nation's history, so far. And just listening to the Democrats or the Republicans like Mike Huckabee and they are advocating the very same thing. Nothing has changed.
JIM: It's absolutely amazing, and this gets back to quackonomics. First of all, there is no evidence that the rich consume less. John, you remember in 1991, we were running budget deficits, we were in the S&L crisis like the financial crisis of today and we were in a recession. And remember they came in and they said, “you know what, we're going to get the rich,” so they came up with a 10% surtax on luxury goods that was leveled on luxury cars over $30,000; it was leveled against boats of any kind –whether sail or motor – and it was also leveled against airplanes. And literally, within almost a 12 month period of time, because you’ve got to remember, in states like California where you're paying almost an 8% sales tax, then you add a 10% surtax, it virtually almost wiped out the small aircraft and boating industry in the United States.
And I remember I was doing, at that time, in the evening, I did television news for one of our local stations and we had a big boat show in 1991 and everybody was abuzz because there was this New Jersey developer that was featuring his 180 foot yacht for sale for $30 million at the boat show, so I went down there with a camera crew. You should have seen this boat. It was incredible. You walked in to the master state room and there were Picassos hanging over the bed. But incredible boat. And in talking to one of the brokers that was trying to sell the boat, this boat was manufactured in New Zealand and the New Jersey developer went there to buy the yacht because he wanted to avoid, number one, the sales tax in New Jersey; and number two, the 10% surtax. And there were 125 people working full-time to make that boat. And that just goes to show you.
Besides let's not forget the fact that savings, which go into investment, sustain the structure of production and manufacturing in this country as well as consumption. So in order to sustain a higher standard of living, you've got to produce stuff. And the capital structure of the economy has to be maintained; and if you want to maintain it, if you want to increase production, more and more funds must be used just to maintain or replace the nation's production facilities. We're not doing that. And just look at the decay of infrastructure in this country, whether it's the levees along the Mississippi river, whether it's bridges, whether it's airports, whether it's refineries, whether it's our rail system, we're not doing that. So these under-consumption quacks assert that expanding production exerts a depressing secular effect on the economy because prices will tend to fall. But you know what, falling prices, whether it's on a plasma screen, computers, is a natural tendency of increased investment and productivity; and they are a reflection of lower unit costs. Profitability is not at all injured. In fact, falling prices simply distribute the fruits of higher productivity to all people. The natural course of economic development through this nation's history has been –barring government-created inflation – for prices to fall in response to increased capital and higher productivity. [53:57]
JOHN: You know what's funny? I actually remember that because I was head of a project that was consulting to Cessna aircraft at the time and we were nine months into the project and the whole project was just cancelled. They literally boxed it up and we were doing pilot training manuals for them in different languages and we boxed up the whole project and it got shelved to this very day. And that hit especially Kansas hard because of all of the light aircraft manufacturers, except for Mooney at the time, like Piper and Cessna, Beechcraft were all in Kansas and most of the boat manufacturing was in Delaware, as I recall; right? So it practically took down the Delaware economy.
But getting back on track here, there is always this tendency to sort of demonize big business, and it's an ironic thing (or demonize capitalism is maybe a better way of putting it) because government bureaucrats just lust after the money, which capitalism produces, at the very same time they are demonizing it as if somehow investment and growth and all of these things are bad things. And at the same time the government hates to see falling prices, so they demonize what's successful that things that increased productivity or are more successful against their competitors. I mean look at way they demonize for example Walmart which has brought low prices to the masses, albeit, I mean there is some debate on this thing because of the fact that they do it largely with imported goods that come from China which people are complaining about offshoring jobs but that's probably a different rabbit trail. But either way, that's typically what happens.
JIM: Yeah. But you've got to remember, one of the reasons that jobs have gone offshore along with manufacturing is it gets back to this savings and investment idea. And why would you want to save and invest here when you're penalized for doing so. You go overseas and foreign governments welcome you, they create incentives. So that's what business has done. If you over tax, over regulate, this gets back to Charles Adams who wrote two very astute books on taxation. One was called For Good and For Evil, which was a history of taxation throughout human history; one of the best books ever written, which just goes to show you what happens when you over inflate and over tax, the two go hand in hand. Then he also said: When governments become rapacious and they raise taxes, then what you see is fight, flight or fraud. And that's exactly what's happening today. [56:18]
JOHN: Jim, why don't you take it back to the depression thesis right now because every crisis that comes a long is really marked by certain traits.
JIM: If we want to get back to the depression thesis, which is this whole story, it's very important to remember every crisis is marked by malinvestment, under saving – not under consumption. In fact, it's just the opposite. The only way that investment can rise together with consumption is through inflationary credit expansion, hence the inflationists are always alluding to this prerequisite. But this admission really destroys the entire theory. It implies, for example, that inflation or the acceleration principle could not possibly operate in a free market. It necessitates the government coming in, intervening by supplying the necessary savings for investment through the inflationary policies of expanding and printing money, basically.
And that is what you're seeing today with the Fed's monetary expansion, which is replacing real savings, which are negative in the US. It was interesting seeing the presidential debates they were lamenting...I think the front cover of the Economist had helicopters; written on the helicopters were “sovereign funds.” But they were lamenting that the sovereign funds were coming in and bailing us out. Well, the reason they are doing that is we have no savings in this country, and so they are lamenting this, but this is exactly what you get when you emphasize consumption, borrowing money, going deeper into debt to over consume versus savings and investment, which is what made this country great at one time. [58:00]
JOHN: I know you're talking a lot about theory here, but in reality, it plays out, well, in reality.
JIM: Yeah. It's very important when you go back and you study the inflationary problems of the 17th century in France and England, you take a look at the 20th Century, the problems that we saw in Russia, in Germany, in Turkey; if you take a look at this decade, the problem in Argentina, the hyperinflation that is occurring in Venezuela now; and also what we're doing, you have to say why does this happen? Why do they keep making the same mistakes repeatedly? And it gets down to theory and your economic views. So if you see the world as flat, it's almost like calling these people the flat-earth people. I mean that's what just blows me away with this economic stimulus package, both endorsed by the President and Congress, when Bush himself knew that the 2000 tax rebates failed. Congress knew that it failed. That's why they had to come back with another stimulus package by lowering actual tax rates in 2003 to finally get the economy going again. And here they are six, seven years later making the same mistake. That all gets back to theory, John. You know, if you believe the world is flat, you continue to operate like the world is flat. [59:23]
JOHN: We're going to continue this thought next week when we layout Part 4 of the Great Depression. It's a four part series about the inflationary boom of the 1920s and then we'll relate that to the inflationary boom of both the Clinton and Bush presidencies; and then we'll talk specifically about the errors that policy makers made that led to the Great Depression because the very same mistakes are being made today by our politicians again. So it's important to understand the theory, so as it unfolds you're going to recognize what you see and you can take step to prepare yourself for the hyperinflationary depression that will follow.
You're listening to the Financial Sense Newshour at www.financialsense.com. Please remember that all content here on the program is for information and educational purposes only and you should not consider it as a solicitation or offer to purchase yourself securities. And anything we discuss here on the program are based on the opinions of Jim Puplava and his guests. They don't take into account your suitability, your objectives or risk tolerance. And as such we're not liable to any person for financial losses that result from investing in companies or other issues profiled here on the Financial Sense Newshour. More to come on the Big Picture and then later on we’ll take your calls on the Q-line when we return right after this.
Here Comes the Recession - Here Comes the Stimulus
JOHN: Well, Jim, look around you. How does it feel? We're in a recession now. You know, the politicians are panicking, the Fed is scrambling to try to hold this thing up and just six months ago, nobody was talking about the R word. But there seem to be some traits of where we are here. No matter where you look, the Fed and the bank always seems to be right in the middle of it.
What is really significant in this from a political standpoint is that just a month ago it was – well, of course, Hillary Clinton was saying it this week too. I have a clip here that we ran earlier on, and that is that we're going to raise taxes, we're going to let the Bush tax cuts expire, we need regulations, global warming is the big issue, Yada, Yada, Yada. The whole debate has gone flip-flop. Now, for a lot of the candidates, ixne on the axte. Okay. Don't talk about the taxes. Even though we know we're going to raise them later on and what can we do to bail out the public. It's interesting also that the banks that have been involved in these malinvestments, they want to be bailed out for their mistake. It's almost like socialism for the rich.
JIM: This gets back to the clip we played last week with the Two Johns, and one guy said, “did you learn anything out of all of this?” The other guy said: “Certainly. If you’re going to make a mess, make sure you make a big mess, because if you do the government will bail you out.”
And it's interesting, on Friday a Bloomberg piece: Wall Street embraces government to avoid a recession. And what they were talking about here is US mortgage foreclosures this year will top 1 million this year alone. Home prices are falling at the fastest level that we've seen since the Great Depression. So, John, you are seeing the heads of every investment bank, you are seeing the heads of every money center bank that they are basically saying, “look, the way this is going is not good. (Yeah. It's not good for us.)” And we're probably looking at probably the worst drop in home sales, and what it has done is turned the financial sector in unison to become champions of big government with everybody from the executives to Citigroup, JP Morgan, Lehman, Merrill, I mean, you name it; sentiment can change when it's your own money on the line and that's what the big bankers are calling for.
And it's amazing because as you look at these crises, whether it's the S&L crisis of 91, the recession of 2001, the recession in 81, you'll find two commonalities with every one of these crises: the Federal Reserve and the banking system involved in every single one of these crises. And I can remember doing a story on this in 2005. I did a series called The Day After Tomorrow. It was kind of a hypothetical piece, but one of the lending institutions in this area that I was talking about, and this is a huge housing development and I called them Citywide at the time (it was actually Countrywide) and they were the main lenders here. And I can remember talking to these guys and they were doing no-money-down loans, they were doing interest-only loans and variable rate mortgages. And I can remember talking to this loan officer and I go, you know what, the Fed is raising interest rates, aren't you worried about the people that you're putting in these loans? This is going to end up back firing. And he said, “no, no, no. look, real estate prices are going up.” He said “besides that, in Southern California, the average homeowner only keeps his home three-to-five years, so why would you do something stupid like take out a 30 year mortgage when you can take out a variable rate mortgage at three-to-five-year variable mortgage, buy so much more home for your money and be able to put options in the house.” And that was what all of the lenders were pushing during this period of time because we were seeing tremendous housing inflation and the way to make this house more affordable (since it was inflating, most of these homes have doubled) was to go through these variable rate mortgages, no money down, all of the silly stuff, John, that we are now seeing implode. And the very institutions that were either making the loans, securitizing the loans, are now saying “government! help me, help me, bail me out.”
And you're right, what this is involved is socialism for the rich because the stimulus package that's going through the Senate this week, the Senate may bump it up to 160 billion and if you take a look at the losses worldwide on the subprime mortgages, it's expected to be 400 billion and we're probably looking at over 100 billion with credit default swaps. And during this period of time when things were going crazy, I mean Countrywide was making a fortune on this. They made close to $3 billion in 2006. But now you're talking about, remember, only a couple of years ago they were chastising Freddie and Fannie. Now they want to expand the role of Freddie and Fannie for a year to go up and take jumbo mortgages. I think the figure is 714,000. But this year alone, 550 billion of subprime loans are going to reset before the end of this year and next year. [5:26]
JOHN: Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve prior to Alan Greenspan also heads up what is called the group of 30, and they are making proposals right now, at least Volcker is, proposing that government should come in and back up adjustable rate mortgages in favor of default, that's the first thing. He want to see tax credits for homeowners so they can buy into new homes and he wants the Feds to slash interest rate to 2%.
JIM: It's amazing what a crisis does and how everybody – I mean we are moving full force right into socialism, and I don't care who you're looking at whether you're looking at Hillary Clinton this week who talks about raising taxes, Barack Obama who’s talking about raising taxes, John McCain who opposed lowering taxes. We know this is coming.
And one of the reasons it's coming is when you provide economic stimulus, if you do it right, as we did in 2003 (when they actually lowered tax rates because the 2001 tax rebates stimulus failed) you actually stimulate the economy; the economy grows, it expands, you get more tax revenues and the budget deficit goes down.
But when you do dumb programs like we're doing now, you don't really stimulate the economy because the idea is okay, if I give you 300 bucks and you spend it, then what, what happens next? If you are a business man, are you going to go out and order a whole bunch of new equipment, build a new factory because your next door neighbor got a $300 tax rebate? No.
One of the indexes that we follow is CEO and CFO business sentiment, which has been very accurate; and that sentiment gauge has been predicting this recession. And there is no way as a business leader that you're going to go out and expand what you're doing and create more jobs with a dumb program like a rebate. And because it will not really stimulate the economy, what will happen is the deficit will get bigger, it will start to mushroom out of control and then the first cry will be we've got to raise taxes to bring down the deficit. Well, we did that in 93 and it impacted the economy so that in 94 what happened is the Fed began to pump the money supply. And the money supply began to grow at 8% to counteract the impact of taxes and that gave us our tech boom or the new economy boom, which was really a false premise to begin with. Yes, we had technological changes, but we're going right down that...
In fact, what was really surprising is Bernanke, who basically was inspired by Milton Friedman – and Milton Friedman was a champion of free market solutions to a problem, he said “government programs don't work. They muck things up. They make them worse.” And, in fact, Bernanke described Friedman in a 2000 speech that he gave at his birthday where he promised, “hey, we mucked it up in the Great Depression, we'll never make that mistake.” But in his speech he also said that Friedman was the man that inspired his interest in monetary policy. So you even have Bernanke breaking away from the Friedman postulates in terms of what to do when you muck up the economy. In other words, let the market sort it out. Let the market heal itself. Let the market correct itself and we'll get back to sound policies. And whenever you go in and intervene as we talked about in our Great Depression series, you actually make matters worse, that is, by from correcting itself. All you're doing is you're postponing, prolonging the problem and it's only going to help a couple of hundred thousand people stay in their homes a little longer, but it also is going to have unintended consequences because it's going to lift mortgage rates. And that's one of our theories this year on the Oreo side. By the end of the year, we get to the other dark side of the Oreo because you're going to see higher interest rates and higher inflation rates. And especially for anybody that's going to get into the lending business, when you have government coming in and changing contract law, you know what's going to happen is everybody is going to demand a higher rate of interest in order to lend money because there is greater risk now because government can come in and change the contracts. [9:53]
JOHN: Which I think also puts in jeopardy the concept of business; right? Because in order to have a prosperous piece of capitalism or prosperous business environment, you need to know what the rules are. And if people come in and keep changing the rules, that creates an unstable deck, and investors don't like that.
JIM: No, they don't. And it's amazing, another proposal that is being bandied about, and this was used during the Great Depression (and we're going to talk about this next week when we talk about the policy mistakes because you're going to see them as front news today, that's what you're seeing on the television or the papers), where the government allowed tax exempt bonds to be issued and the proceeds were used for below market rate mortgages; nearly one fifth of the US homes between 1933 and 36 after negotiating with the original lenders to accept less than the amount owed on the defaulted mortgage. John, what are you hearing today? [10:54]
JOHN: Well, we're basically hearing pretty much the same thing.
JIM: Yeah. You take a look at what Hoover did – what Roosevelt – it was amazing that during the Roosevelt administration, the former treasury secretary, Edward Carter Glass opposed Roosevelt’s expansion of government after the stock market crashed. Senator Robert Taft was another critic. He said, “you know what, you're talking us to socialism and you're going to make this all worse.” And that's exactly what happened. They took a stock market correction, they took a recession and they turned it into the Great Depression despite all of the government programs under Hoover, despite all of the government programs under Roosevelt. The unemployment rate got over 25% in this country. I think it was 25, 30, what it was. And it is absolutely amazing. It's like no one ever studied the Great Depression. Those that did like Ben Bernanke said: “You know what problem was? We didn't print enough money.” [11:52]
JOHN: But you can only print so much before the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
JIM: And that's what people are saying. They are saying higher oil prices in an economy that operated without government printing money, what would happen is as oil prices went up, consumers would take some of that money that they were having to pay for, let's say, higher gasoline prices and they would take it away from some other sector in the economy, so you really wouldn't get the inflation. But when you provide all of this extra money and credit, what you have is higher prices. You didn't create any wealth. You didn't create any more factors of production. You didn't create any more widgets. All you did was print a bunch of money that enabled people to buy things that they wouldn't normally be able to buy.
It is absolutely amazing to see. The programs coming out of Washington and especially from the financial sector that they love the government. They love free markets when the stock market is going up and they are making tons of money. The minute that their recklessness, their carelessness gets them into trouble, what is the first thing they are screaming for? They are screaming for a hand out, a bail out, “come in and help me, bail me, Ben. Bail me Uncle Sam, and get me out this mess. Cover my losses because we did some stupid things here.” And what do we do? We cover the losses. [13:13]
JOHN: In other words, what that does is it transfers the liability from that decision from the people that made the stupid judgments to the tax payers again. It keeps loading everything onto the back of the tax payer, making him or her liable.
JIM: Sure. And the way the government work this process is they tax the rich and then what they do is they tax the poor and middle class through inflation. And what happens is, the poor and the middle class vote for the very policies that are going to make their lives worse through higher levels of inflation. In other words, the government gives you the idea that there is a free lunch here, so all of these stimulus programs that you're talking about right knew, what I suspect we're going to see and this gets into my Oreo: We are going into a recession, we're going to slash interest rates, we're going to print money like crazy, we're going to bail out the bond insurers, we're going to bail out the subprime lenders, we're going to bail out the homeowners. And by the end of the year, we'll get into a recovery, but then like the very same programs in 1979 and 1981 under Carter we were almost back to back double recessions. There was only a year of recovery between them and I think that's what's going to happen. By the end of the year with the massive fiscal stimulus, because I think this first package that they are running through now, John, I think they are already running through package two. They just don't want to tell you that because they know these fools are hoping that it will work this time; or at least work well enough to get them through the election so they can all preserve their jobs and get reelected.
But they are already working on a second stimulus program because I think deep down they know exactly the very things that you and I have been talking on this program, these programs aren't going to work. So they'll enact a second stimulus program, then they are going to slash interest rates even further, probably taking the federal fund rate. Here is Volcker telling Bernanke to take it down to 2%. And that's one of the reasons we knew that Bernanke was going to get aggressive because when you have Paul Volcker making public speeches and saying the Fed is behind the curve, they really need to start getting their act together and slashing, you know, monetary reflation is coming. But we'll probably come out of this recession towards the end of the year and then a new Congress, a new president will be elected and then they will start going right down the road to the Great Depression so that in 2010 the economy will be back in recession again and in response to that recession, they are going to act and take on worse measures very similar to what Hoover and Roosevelt did and that's going to take us into the great depression. In other words, they are going to turn a recession in 2010 into the great depression. [16:04]
JOHN: Well, obviously, we've got a lot of evidence over the course of this last week that are causing people before who didn't want to use the R word, the recession word, to finally say, you know, maybe we really are in a recession. You could see this swing. It's almost like when you were talking about the disconnect before in the first part of the Big Picture, there comes a point where it seems like public opinion –if you graph this on a 360 degree cycle – is 90 to 180 degrees behind the stimulus which causes it. But eventually they wake up.
JIM: Yeah. And what was surprising, just as you've been making comments, it's amazing how the political cycle has changed within, what, a 30 day period. In the month of December, the Fed was talking about risk in the economy was evenly balanced, politicians were talking about raising taxes, all kinds of regulatory programs. We're going to go after the oil companies, the drug companies, etc. And in 30 days, John, look how much the debate has almost gone 180 degrees different. The politicians are talking about cutting taxes, at least this year in the election year because if they are going to be raising them next year, and the debate even on Wall Street as we've been talking; in fact, it's been interesting because Bank Credit Analyst comes out with their forecast, they come out towards the end of December. We talked about this in the first week of the year and Bank Credit Analyst were saying at least as of the end of last year that we would avoid a recession. This week they came out, and I'm taking this from their executive summary and it says:
The US economic outlook has deteriorated to the point where one should assume a recession for this year. We do not anticipate a worse than average downturn, and the economy should be recovering before the end of the year.
Also on Friday, Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi came out and he said: January's bleak employment report has led us to adopt a recession outlook for the US similar to the Bank Credit Analyst. He said the recession probably began in December and is expected to be short and mild, similar to the eight month downturn of 2001.
And so it's remarkable, John, Wall Street has changed, the economic forecasting firms have changed, and I'm talking about in less than a month. It is in 30 days we have had almost a sea change here, and this is sort of what we were talking about last year that in order for the Fed to lower interest rates we were going to need to see three things: Real estate get much worse, spilling over into the financial sector; a slow down in the economy; and a financial crisis. Those were the three things that we forecast would happen last year and that's what it was going to take. In fact, as we did our year end show, we talked about the massive fiscal stimulus. That was the only thing lacking and remember politicians weren't even debating this. If you watched the presidential debates going on up all of the way, in fact, I think to the first week of the year, this was almost absent from any discussion; just as right now, an energy Pearl Harbor (which I think is coming) is absent from any discussion. The whole talk is about...even the global warming debate has now changed, John, to if we do all of these things –carbon credits and all of this stuff – we’ll create jobs, so even the global warming debate has shifted to creating jobs. [19:35]
JOHN: Well, in combination of that, remember we said a long time ago here on the show that if global warming were to survive because of the damage it was going to inflict on the economy, (which is why by the way, they've always had trouble getting treaties going on an international level because countries which have large stakes in this, the US, Australia don't want to get into this) they would have to ultimately hook themselves onto the peak oil wagon and then they would find a sling shot to carry them along. They weren't going to be able to do it alone by themselves. And I forgot who it was who said in the roundtable in the last segment of the show that basically, you know, this is good in the minds of the global warming people because this will force us to cut back on oil consumption and hydrocarbon consumption. The problem is what this ultimately does to the economy. And we've heard the hype; we see this flip-flop too. Remember it was just a month ago, it was: The economy is bad, we have to ratchet it back, we have to save the planet, Yada, Yada, Yada. Now, it's just flipped over and said “oh, if we chase global warming it's a good thing because it will boost the economy, it will do this, do that.” Well, they are flip-flopping back and forth and clearly responding to what you would call public opinion pressures, rather than a real policy. [20:44]
JIM: And you're going to see that because we are in a crisis. This is probably the worst housing crisis we've seen since the 1930s and they are advocating as we talk about earlier, the same kind of measures and programs. These are going to fail, John, and this sort of gets back to our Oreo theory, kind of a rough patch in the first quarter, the creamy filling in the middle because what you're going to see, I predict you're going to see a second stimulus package because they know the rebates stuff doesn't work. I mean you get your rebate check by May and June. By July and August, you're going to be forgetting about it, so we'll see another stimulus package. The Fed will drop interest rates probably down to 2%. And remember, monetary policy acts with a lag, so there is about a six month lag and we're starting to see it impact because the wave of refinancings has gone up significantly. A lot of people that do have equity in their homes that have a good job, a good FICO score are refinancing at record levels. They are taking these three-year adjustable rate mortgages and converting them over to 30 year fixed. So that's going to help some people. There’s still equity take outs. You bought a home in the 90s or you bought a home earlier in this decade, you still have some financial appreciation in that home if you got in or bought in early enough. So there are people, you know, I have a friend that's in the banking business and they are working overtime right now with the refinancings that have come in as a result of 30-year mortgage rates dropping below 5 ½%. So anyway, all of these things that we've been talking about here, whether it's the Great Depression or what we've been talking about in this segment, they are going to fail.
And what you're going to see is next year they are going to raise taxes and, in fact, what we're going to get as we come out of this recession, I predict we're going to get more stagflation. In other words, we are going to see higher rates of inflation by next year; probably central banks talking about raising interest rates because by the end of the year, I expect that we will see higher interest rates, higher headline inflation numbers. That’s because, you know, I just got a flash from John Williams at Shadow Stats that says that the money supply M3 is accelerating again. Well, no kidding after the rate cuts that we've seen here just in the last week. But all of this, John, is going to take us into life that's going to be very, very difficult.
And I suspect that if you and I were doing this program in the year 2010, 2011, 2012, we're going to be talking about a different society, a different way of life as we're going to have to make cuts, cuts in government, means testing for Social Security because government in the end is going to be forced to cut back its budget; as many of the states are going to be forced to do because there is only a certain limit to the amount of largesse that governments can put on the economy and depend on others to finance. That’s because at some point, foreigners are going to say, “look, with what's going on, you guys are such a mess, perhaps we're not going to finance you or we don't want dollars, we're going to put our money someplace safer.” So I would suspect that we're going to have some kind of currency crisis as we get to the year 2010.
And that's why I would say to you that any time you see the gold market correct, the silver market, gold silver prices pull back or gold equities, silver equities pull back, your job, during this period of time, as we move from pessimism in the bull market for precious metals –which is where we were in 2001 to where we are today, which is skepticism –you're going to want to be accumulating as much as you can so that when we go into the optimism phase and then the euphoric phase, all you care about at that point is how many shares of your favorite mining company, gold and silver do you own because that's the time that you just sit back and relax and that's going to be the time that you're going to cash in.
But right now, just as we talked about in the first hour with gold going from 255 to almost 900, 910 bucks roughly on this Friday, and silver going from roughly around 3.50 to 16.80, this is for the most part been ignored by investors just as the equity bull market in the 80s and the early part of the 90s was ignored by investors and it wasn't until 1995, we had about a five year run when the public came in just as in the bull market in gold that began in the early 70s, ended roughly in 1980 that the public came in the last two years. [25:47]
JOHN: And you're listening to the Financial Sense Newshour at www.financialsense.com. Coming up next, Other Voices.
Other Voices: Curtis D. Burton, Chairman & CEO, Buccaneer Resources, LLC
JIM: Well, the United States imports over 60%, some say even 70% when you consider refined products of our energy needs. So energy security is becoming more important since we get a lot of this stuff from people who don’t particularly like us.
Joining me on Other Voices this week is Curtis Burton. He’s Chairman and CEO of Buccaneer Resources. Curtis, you wrote an article for World Energy recently – the real issue the security of supply. Anytime – we saw this right after, for example, the hurricanes hit in 2005, they hold these hearings and they say: “why are gasoline prices this high?” They hold these hearings – and it doesn’t matter: they’ve been holding these hearings for decades now, anytime the price goes up they want to know why and they’re puzzled. But nothing ever gets done.
CURTIS BURTON: Well, certainly the issue that I see, as you said, over decades is the oil and gas industry is the favorite whipping boy of the politicians when energy prices go up and that would be a little bit laughable to me being in the energy industry all of that time were it not for the fact that the energy industry itself has spent a lot of time in Washington trying to lobby with politicians to lay out what I think are some fundamental facts that are just fairly undeniable.
The first one being that we live in the greatest country in the world in the US. We have the highest standard of living. A lot of people point fingers at us and talk about the fact that we consume more energy than anybody else. But the reality is we have a very high standard of living, we’ve led the free world and the way we’ve done that has been on relatively inexpensive energy. So in the world I live in, energy is really important. It’s not something for Congress or anybody else to just glibly play around with and do their best to get on the 6 o’clock news saying the bad guys are the oil and gas guys. It is a commodity that determines what your standard of living is going to be like in an industrial country like America.
And we seem to be happy in Washington to sit on the sidelines and literally fiddle while Rome burns on the whole issue of secure, inexpensive energy for America. And the reason I say that is if you start looking at some of the facts and the figures we are in competition for energy. America is in competition for energy. And first and foremost, I’m an American. I want my kids to have the same standard of living or better than I had, and the only way they can do that is if the energy industry and the political system work together to create an environment where that happens. And today, as we sit here and talk, that’s not happening.
Let me give you a couple of quick facts and figures to back that up. If you look at this competitive nature of oil and gas, what you have is a finite entity, a commodity if you will, that everybody in the world wants some of. Now up until just the last few years, really I can give you some hard data back to about 2002 that will make a point, you haven’t had an enormous amount of competition for that energy. But along about 2002 you started to see some spiking activity. It’s no coincidence, along about 2002 was the last time that China and India had very muted demands for energy. From 2002 to 2004, the Chinese increase in requirements for oil tripled, and guess what started happening in 2002? From 2002 through 2007, you’ve had a 204% increase in natural gas prices and you’ve had a 250% increase in oil prices. Now, you can say those things aren’t connected; but what I’ve been saying for years is “folks, we are in a competitive environment for a commodity that’s fixed and if we don’t want to be left out and turn into a third world country we’d better start paying attention to security of supply for America. [31:17]
JIM: In you article for World Energy you brought up something I think Americans would be shocked. I remember as a college student the gas lines back in 73 and 74. But, if you go back to 1973 America was only importing 15% of its energy needs from OPEC. Today, of the 60% that we import in raw oil, 47% of that comes from OPEC. And some of the areas in the world that still like us, like Mexico and Canada, you’re talking about a steep drop off in the production of Mexico’s largest oil field, Cantarell, which means that their exports to the United States are going to go down; plus, Mexico’s own consumption is going up. If people were worried what happened in 73 and 74 I am just absolutely astounded that this does not get more attention in Washington than it does. I mean I would be worried.
CURTIS: Every day I wake up and I feel like I’m on the fan tail of the Titanic, you know, and we’re sailing right towards an iceberg, and absolutely no one seems to be bothered on the government side. They are bothered when they can get a few minutes on the six o’clock news talking about who the bad guys are, the oil and gas guys, but you try to find one of them to sit down and concretely work on security of supply for America and there’s nobody around. That’s devoid of party by the way. It’s not about Republicans; it’s not about Democrats. In fact, take a look at what’s going on in the public debate in the presidential race right now. Find me any one in the field that can intelligently comment on the energy picture. They are not there. And it should be something that is front and center rather than just something that is front and center when gasoline hits $4 a gallon. [33:22]
JIM: It’s almost and you can see this when oil companies report profits: our politicians act like the major oil companies are still the largest producers of oil in the world and we know that’s no longer the case. Most of the gasoline that we burn in our tanks is probably is coming from an oil field in the Middle East or OPEC country somewhere. The national oil companies have become the new oil titans not the majors.
CURTIS: Exactly. That is the key fact that’s out there is the national oil companies have moved into the spot of controlling the oil supply and also I think it’s unfair when you look at an Exxon. Yes, they’re a large multinational company and yes, in terms of absolute profit they make they make a very attractive profits but go talk to somebody on Wall Street. Exxon isn’t a place that they like to invest because if you look at the return on the investment that they have to make, it’s nothing compared to the computer industry for instance. So it’s not a sexy investment for Wall Street and it certainly, although the numbers are large the percentage numbers are really not that compelling. It’s a picture that’s painted into things that it really isn’t. It’s a very demanding, difficult business. I’ve spent my whole career in it and the amount of money that you have to risk to go find the oil and gas is enormous. And there is a lot of risk. [34:58]
JIM: You brought up something and this is what the public hears: Okay, Exxon made tens of billions of dollars in the latest quarter or something, what they don’t say is what you just mentioned if you look at Exxon’s net profit margin, it’s been between 9 and 10% for the last decade. So, yes, the price of oil is higher; yes, their sales are higher as a result of higher oil prices but their net profit margin is still close to 10% and what they fail to tell people is the largest profiteer of energy in various forms of taxes is the government itself.
CURTIS: Absolutely. It’s a little bit humorous to be at the pump cursing the oil company when if you actually are as close to it as I am and you go in and you look the reason that all of the oil companies that run gas stations have put in convenience stores is they make more money off the candy bar they sell you than they do off a gallon of gas they sell you. And the government is the one that really reaps the benefit.
And there again, I did quite a bit of work fairly closely with the government back in the days we were working deep water royalty issues, and someone in the government said to me things that government gets involved with are things which but for government being there they wouldn’t happen. And that’s always been my mantra and with regard to this subject because secure energy for America ought to be the government’s business. It shouldn’t be something that Nancy Pelosi or anybody else winds up on the six o’clock news ranting about what’s not happening. They need to be in there working with knowledgeable people in the industry fashioning a way for us to have a secure energy supply for America. One of the other examples I use for people all of the time is that practically everybody knows in December 7th 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; practically no one also knows is that the reason they did that was earlier in 1941 in order to combat their aggression in the Middle East, American cut off Japan’s oil supply. That’s what sent them to war. And that’s the world we’re moving into today.
A couple of examples. If you look at just China’s increase from 1971 through 2005, their energy use has gone up by a multiple of six; India’s has also gone up by a multiple of six. And so when you start loading in these huge numbers what you see is that there isn’t the ability of the industry based on the way we’re producing things today to produce enough energy for all those people. Am I saying that we’re running out of energy? No. I love the government coming out and saying, “well, as long as prices are low it’s a market driven thing with energy prices.” But when prices go high, then they want to know why prices are high. They don’t want it to be market driven then.
Well, we’re entering a bandwidth of time here where the supply is going to be constrained by what we can produce and if you want a market economy brace for yourself for $150 oil because it’s coming. [38:28]
JIM: On the day that you and I are talking, Curtis, I just finished a roundtable discussion with Robert Hirsch, Matt Simmons, and Jeff Rubin from CIBC, and this is something that these experts contend and I believe that’s what it’s going take to wake us up: I think it’s going to take another Pearl Harbor type event to happen to the United States in the sense that, for example, what if – and we’ve seen this over the last couple of years – a terrorist group finally gets through on the large oil terminal in Saudi Arabia and knocks it out. We import 15% of our energy from Saudi Arabia. It’s going to take something, a catastrophic event and these guys like Matt, and I would include myself just watching and observing and reading about this over the last couple of years, it is going to take a Pearl Harbor event to wake up this country. But not before because as you say, it doesn’t matter how many hearings you have in Congress, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, left wing, right wing, in between, independents it’s all the same: Nothing gets done and there is this bit of complacency. The only time it gets their attention is you know you have something like a Katrina and Rita, the price of gas goes up to over $3 and you know they’re screaming on the six o’clock news, but after that it’s back to normal. The day you and I are talking, we’re at close to $90 in oil and they were screaming when it got up to 75.
CURTIS: Exactly. And the disconnect is, you know, a lot of the people in the energy industry are very – and have historically been since I’ve been in it and you’re concerned with quote-unquote the negative image they have out in the public. In reality, if you go look at some fairly detailed surveys, about 40% of the US has a relatively positive opinion of what the energy industry is doing in terms of supplying needs and how they do that, and I certainly have seen from close range that there is a high degree of social conscience on the part of people in this industry about...the reason I’m doing what I’m doing, I started an oil company a couple of years ago to try to help American meet its energy needs. Yes, I’m going to make money out of that – that’s part of what has to happen, but a big part of it also was trying to help the country meet its energy needs. Well, when you look at 40% of the public kind of has a positive view of the energy sector, only 11% of them have a positive view of the politicians. And I would like to see the politicians, rather than trying to find somebody else to make a worse whipping boy, actually sit down with the energy industry and start trying to do something about a genuine long term problem that we’ve got. It isn’t just what happens in the Middle East. I mean my goodness, all you have to do is look to the South to Venezuela who’s historically been a big provider of ours as well, and I’m a lot more worried about that nut doing something over the next couple of years that disrupts the energy supply than some of the things...I mean as unstable as the Middle East is we’re genuinely dealing with a guy who has maniacal leanings and he’s at our very doorstep and supplies as much as the Middle East does. That’s a very worrisome thing to me as an American. [41:58]
JIM: But it seems like until something happens, I mean if you look at security, until 9/11, you know, we were asleep. And it reminds me of the book, I’m trying to think of the historian who wrote the book about Pearl Harbor and I think it was called At Dawn We Slept, and it isn’t until I think voters and people become inconvenienced that they wake up and say, you know, when you start going to gas lines for three or four months, or you go to rationing or you know, I don’t know what it’s going to take, Curtis, five dollars for gasoline, six or seven. I don’t know what it’s going to be but it’s going to be some kind of event where people are inconvenienced and the complacency goes away and then all of a sudden they start crying for politicians to do something. The only danger there is you hope they do something intelligent.
CURTIS: And there’s another danger though because...and this is a very real world scenario. I can identify with what you’re saying: When Katrina came through I’m at my house, I live in Houston, and the power went out. Now, no matter what you do I’m always...despite the fact that it’s a related energy industry, I don’t like paying for my electricity. It’s always too high and it’s too much until it goes out. And then if you’re in Houston, Texas in the dead of the summer and you don’t have any electricity, you don’t have any air conditioner, you don’t have any lights, you don’t have a refrigerator, I all of a sudden wasn’t nearly as concerned about what I was paying for a kilowatt-hour. I have come to depend on that energy and in the same way when you get into one of these situations that you’re talking about, the really troubling thing is we have let this slip to the...right now today as we speak, we produce 28% of our domestic needs. People will argue with that, like you mentioned a couple of numbers that are around that, but the best data I’ve got says we produce about 28% of what we use. And the reality is to go from having access to major discoveries of hydrocarbons, from finding them to getting them into a place that they can be turned into energy is a five-year long process. What that says is you just can’t afford to turn a blind eye to this until you have one of those kinds of events. And yet, our politicians continue to do that day in and day out. It’s unforgivable. It really is. [44:37]
JIM: Yeah, it’s amazing, people don’t realize the industrial power of the United States and the wealth of this United States was created with savings, investment and abundant, cheap energy. And the figure that you use, 28% of our domestic needs which is pretty close to the figure that I’ve seen which is about 70% if you take basically not only the raw inputs of oil and natural gas, but you know, we don’t even refine or produce enough refined products so we have to import diesel, jet fuel, gasoline. Curtis, as I look at this and I’ve watched this unfold over the last couple of years and even watched the presidential debate I really think – and I’m a firm believer, I’ve become more pessimistic – it is going to take a Pearl Harbor event, whatever that event is going to be.
CURTIS: Well, sadly, I agree with you. I think you’re right. You’ve just seen it all too often. You cited 9/11. Like I say, to me the thing that is just chilling about that is once you get to a place where you’ve had a major disconnect in the energy sector it’s not as easy to fix as 9/11 was. And when I say that, what I’m talking about is it’s fairly straightforward; it can be done in a couple of months to go out and populate security people and change procedures and tighten up things at the airport; it’s five years to have an impact on energy. And I mean everybody is so focused on this tempest in a tea cup of the subprime – and I’m not saying that there aren’t some bad things that have gone on with subprime but when you put this size problem next to subprime you’re talking about something that can create literally a worldwide depression. [46:28]
JIM: I couldn’t agree more and that’s why we see something like this coming because you’ve just mentioned a fact that even if we woke up tomorrow, just say you could wave a magic wand and our politicians, the lightbulbs went on upstairs, began to take measures to correct this problem, you’re talking five years, maybe even seven years before you even correct that problem. So that’s why, like I said, I think we’re heading for a Pearl Harbor type event. There’s nothing that I think we can do to stop it at this point. I don’t see anything that we’re doing and yet, you know, about the only thing that we can do is bash the companies anytime...Watch what happens this summer when gasoline prices go to $4.
CURTIS: Oh you bet, you bet.
JIM: Yeah, they’ll be screaming in front of the cameras. What would you recommend people do? I’ve interviewed more people on oil on this program over the last five years and written about it. But what do you think the public needs to do because unless the politicians hear from the people they do nothing.
CURTIS: That’s absolutely it. I know one of the things that I have kind of rededicated some of my time to over the last few years is trying to make a difference. And I think one of the things that I would like to urge people to do is don’t talk yourself into believing that you cannot make a difference. If they don’t hear from you that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. But these guys are such thin-skinned people that if you make an issue of it...I guess my best example is, whether you’re into religion or not, there was a fellow about 2000 years ago that changed the world with 12 people, and that is a story that you see over and over and over again down through history is that small groups of people making a point and not backing away from it and becoming a burr under the saddle of the people they’ve elected. Those are the folks who get things done. So if you will pick up the phone and contact your congressman, contact your senator and say, “Senator, you need to be doing something about this, this is a serious concern.” Write a letter, make a call, but the populous has to get involved with this. And I know that’s not easy but small groups of people can turn the ship and they’ve got to start speaking up because these guys, left to their own devices, are taking care of nobody but themselves. I’m not saying all politicians are bad, but I am saying if you look at the vast preponderance of the evidence, if you leave them alone, they’re dealing with things that are in their own best interests. They need to be up there working on things that are in the best interests of us and our children for the long haul. [49:18]
JIM: Yeah, that’s unfortunate. You know, a small group of people like I can think of there was a movie that came out last year, Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce who took up the plight of the slave trade in Britain, and he fought against all kinds of odds against the ship owners and over two decades he got it repealed. So if you believe in something and you take action sometimes a small group can move mountains.
Well, listen Curtis, I want to thank you for joining us on Other Voices this week. As always, it’s a pleasure to read the things that you put out and keep the good work and keep producing energy for this country. We need people like you.
CURTIS: Well, I appreciate that and thank you for the time to visit.
JOHN: You’re listening to the Financial Sense Newshour at www.financialsense.com. Coming up in the next hour we’ll take your phone calls as we open the Q-Lines as the Big Picture continues right after this.
JOHN: So welcome back to the Financial Sense Newshour. We’re in that part of the Big Picture which we look at the Q-Lines. Q-Lines, really meaning a question line which is open to record your questions 24 hours a day. We ask that you give just your first name and where you're calling from and a brief question. Try to keep it somewhat concise because the more you talk, the less we get other people in there.
Remember that information we present here on the Financial Sense Newshour is for information and educational purposes only, and our responses to your listener inquiries are based on the personal opinions of Jim Puplava. We are unable to take into account listeners suitability, objectives or risk tolerance because we just don't know you. We don't have enough information about you. You shouldn't consider anything here as a solicitation or offer to purchase or sell securities and please always consult a qualified investment counselor before you make any financial decision. And as such, Financial Sense Newshour is not liable to anyone for financial losses that result from information profiled here on the program. Oh I forgot to tell you the Q-line is 800-794-6480. That's toll free in the US and Canada. It does work from the rest of the world, but from those parts of the world, you have to pay for it, including all of the taxes that may be due on the phone call. I just didn't want you to forget that.
The first call is from Portland, Oregon.
Hi, this is Shannon from Portland, Oregon. Hey, awesome, awesome show. Question is: In the long run for me and my family in a hyperinflation period, would I be better off investing in foreign stocks that pay dividends or am I going to prevail better with silver and gold? And I understand that in hyperinflation the dollar goes down, everything gets more expensive. If you can just kind of break that down and elaborate a little more on that, it would be awesome. Once again, awesome show, happy New Year. Thank you.
JIM: You know, Shannon, in a hyperinflationary period, and let's just go back to what occurred in the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 20s, you had a situation where yes, if you were in the stock market, it was up in nominal dollars, even in other foreign stock markets, but the investment that outperformed everything else was actually precious metals, gold and silver. So in a hyperinflationary environment, the best way too protect yourself would be with gold and silver. [2:35]
Hola, Jim and John. This is Richard calling from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jim, on the Q-line the week before last, you spoke about drilling results from Tyhee corporation as being spectacular. Jim, how do you judge whether drill results are spectacular or not?
JIM: You know, Richard, if you look at what's going on in the mining industry and let's just contrast, let's say, Tyhee, the Yellowknife district and that general area and let's say that Sierra Madre gold belt in Mexico, a lot of the big projects including Palmarejo which was bought out by Coeur D’Alene, you know when you get, you know the cut off grade that they use in a lot of their mining models are a half a gram of gold. And a lot of this is being mined in the Sierra Madre with open pit. And also in the Yellowknife district, they are looking at an open pit mining operation in addition to underground. So I mean, if you just take a look at the Ormsby zone results released on January 17th, you know, you have 10 ½ meters at 2.8 grams of gold, 9.2 grams of gold, 8.l4 grams of gold, 11.5 grams of gold, almost 13 grams of gold, 6, 6, 5, 4, 9, 11, 12, 10, 10; those are the kinds of thing that you like to see, especially in an open pit where those kind of results and that kind of ore can be very profitable in an open pit operation. Plus, even in an underground where a lot of times these tend to get richer and thicker. This is something you always find in the Sierra Madre. You know, it's very seldom, there are not too many Aurelian type deposits where they were getting 16 or 20 grams although I know of a mine that is now a junior, it was one of the largest producing mines in Mexico prior to the revolution where the cut off grade for mining was 15 grams of gold. They ran some drill test in 2005 and were hitting 99 grams of gold. But generally when you're looking at open pit operations, you get five, six, six to eight grams of gold, I mean those are very, very good and profitable ounces, especially if you're going to go to an open pit operation. [4:57]
Booyah, Jim—oh, wrong line. This is Steve from Wisconsin. I listened to your Newshour today. You were talking about consolidation of the juniors, well actually consolidation of the industry but let’s say consolidation of the juniors and I didn't get a good clear understanding of why it's important. What’s the value of consolidation to some of the juniors. Why do they want a big market cap? What is the advantage to them. Enjoy your show. Thanks a lot.
JIM: You know, one of the advantages of a large market cap, it's easier to finance, it's easier to go out and raise money. If you're going to have to put in a mill, let's say you're using the leap pad operations. You know with a mill, you can get greater silver recoveries, maybe even greater gold recoveries and, you know, you put in a milling operation, sometimes a lot of these projects, especially with cost over runs are running about – you can see these costs go up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
But my point of saying this is there is so many juniors out there, I mean you look at some of the junior silver producers, companies that are producing two, maybe three million ounces working their way to five million ounces. They have market caps below 100 million, some are at a hundred million. And then you take a look at someone like a Pan American silver that has a market cap of 2.8 billion. So one of the ways that you might be able to create value is start mergers within the junior industry, merge junior producers, whether it's a two or three million ounce silver producer, you know, start consolidating. Next thing you know, you are a 15 to 20 million ounce producer, which would give you a lot more heft, market cap, a lot more liquidity in the market.
And also you could take some late stage development plays, merge them together, take a company that has maybe two million ounces with the possibility of going to three to five, merge them with another junior of similar quality, maybe a different location and all of a sudden now you have a six to ten million ounce potential, so that when you do go into production, instead of 100,000 ounces, you are going to produce 4- or 500,000 ounces. And what you do is you leap frog from being a junior to an intermediate and perhaps in some cases a major producer. And that's why I think you can create more value that way. [7:19]
Good day, guys. Greg calling from Ontario, Canada. I just noticed something. I was on the Kitco website. I've been checking it out for quite a while. I buy gold the odd time when I don't have to buy diapers, but first thing I've ever seen in the last little while, they were sold out on certain products and I'm talking like gold coins and gold bars. So I guess slowly people are starting to more actively purchase gold. Just wanted to let you know. Great show. Keep it up, guys. Talk to later.
JIM: You know, Greg, that's something that I've noticed from my bullion dealer too. There is more of a delay, that there is great, great demand. Listen to Jeff Christian in the first hour where he was talking about gold demand was even greater than they anticipated in 2007, and this phenomenon is global. And it's been consecutive year after year after year, which is why you've seen gold prices and silver prices go up year after year after year. [8:14]
Hi, Jim and John, this is Mara from North Carolina. I really enjoy your trips to the mall, Jim, and your reports on how prices are doing. So I thought I would call and give you a report from Elmer’s Diner, which is the little diner up the street in Durham that has been here for 15 or so years. We were there for lunch today, and there was a xeroxed letter to all of their customers on the front of the menu talking about that the increase in prices, particularly prices that affect breakfast, which is Elmer’s signature meal, and they serve it, you know, all day and all night. They also wrote: “We've been here since 1991 and we have never before experienced such a dramatic and prolonged increase in food costs. Our vendors tell us they do not see an end in site. When we have short spikes in food costs we always try to absorb them rather than pass them on to customers. However, all economic forecasts indicated this isn't a spike but a reality that we will have to absorb. We cost our menu, so whenever possible we've tried not to increase a menu item if it isn’t necessary.” So they were hoping we would all stay as a loyal customers.
The prices of breakfast food particularly which is certainly influenced by the increase in prices of flour and milk etc, the food costs were up about 10%. So I just wanted to let you know that, even though the official numbers don't suggest that inflation is alive and well in Durham, North Carolina. I'll still go there for breakfast, but it's costing a bit more money. Thanks. Love the show.
JIM: Thanks for bringing that to our attention. It's also alive and well in San Diego and we're seeing that in a lot of restaurants. What we have done and what a lot of people are doing, quite honestly… I don't know if you're find this in your area, and John, I don't know when this came into being, but you used to be able to go to a restaurant, it was quiet, you could have a nice conversation, enjoy what the other people you were going out to dinner with were speaking. And my wife and I went to, was it Outback Steak House a couple of weeks ago. And it was crowded. We got there early, but it was crowded on Friday nights as it usually is. We had to sit beyond in the bar area. They had four TV sets going. Not to mention speakers that were playing music. And the noise was so loud, it was almost irritating. And it was really amazing and almost shocking looking at the menu because a lot of times, we like to entertain. We usually entertain on weekends, and I'll go out, get a nice filet, a nice bottle of wine and it's so much cheaper, especially if you have friends that maybe can't always, you know, go out to restaurants. And we're finding a lot of people cutting back because simply for what you just described, the costs are going up and I would say that inflation is alive and well and it's going to get worse. [10:58]
Hi, Jim and John. This is David calling from Cleveland. I have a question for you. What is the difference from an investor's stand point between ETFs and mutual funds. I'm specifically interested in infrastructure. That’s question one. And question two, are ETFs vehicles that can be used as investments for 401K plans? Are there any restrictions by the government in that regard? Look forward to your response. Thank you again for your wonderful show.
JIM: You know, David, a mutual fund, when you send money to a mutual fund, they usually buy in at the closing prices at the end of the day. An exchange traded fund is a mutual fund that trades constantly. In other words, you can buy, let's say, an equity fund, a particular ETF any time of the day, you could buy it in the morning and sell it in the evening, where as a mutual fund, you would have to wait – they would buy in at the closing price. And if you were going to liquidate, they would probably liquidate at the closing price as well. So exchange traded funds trade like stocks. They’re mutual funds that is that trade like stocks and they are available for 401K plans. [12:11]
No question this time. Guys, this is Kevin from California. You talk a lot about gold and I just happened to listen to the interview with Dick Davis and really enjoyed it and it's a big chunk of gold right there. Just love the nuggets that he had to dispense and appreciate you guys for having someone like him on your show. Thanks a lot.
JIM: Thanks, Kevin. Yeah. There was just all kinds of pearls of wisdom. Dick spent more than 40 years on Wall Street and sort of distilled those pearls of wisdom in his book The Dick Davis Dividend. I highly recommend, if you haven't read it, pick up a copy. Great book to read. [12:47]
Jim, this is Janice from Arizona, and I have an answer for the viewer that wanted to know how do you find the price of the stock in terms of gold. You can go to www.stockcharts.com and in the ticker symbol, if say you wanted to do Newmont mining ticker symbol NEM, you can type in NEM colon dollar and then gold. And there is no spaces in there. So you can do that on stockcharts.com and that's a free website if you want to get the 15 minute delay and no intra day prices, but they can go back a couple of years, I believe, on daily and weekly charts for free subscribers. I have a subscription, so I get a much more extensive choice there but that depends on the viewer and what they want. And I believe there are other websites, maybe bigcharts.com does that. Gold is a special number over there, but he might be able to use GLD as a proxy. Thank you. Bye.
JIM: Janice, thanks for bringing that to our attention. We threw that out last week and I think we were talking about pricing currencies in gold. So I guess if you could find the ticker symbol for the currency at Stockcharts, you would just follow with that same protocol and you can see it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. [14:19]
Hello, Jim and John. My name is Vance calling from San Jose. I want to thank you so much for your public service. I've learn a great deal, and I've acted on some of the things I've learned. I've been on a personal crusade against debasement of our currency for about a decade now. And this is how I do it. If I have a purchase between one and two dollars, I always pay with a 2 dollar bill and get funny looks from the sales clerks. I tell them, well, you used to be able to buy that with a one dollar bill. And I'm just hope that over the years a light bulb turns on in some people's minds when I do this and I have a lot of fun doing it too. Well, thanks a lot for your public service.
JIM: Thanks, Vance.
And I just want to let Paul know, who called in on the line telling us how we could get currencies and stocks in the form of gold, so Paul, Janice answered that. So we're just going to go on to the next, but thanks for calling that in by the way.
Jim and John, this is Al from Jefferson City, Missouri. Man, I love this show. Hey, I've got a question for you. Eric King was on a couple of weeks ago and he talked about a reference that Jimmy Rogers made to the collapse of the pound as the world's reserve currency which lost about 80 percent of its value. And I was able to contact Jimmy Rogers several months ago and asked him if he could reference me some book or some literature source that would chronicle that decline. He said he didn't really know of anything. I was wondering if either of you would know of some book or something that could give a – sort of tell the story of what was going on within the British empire, within Great Britain as that pound lost it's reserve currency status. I think it would be a good historical study. But if you know anything like that, would you please mention it or lead me that direction. Thank you very much and keep up the good work. Thanks.
JIM: You know, Al, what I would first start out in terms of your research, I'd go to two sites. First I'd go to Google, put that in and try it in various ways, decline of the pound or something and just start going through the Google reference sites and it might take you to the name of a book and do the same on Amazon where you type it in and they might just list a book. So it may take you a couple of times or wording it differently through Google, but usually you can find these things by googling it. [16:48]
Hi, Jim. My name is Ian, I'm an Australian and I'm based in Switzerland. First of all, thank you very, very much for your weekly radio program. It’s absolutely phenomenally informative and I really, really enjoy listening to it. I've got to tell you I'm very frustrated. I certainly buy into everything you say around gold and inflation. I’ve done my own research just sort of clarify that in my mind, but one thing that sort of confuses and does frustrate me to a certain extent is juniors. I hear what you're saying. I'm very keen to invest, but quite frankly I don't have the time nor the resources available for me to dig in and take the approach that you’ve mandated. I'm just wondering, could you give us an understanding or a little bit of advice: Are there any funds there which will provide exposure to juniors. Do I need to invest myself? Is there anyone else out there? If you let me know that, that would be very, very much appreciated because I listen every week, every week you’re saying exactly the same thing about juniors but really I just can’t do it. I just don’t have the time. So if you can give me an idea, it would be much appreciated. Anyway, thank you for the show. Much appreciate it.
JIM: You know, Ian, I'm not sure what you're going to be able to get through your brokerage firm. What I would recommend you do is probably go on a no-load gold mutual fund. The Tocqueville fund is one that comes to mind because I know they own juniors in their fund. If you're Canadian, Sprott has one, and Sprott does a lot in the junior sector. And what I like about Sprott, they are long term investors rather than traders. So Sprott in Canada, Tocqueville here in the US are a couple of names and you might just Google “gold funds” or “gold mutual funds” and see the list of names that come up and just try any of those names. Do a little research through your brokerage firm and just see what's available and especially if you have a brokerage firm where you can do it yourself and go through a no-load fund. But Tocqueville comes to mind. [18:43]
Hello, Jim and John, this is Rodney calling from Virginia. And in listening to last week's show in particular I'm interested in your interview with Kelley Wright regarding dividend investing and I had a few questions that I thought maybe you could clarify for me. First of all, I was wondering whether there is any reason to try timing dividend stocks in relation to the business cycle. More specifically, would you recommend waiting until inflation that you're predicting comes on and the depression; or is it okay to buy the stocks now and buy the stocks that many people are saying to hold on to metals and mining stocks and energy stocks and sell everything else at this present time? Secondly, I was wondering whether dividends are appropriate for investors of any age, or whether you'd recommend accumulating them over the last few years until retirement; and also what percentage of the portfolio you might recommend be made up of these dividends and stocks? Lastly, if you have any other book or resources that you can recommend where I can learn more about dividend-paying stocks, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks very much.
JIM: You know, Rodney, dividend investing is appropriate for people of any age whether you're starting out for investing or you're 95 years old. Dividend investing, dividends represent almost half of the returns earned in the stock markets, so it's just a strategy that works very well, and especially if you're in something that's a very volatile market right now and especially in the resource sector where you're seeing some of the best dividends. A good example would be like the energy stocks. So dividend investing is appropriate for any age and especially appropriate for people that have 401K plans, IRAs, profit-sharing plans, pension plans, very, very appropriate for saving for retirement.
And as far as books, there is a number of them out there that I could recommend. One of them is we're going to have him on the show, by the way, Josh Peters new book. Josh is an analyst with Morningstar investments. He heads up their dividend newsletter. It's called The Ultimate Dividend Play Book, that was just released here in January. Josh will be a guest on the program. There is also a book called The Single Best Investment : Creating Wealth With Dividend Growth by Lowell Miller. You can by the way, listen to Lowell. We interviewed him. A couple of others that I like, is Relative Dividend Yield written by Anthony Spare. Another one, gosh, there are so many good books that have come out recently on dividend investing. There is a book that comes out every quarter. It's rather expensive. It's called Mergent’s Dividend Achievers and it talks about companies that have an outstanding stellar record of raising dividends consistently year after year. Another book, Nancy Tengler’s book The New Era of Value Investing: A disciplined approach. Just go to Amazon and just type in “dividend investing” and you'll get five or six pages of books, but those are some of my favorites. [21:55]
Hi, Jim and John, this is Richard calling again from San Francisco North Bay. I keep hearing the media pushing investment in long term Treasuries and I feel that long term investment in 10 year and longer Treasuries for non-trader retirees is a horrible idea. And I would like your thoughts on that. Surely we're seeing yet another bubble. I suspect that’s the flip side of the movement of money out of the commercial paper market, etc. Surely the yield has to return to a positive return on the investment relative to inflation and when it does, long term investors stand to lose as the interest rates rise. I like the metaphor of a pig representing liquidity moving through the python called the market. And right now, it seems to me we are seeing the leading edge of the pig, so prices of Treasuries are rising, but there is the back side of the liquidity pig in which prices drop. For the nimble, trading in and out of Treasuries may be a fantastic opportunity, but as the pig passes through. But somebody has to lose when interest rates go up and it seems to me that investment in intermediate and long term Treasuries for a non-trader retiree is really quite dangerous at current prices. I'd like your thoughts if you would. Thanks again for a great show.
JIM: You know, Richard, I couldn't agree with you more. If you take a look at the yields on Treasuries today, you've got headline inflation running at over 4%, and we know that that number is understated. Just listen to Mara’s phone call about the diner in Durham, North Carolina. I mean when you have two year Treasury yields at 2% and headline inflation is at 4, with real inflation probably closer to 8 to 10 and you have 10 year Treasuries at 3 and a half %; and that's before taxes – I agree with you. And getting into this, because one of the forecasts that we have is by the end of the year, the headline inflation numbers are going to get even higher and the Fed will be talking about raising interest rates, and interest rates will be going up as investors demand higher rates of return to compensate for the devaluation or depreciation of the money. [24:04]
Hey Jim. Dave from San Diego. I had a question about valuation of silver companies, looking at say development companies, market cap per ounce, and spot price. If you take a ratio of the spot price of market cap per ounce for silver, I get a number of about five or ten companies that I'm looking at. Do the same thing for gold and the number goes to 30. And a caller last week pointed this out and I think it shows that the gold development companies are indeed quite a bit cheaper than silver equities and perhaps this explains the underperformance of the silver stocks. If you talk a little bit more about that I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
JIM: You know, Dave, if you look at some of the gold companies, and I agree with some of those statistics, that you have gold in the ground at 15 to 20, 25 bucks when you come to some of these juniors, as opposed to lets say, 8 and 10 bucks for some of the silver juniors, but also remember that silver is harder to find, harder to mine and to me the grossest undervalued area in the silver sector is the emerging silver producers where they are just incredibly cheap. But as a group, if you are looking at development companies, ounces in the ground, market cap per ounce, some of the gold is cheaper. [25:22]
Hi, Jim and John. This is Phillip from Santa Clara. I have a question regarding the combined fuel prices of oil and natural gas. I was recently reading a book which said that based on the energy content of a barrel of oil and a unit of natural gas, the price of oil should be about six times that of natural gas, so that would make natural gas 8 dollars; oil should be at 48. So what the author was basically saying was that oil is over priced because of certain monopolies in the business whereas natural gas doesn't have those monopolies and that is why natural gas is much lower in price. So it is basically implying that oil is in a bubble and it is going to burst. But he didn’t give any particular date, but he said oil is over priced. Thinking about it for myself, I can see that a couple of differences with regard to oil and natural gas that might make a ratio not equal to six, maybe higher: One is that the US imports are 60% of the oil that needs, I think, whereas it imports only 15% of natural gas. And the second thing I can think of is it is probably easier to transport oil and not so easy to transport natural gas. This is from what I know, but I would like to know what you feel about this issue. Thank you very much.
JIM: You know, Phillip, one of the issues that natural gas isn't as expensive as oil is that because of the warm weather we have had an accumulation of inventories so it's the accumulation and supply of those inventories that has had more of an impact on the natural gas market. In terms of oil, one of the reasons it's remained as high as it has, listen to the second hour roundtable is conventional oil production peaked in May of 2005 and we've never come back to that level. So that's why a lot of experts are saying it's peaking as you and I are speaking or maybe we're past peak. We're only going to know that in retrospect in the next couple of years. But the inventory issue of natural gas is probably what's playing into the pricing. [27:34]
Hello, Jim and John, this is Peter calling from Seattle. I have a quick question about housing. My girlfriend and I have held off on trying to chase the housing market and we were also not really in a position to buy anyway and we fully expected what was going to happen happen. And now that it's unwinding, my quick question for you is do you think it would be better to try to buy in at this local bottom here in the next whatever you're calling sort of short term six, nine months, a year, whatever, and also whatever stimulus they are going to give to try to lock in the rates that we have now. Or on the flip side, do you think waiting there may be a more kind of deflation in terms of just housing prices if we wait, say, three-to-five years? Now, I know that may correspond with some kind of dollar crisis and spike in interest rates, which would make it kind of harder to buy a house, but I'm wondering if a lower price five years from now or three years from now, may offset whatever interest rates there would be. And also if interest rates were high, I would imagine that at some point maybe if they did try to stimulate again, it might be possible to refinance in the future. So basically for someone that has held off all of this time, what is the best plan to try to get in on housing? Short term or wait longer term, so thank you so much. Take care.
JIM: You know, it's my understanding in your neck of the woods there was actually some price appreciation in Seattle. In other words, you never got to the same bubble like levels that we got in California and maybe Vegas or Miami, so I would suspect that prices are still heading lower. Now, one of the things that does happen is I expect inflation rates to go up, you would expect interest rates to go up; and you know, you may have the Fed monetizing debt trying to keep rates down. As interest rates go up, the price of real estate comes down. So there is a kind of trade off balance. The higher interest rates go, the lower will be the price of housing. And so I would expect that you're going to see more weakness yet because we have just too much inventory around right now. I forget what the figures are, nine and a half to ten months worth of inventory, and who knows? You might even get it – now, if you get a stimulus program or if you get what Paul Volcker is advocating, some kind of investment tax credit to buy a house where it's large enough and you have a stable job, both you and your girlfriend, that could support and you have the money to put money down, then it starts becoming a personal question, but generally I expect prices to get weaker. [30:05]
Hi, Jim and John, this is Harold from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thanks for your program. I think it's preparing your listeners for some really tough times ahead. I have just used the last of my money to pay off my house. I have no debts and I'm just starting to rebuild my cash reserves and follow your investment recommendation, so I have three questions if you will. First, you recommended a mix of investments that include metals, energy, infrastructure, food and water. One of the things I'm concerned about, now, is the government may interfere in the market; that seems like we're doing the exact same things that government in the past have done before in hyperinflationary scenarios. So if the government continues to repeat the mistakes from the past, one of the things they will likely do is impose price control and I think that will hurt or destroy energy, food and water stocks. What you do you think of that possibility and how would we protect ourselves from it?
Second, if you would still recommend buying food and what water, would you give us some examples of companies to look at. And finally I've bought some silver rounds and it seems like an expensive way to buy metals compared to buying stocks in juniors or producers and it occurs to me that the only advantage to buying bullion is physical possession of the metals to use for trade if things get really bad. So if so, there should be some optimum that we need for trade the remainder of our investments being allocated to the stocks. Is my reasoning sound and so, what is the optimum amount? Thank you and I appreciate your answers.
JIM: You know, Harold, I still like the basic that I'm talking about: energy, food, water, infrastructure, the basics, because that's where the money is going to be made and has been made and those are the necessities in life. I really think the age of overconsumption is coming to an end and we're going to have to rebuild infrastructure. In terms of price controls, you know, they tried that, it fails and it creates shortages. They tried it in the 70s and they had to reverse themselves. They tried windfall profits taxes, and you know what, the oil companies just go around it. I mean most of these international oil companies today, a lot of their major holdings are not here in the United States. They are overseas. They can simply sell their oil or natural gas to somebody else. So in the end, price controls always fail and especially when you get the population upset and they end up reversing themselves because they don't work. They actually create shortages. So I still like that. As far as precious metals, you should always own some bullion, but in terms of value, I think the best value in the precious metals market is the juniors right now where you can buy gold in the ground from 15 to $25 an ounce, or silver in the ground at 5, 8 or 10 an ounce. [32:43]
Hi, this is Gloria from California. We're pretty heavily invested in gold and silver and are thinking of buying a house in California in May or June using a mortgage to be paid off by silver when it reaches $100 an ounce. Give me your views on that. Thank you.
JIM: You know, Gloria, most people that buy a house do take out a mortgage. Interest rates are below what I – today if you take a look at a fixed rate loan, somewhere around 5 ½% with real, and when I talk real inflation rates, running between 8 and 10. As long as you can afford, you have enough money to put down, you're going to be in that house for a long period of time, you guys have secured jobs. If you can answer yes to all of those, then I would go ahead with it because eventually, I do expect a hyperinflation to drive silver up to $100 an ounce. But I certainly wouldn't get into a house leveraged to the hilt barely able to afford the payments based on the fact that gold or silver is going to those levels. It may take three years, five years, two years, I don't know. It depends on government policy and how bad they hyperinflate. So I’m never in favor of taking on more debt than one can handle. And especially taking on debt if one does not have either secure assets or a secure income to support it. [34:00]
Winston from Dale city, Virginia. I'm just wondering what hyperinflation will do to the price of real estate if people are spending most of their money to buy necessities, who is going to have any money to buy real estate. and that affects the supply and demand issue, and I’m just wondering how hyperinflation will impact real estate prices. Thanks.
JIM: You know, real estate usually doesn't keep up in hyperinflation as well as other assets like gold and silver. Weimar Germany is a good example of that. With inflation and where we are right now coming through this housing bubble, I expect still housing weakness; but eventually, with enough hyperinflation increases in income, there is going to be a balance there somewhere and the price of real estate will begin to stabilize. Also, you've got to remember, as the dollar falls in value, what might seem expensive for you, to a foreigner buying condos in Miami right now is dirt cheap because the value of foreign currency has gone up over 30, 40% depending on the currency against the dollar. So you have to look at real estate from an international perspective and any wealthy person in whether Latin America, Asia or the Middle East, you know, one of the prime locations for buying a second home in another country is still the United States. And right now, their currency buys a lot of stuff in the United States given the depreciation of the dollar. [35:32]
Hey, guys. This is Tony from Las Vegas and I have a question on Silver Wheaton. Goldcorp is going to divest itself of its 49% stake in the company and I'm wondering which side of the trades or move I should be on whether I should hold for Silver Wheaton or maybe go ahead and take profits in Silver Wheaton and move my money over to Gold Corp. Thank you.
JIM: You know, Goldcorp has been, if you take a look at one of the majors, it's been one of the least performing of the HUI this year. I mean if you take a look at Barrick up 21%, if you take a look at Yamana, which is up double digits, Goldcorp is only up about 8%. I like Silver Wheaton. It's basically kind of like the Franco Nevada of silver and I think the fact that Goldcorp is finally divesting its 49% interest will leave Silver Wheaton as a stand-alone entity and I think it has greater upside potential and especially with the prices of silver going up and they lock in on the price, so I like Silver Wheaton. I like Goldcorp too. So if you had to own both, I would keep them. [36:36]
Hi Jim and John. Aloha. It’s Rick from the big island. I have only question for you today. I've got my fingers crossed on your Oreo prediction. How will the go-away-in-May crowd change things? I know if I'd done that last year, I would be here for three months and not six weeks. Anyways, thanks a lot. Bye.
JIM: You know, you do get the summer seasonals. You tend to get weakness as you come in to the summer months and I expect that to be the same because as the economy and the stock market tell us in advance when the recession is about coming to an end you'll start seeing money flowing into the equity sector and who knows, they might leave bullion. But you know, if you look at last summer when bullion prices corrected, they peaked in the first part of May and then we corrected back probably down to June. And then from June, the price of bullion went up in the month of July, corrected again and then just flew in the middle of August, and I expect, you know, we could see another seasonal pattern develop like that. But you know something, when you take a look at these seasonal patterns and you think, gee, this is the way it's always been, always be prepared for a curve because there is always something that can happen. There could be a mishap. There could be a political event, an unexpected inflation reading, something that happens, but typically what you're referring to is usually about the end of April, May, it coincides with the pull back in buying in India. It starts up in the fall with jewelry buying and you heard Jeff Christian talk about last year it was a big year for buying bullion and it picked up especially strong in the middle of August. So, you know what, you can play some seasonals here, but if you're going to be trading in and out of the gold market and looking at seasonals, I'd strictly stay with the majors because they are the liquid-type of stocks that you can trade in and out of if you plan on going in to juniors were you can get a big bang, you don't trade your juniors, you simply add to them. [38:39]
Hi, Jim this is from Hayward from North Carolina and I was listening to a gentleman on the radio the other day and I can't remember his name and I apologize for that, but he was talking about the gold reserves in Fort Knox and he said that they do not account for things like the custodial gold and leased gold overseas that they ship out of Fort Knox to various countries and various facilities around the world, and that this would be considered some sort of encumbered gold that was not accounted for. And I just was wondering what your opinion was of that practice and what this gentleman was alleging and how you think it might affect the situation with gold as an investment going forward as it appears that this could be considered some kind of gold manipulation or some sort of improper accounting for gold that they say is there which is not there, which was his point.
JIM: You know, Hayward, we do know that if you look at the way government accounts for its gold, it looks more like a liability on the balance sheet than it does in assets so there is some truth to that. As far as the gold at Fort Knox and government leasing, it's been done to bring down the price of gold. If you want to read more about that, I'd highly suggest you go to a website. It's called GATA, www.gata.org and they've got a number of papers how they have used leased gold and bullion selling to manipulate the price of gold – as I believe they are actually doing right now. So, you know what, and as far as the gold in Fort Knox, we don't know if it's actually there. It hasn't been audited in, what, almost half a decade. [40:20]
Hello, Jim and John is this is Lan calling from Hanoi, Vietnam. The Vietnamese economy has experienced an enormous growth because of the huge amount of foreign investment. If the USA experiences a great depression then what will happen to our economy.
JIM: You know, Lan, there is this theory out there called the decoupling theory that when the US goes in to a recession, that the rest of the world will do well because of everybody standing on its own. I do expect if the US goes into a depression, a recession, there is going to be some impact. The Chinese economy will probably grow anywhere from 9 to 10 percent this year versus 11. The Japanese economy is probably in recession right now. But you know, trade between Asian countries is getting stronger and stronger as the Asian bloc develops it's own economies, so I would suspect probably maybe less of an impact. But certainly if we go into a depression, you're going to see weakness in your economy as well. [41:20]
Hey, guys, John from Maine. Go Patriots. Listen, I'm a little confused. I don't think much I guess. You had a caller on last week who was complaining that his junior mining companies were getting taken out, I'm assuming bought out by bigger companies. And listening to you all of these years, Jim, I thought that was the point. I thought that would increase the value of the junior if it gets bought out by a major, so I’m a little confused as to why this caller was peeved. Thanks so much.
JIM: You know, it may be perhaps, you know, sometimes depending on the take out, you could get cash and you may not want cash. Other times, you get the stock of the acquiring company and it may be an acquiring company that you don't want to own because you're in the juniors for the growth. But it is the point of investing in juniors. There is only two outcomes. Either one that junior is going to go into production because nobody takes them out. A good example of that would be Minefinders. They have a great deposit in Dolores down in Mexico and they are going into production this year with a couple of hundred thousand ounces of production and nobody took them out. So those are the only two outcomes: You either get bought out or go into production. The greatest upside is if you go into production, so maybe he was a little peeved that maybe he didn't get the full upside potential that he thought he would get in his stock because they were taken out much earlier than he might have thought. [42:48]
Hi, guys, this is Eric from Aspen, Colorado. You guys have been pushing on the juniors in the gold and silver market. I've been looking and trying to research this and that with them. I'm looking to a junior that again would possibly pay a good dividend but also avoid South Africa and all of that energy disaster they've got going over there. I've been looking around. I'm really kind of confused on which juniors. I know you don't want to say certain things on the air, but if you could kind of give me a direction of which company that you would recommend to look at and looked at Seabridge and this and that, but I'm not really convinced. If you can give us your suggestions. Thank you.
JIM: You might want to look at Silvercorp as a company, an up and coming dividend producer. I usually don't like to give out a lot of names here, but that's one area that I would look at. Also, look at some of the intermediate gold producers. I was at a presentation at the Denver gold show where a couple of the majors are talking about that they see a point where after they go through this development that's going to quadruple their production that they would be looking to return benefit to the shareholders through higher dividends. Right now, trying to find dividends, your probably best bet if you can find them, they are not as liquid would be, like, convertible preferreds where you might get a 3 or 4% dividend and be able it convert the convertible bond or preferred stock into the common stock is probably going to be your best bet. [44:17]
Hey, Jim and John, Colby from Missouri. Love the show. Quick question. On January 9th, in your precious metals segment with John Doody you mentioned that Barrick was still hedged and that was kind of the secret that was not out. I’ve got quite a stake in Barricks that bounced about until August and it's done pretty well since then obviously. I’m wondering if Barrick is now a risky investment with gold heading higher since it is allegedly hedged? Love the show. Thanks.
JIM: I think the big risk...they've been trying to unwind a lot of their hedges. The good thing that Barrick has going for it –I think they have still about nine million ounces that are hedged. I think that's the figure – they produce enough of the stuff that they can deliver into those hedges and they are in the process of doing that, which is one of the reasons why you've seen the run up in Barrick last year and also year to date. If you take a look at the HUI, it's probably the top performing stock in the HUI, so I'd keep it. [45:19]
Hey, Jim and John. Great show as always. This is David in Los Angeles. Two quick questions. One, I may want to invest in agricultural real estate in the next couple of years. I was wondering if you have any information about how that market is doing in the United States, if it's different in various use locations and if there is a good source of information about that. Maybe you could even have an expert come on one of these days to talk about that type of real estate. The second question is: For me to really benefit from the inflation in terms of my cheap mortgage interest, I really need to have some wage inflation too. Is that part of what we're going to see, because so far I'm not seeing it? When do I get to have some wage inflation, thanks again.
JIM: You know, David, investing in farm land, I think that's an excellent choice and especially in the fertile areas of Northern California. Farm land is doing very well, especially in the Midwest where they grow a lot of our corn. Obviously with ethanol, that's been a big boon to the farmers. I think farm land in general, and especially productive farm land, fertile soil, access to water –which is why I like Northern California – is going to be vitally important as we head into peak oil because the days of the 3000 mile Caesar salad or getting fruits and vegetables of all varieties 100 percent of the year round, those days are going to start to go away and I think premium farm land is going to be going for even higher prices. I would Google the topic and see what you come up with and you'd be surprised at the number of sites and information that you would get. I'm trying to think of, I haven't seen any books out yet. I mean I get the annual CRB book that is published and that's really sort of the Bible in the industry that tells you what's going on with farm crops and what's going on in commodities.
In terms of information where the best farm land, that's something that, you know, I probably am not up to speed. If we come across somebody, either a newsletter writer or somebody that's authored a book on that subject, I'll guarantee you we'll have them on our program. In terms of wage inflation, it's very difficult right now. They are trying to control wages, and as you know, the unemployment rate has been going up and as you get into harder times, it's harder to get wage increases. So unfortunately, wages aren't keeping up with inflation and that, by the way, is what always happens, David, in an inflationary period. It was very much the same in the 70s as well.
Jim and John, this is Jim from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jim, I've got a question. Is it possible that you can write an article or have one of your staff members write an article on how to understand drill results and what is a good drill result for gold. silver or copper. And the last one goes out to Dave Morgan. I think a couple of years that you were talking about some players from the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings, they were going to invest in some type of gold mine in Alaska. Do you have any other information about that? Other than that, guys, I just ordered a case of Maalox off eBay and I'm going to be with it for this gold market. All right, guys, great show and take care.
JIM: You know, I may do a show on interpreting drill results and maybe I might even write an article. It would be, gosh, I'm trying to think how we are trying to take something this complex and do it on the radio program. I might have to give that some thought. As far as a bunch of football players going into Alaska, John, remind me next time we have Dave on the program. I don't recall that. That might have just slipped my mind. Sorry. Just not something I would keep fresh in my mind unless they were discovering, you know, probably the biggest gold mine or something, but I don't recall that conversation. [49:09]
Hey, Jim and John. This is John from Philadelphia, just a comment on a approach my wife and I talking. We hold IRA funds that we've had from roll overs from different employers as well as our own contributions and within those accounts, we ended up buying a Canadian trust and now we get a nice big fat dividend every month, so what we do is we accumulate those dividends and then we go on a shopping spree. So it works out really well because aside of rollovers, or the four or five thousand dollar annual cap contribution we get internal contributions, so our IRAs grow. Just a comment. I hope this helps to all. Thanks a lot.
JIM: Well, whatever works!
Hi, Jim and John. This is Mark from Rock Hill, South Carolina. In listening to your show last week regarding dividend investing, I wanted to get your opinion regarding closed-end fund stocks as an option for small investors. There are currently two closed-end fund stocks which I hold which pay out dividends of 7 and 9% respectfully, with individual stock values up 10 to $20. My research leads me to wonder whether or not these are viable alternatives to larger mutual fund options or whether I should think about more of the GE/Procter & Gamble route. thank you for a very informative show week after week.
JIM: You know, Mark, one of the things I like about closed-end funds is that you can buy them...I try to buy them when you can get them at a discount to their net asset value, and if you can buy a closed in fund at a substantial discount, then obviously if they are paying dividends, your dividends are going to be much higher because the dividend yield is based on the price you pay for it. I'm a big believer in owning individual stocks. We're sort of a stock-picking shop ourselves. And, you know, it’s fun to own stocks and see these give depends go up 10, 11% a year. So I'm more in favor of individual stocks, and that's just a bias that I hold based on my own experience. But if you're looking at closed-end funds, then I would only buy them when you can get them at a steep discount. [51:12]
Good day, John and Jim. This is Kevin in Knoxville. I'm calling on the day that GATA is running a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal to discuss the inventory of our gold that the country has and how in fact our gold inventory may be manipulated and used in the marketplace to essentially suppress the price of gold and silver in the market. And I hope this goes a long way towards flushing out some of the things that have been going on in the marketplace.
My question specifically is, Jim, you've got the gold and silver ETF and I know a lot of people are investing in them and they've done quite well, but I keep reading off and on where some people don't think ETFs are really backed by real physical gold and silver; and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that, if in fact they do have real live inventory of physical metals to back up these ETFs? And also, you know, I read a lot of Ted butler, who is a member of GATA and he writes some very interesting articles specifically pertaining to silver and the manipulation of the silver market. And I think you've commented in the past, that Ted is somewhat of a recluse and probably would be hard to get on the show, but boy, that would be an interesting interview if you could talk with him. But anyway, I certainly appreciate your website and all you do for us out here. I feel like I just learned an enormous amount about economics and of the financial market and analysis and I tell people that I have a PhD in economics which of course stands for Puplava Honorary Degree. So thanks for everything you do and keep up the good work.
JIM: Kevin, I was glad to see GATA run that ad in the Wall Street Journal with a headline: Anybody seen our gold? Very revealing. And I think one time Bill Murphy was thought of as a nut, but I think a lot more people are coming to the front and saying GATA has been right all along and you know, good question that he's bringing up: where is our gold? And it has good to see something like that happen. [53:32]\
Hi, Jim and John. Great show. I love it. My name is Joe. I'm from Tampa, Florida. This is the first time I've called, but I've never missed a minute of your shows for the past couple of years, and my question is, of the global precious metals funds, UNWPX and I notice it pays a 11% dividend on that fund, but when I look at the stocks inside that fund, none of the stocks pay that high a dividend. How does a mutual fund that has stocks in it have such a high dividend when the stocks don't pay that high a dividend? And I kind of have the same question about a bond fund. I heard about a bond fund that has a 15% yield on the fund or, you know, makes 15% over the year, but yet, none of the bonds yield yields 15%. I was wondering if you could help me out with that and understand that. Thank you very much.
JIM: What is happening here is none of the stocks pay that yield, which is what you're quoting as close to 11.8%. Most of that came from short term and long term capital gains. I'm just looking at their distribution for 2007 that out of that distribution, $2.56 cents came from long term capital gains and another 80 cents came from short term capital gains, only about $3 came from dividends. So if you look at that, most of that was coming from a long term and short term capital gains. [55:01]
JOHN: Well, Jim, you know that at end of every program I say “well Jim, so here is another, “well Jim.” Well, Jim, that's the end of another week. And our listeners are waiting with baited breath to know what the next program is going to be, something that a little mouth wash could help with.
JIM: All right. Well, coming up next week, Vitaliy Katsenelson.
JOHN: Hack away on that one.
JIM: Oh goodness. I'm just going to call him Vitaliy. He's written a new book called Active Value Investing. He'll be my guest in the second hour. Steve McClellan, Full of Bull, will be on the program February 16th. Mike Stathis, Cashing in on the Real Estate Bubble, and then March first, we're going to have a gold round table with an all star and I mean this is one of the all the star fund managers over the last couple of decades, wait until you hear what he has to say about gold because he owns a ton of it. Also, Bill Murphy, James Turk, and a couple of other surprise guests will be joining me. Lila Rajiva Mobs, Messiahs And Markets is coming up on March 8th; Sy Harding, Beat The Market The Easy Way, Alex Doulis, Lost On Bay Street. So a lot of great programs coming up in the week ahead. This is Super Bowl weekend. John, it was a pleasure hosting the Econo Bowl with you for the first time. Do you think they'll invite us back next year?
JOHN: I sincerely hope so. It's written into our contract.
JOHN: But you're going to have to dig me out of the all of the snow we have in the Pacific Northwest.
JIM: You sent me a picture of your son out in front of your place. What happened? An avalanche the snow on top of the roof fell on top of him and trapped him?
JOHN: Yeah. We had to dig him out. It's been pretty heavy snow. It has been snowing for almost a week here in the northwest, so it's been a record snow fall for this particular time of year.
JIM: And I think you've been telling you're changing your philosophical bent from global warming to global cooling.
JOHN: Well, you could always just clock it under global climate change and that keeps everybody happy and doesn't offend anybody. How is that?
JIM: Okay. More climate change coming at the Loeffler household.
JOHN: There we are.
JIM: Listen, on behalf of John and myself, we'd like to thank you for join us here on the Financial Sense Newshour. Until you and I talk again, we hope you have a pleasant weekend. | <urn:uuid:4459cf93-8e05-47af-9a99-aa5952070a47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.financialsensearchive.com/fsn/BP/2008/0202.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978643 | 36,026 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Islam Channel, June 21st, 2008
Adnan Oktar: Yes there is an unnecessary turmoil in the world. The world is quite big. It is enough for whole human nation in order for solving the shelter and the food problems. The only problem is love. I see a world without love. The love has to prevail all around the world as soon as possible. In order to fulfill that having a religious society is essential.
Dem TV, October 9th, 2009
Adnan Oktar: The Darwinists has done the biggest evil to the society by taking the love away from human nation. There is no love in humans' home, everyone's eyes are looking down when seeing each other on the streets. I mean, the otherwise is seldom, everyone is scared of each other, and this lovelessness is everywhere in the world, i mean, lovelessness runs out of their eyes. People walk around with meaningless and flat looks. However, there should have been love, passion, affection, brotherhood, and enthusiasm on their looks, but there is none. See, Darwinism took those away from humans. Now, Mahdi (as) will bring those back to humans, and so will Jesus (as). They will bring the real justice, love, mercy, compassion and affection. | <urn:uuid:c5372948-888a-499f-bf79-8c6f1fe6bb48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harunyahya.com/en/What-he-said-What-happened/27955/Ali-Bardakoglu-The-reason-for-the-problems-is-lovelessness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968751 | 266 | 1.5 | 2 |
There was a time when cheerleaders were as much a part of Friday night high school sports as the team. They would cheer no matter the weather or distance traveled, yelling in support of their school.
These days, at least in western Colorado, the sound of synchronous cheers from the sidelines is rare.
But the cheerleading tradition lives on at Hotchkiss High School, where coach Cristen Chermak demands dedication and hard work from her squad.
Chermak recalls when all four Delta schools had cheerleaders. "Back then it was huge," said Chermak, a 1978 graduate of HHS and a former cheerleader. The student body attended pre-game pep rallies and learned the cheers. A section of bleachers was reserved for the pep squad. At one time the school even took a pep bus to away games.
Today, Hotchkiss is the only high school in Delta County with cheerleaders.
That seems to be the trend. This year, no other cheerleaders attended the 52nd annual Hotchkiss Invitational wrestling tournament, where cheer competitions were once part of the tournament. At the annual Warrior Classic wrestling tournament in December, Hotchkiss was the only school with a cheer squad, and they weren't allowed on the mats to cheer. "It was sad to me," said Chermak, whose girls supported the team from the bleachers.
For Chermak, cheerleading is a tradition that still has a place in school sports. Chermak's younger sister, Lori Reed, was a cheerleader, and so was her mother, Norma Thomas.
But then, high schools didn't offer girls other sports options until her senior year. "You either were a cheerleader or part of the pep club," said Chermak, who started cheering in middle school. "It's a very different dynamic than when I was in school. I'm thrilled we have girls' sports, but it really pulled the rug out from underneath cheerleading."
According to Wikipedia, cheerleading started in the late 1800s, as a man's sport. This year marks the 90th anniversary of women's participation in cheerleading. Today's sport of cheerleading is called "spirit." Overseen by state activities associations, it's become highly competitive and incorporates sophisticated dance steps and gymnastics maneuvers. The Colorado High School Activities Association holds an annual state spirit competition in December. Hotchkiss also has a competitive spirit team. In 2011, they had their best season, placing second in class 3A competition (see full story in the Feb. 8, 2012, edition of the Delta County Independent).
The cheers themselves haven't changed much, said Thomas, a 1958 graduate of HHS. Many of today's cheers have been around for decades. But a few things have changed. Aside from doing the splits and cartwheels, there were no stunts.
In the late 1950s, Hotchkiss wore red and white uniforms made of corduroy, and sole-less moccasins on their feet. She also remembers Paonia's black uniforms with a red Thunderbird. "We had to make our uniforms," recalled Thomas. "Of course, nobody had any money back then."
And cheerleaders had no sponsors, "So we were basically on our own."
Virtually every girl was involved, in one way or another, in pep club. Cheerleader tryouts were held in front of the student body, which voted for its favorites. Cheerleaders rode the team bus to away games.
"All the schools had cheerleaders," said Thomas. Cheer competitions were common at games and meets. Paonia, with its creative, synchronized moves, had one of the best squads. "They were fantastic," she said.
Today, most visiting teams don't bring cheerleaders, said senior Rhiannon Hart, who joined the squad her sophomore year at the urging of friend and cheerleader, Natalee Blazer. While they don't mind being the lone cheer squad, "I think I would like to see more cheerleaders," said Hart. "It would be pretty fun to have cheer competitions."
It's that "We-can-out-cheer-you cheer," said Chermak. "It's so much more fun for them that there can be friendly competition."
The girls know more than 200 cheers, many of them sports-specific, and their accompanying movements. The girls require a basic knowledge of each sport so that they don't shout out an inappropriate cheer. That's a confidence-builder that can help them in school, said Chermak, a substitute teacher for HHS. "If you can remember 200 cheers and all the motions, don't tell me that you can't remember something for a history test."
Hotchkiss hasn't always had cheerleaders. For several years in the 1990s, the program ebbed as more girls began competing in basketball, volleyball, softball, soccer and track. Chermak doesn't begrudge that fact. Her daughters, Mandy and Megan, participate in sports.
After graduating, Chermak married HHS classmate and basketball player Rick Chermak, and they moved away. She returned in the early 1990s to find the program in sad shape. She took over in 1992 and 40 girls showed up for the first meeting. After telling them they would have to toe the line — no chewing gum, no leaning against the wall, standard uniforms — only six showed up for tryouts.
Chermak coached for three years before focusing on raising her daughters. With both daughters in high school, she returned to coaching three years ago. For most of the time in between, interest in cheering again waned. The student body no longer knew the cheers, and pep rallies had been all but forgotten.
But today's program is thriving, although the team is allowed to travel only within the district or to state playoffs. Chermak insists that her cheerleaders remain true to the spirit of the sport and be good ambassadors for the school. They greet visiting teams with a welcome cheer, and go out of their way to make them feel welcome. They've made sandwiches for hungry visiting wrestlers, and this fall bought visiting cheerleaders hot chocolate during a blustery, rainy football playoff game.
"It's not just about supporting teams, but about competition," said Chermak. "We don't go to competitions, mostly because I'm old-school and feel that our job is supporting these teams. That's historically how cheerleading started in the first place.
"Just because we have a competition against each other doesn't mean that we can't be friendly. It's about more than who's going to win or lose."
They cheer for the team, win or lose, said Hart. "It's pretty hard to try to keep people really spirited about it when we're losing, but I think that's what we're supposed to be here for, to help people cheer on our team. We're supposed to support them even when they're losing. That's our job."blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:1def8382-9c65-4856-a09e-a87a11e98909> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deltacountyindependent.com/index.php/news/24-news/back-page/3966-hotchkiss-has-spirit?font-size=larger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984644 | 1,460 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I have a couple elderly male friends who are both widowers and dying of cancer. One has cancer of the liver and the other has advanced rectal/colon cancer. They do not want to talk about it. At this point they would rather not even have contact with others, which is sad. Neither will consider treatment.
There terminal situations have caused me to reflect on our mortality and the shortness of our lives. One thing that came to mind was that the preponderance of men in our society will avoid and evade going to seek professional help when things go wrong with their health. Why the reluctance on the part of men? My dear Mom just drove a couple hundred miles to get her blood work done (about every 3 months) and talk to her physician about her arthritis. She is relatively healthy and is constantly having tests done to nip any problems in the bud before they have a chance to develop. A very proactive attitude I suppose.
So why does it seem that men are more resigned to accept what fate throws at them and not take action?
I did have a recent colonoscopy but only after much bitching from my Mom and wife.
Is my perception correct about the reluctance of men when it comes to getting in the car and actually going to the hospital?
For some, death is preferable to extending one's life with painful and agonizing procedures.
That is so sad. I'm sorry to hear about your friends, Ed.
My Dad isn't that bad about caring for himself, but after a year of reminders, poking, prodding, and polite requests, we had to threaten to tell his mom and brothers in order to get him to have a cancer screening (thankfully it was negative). He routinely forgets to take his medicines too.
Strength is one thing, but when your body finally fails you, what are you holding out for
...I think it has to do with needing to feel independent, self-determined, and stoic.
I agree with AbuMaia, except I would say it is more psychological than cultural. I think that guys want to be the "alpha male" and may think that because they don't seek treatment they are stronger than their competition.
I think this nation has turned into one of hypochondriacs. At the slightest sign of illness, we rush our kids (or ourselves) off to the doctor. For most healthy people, illness is not (or should not be) a reason to see the physician. Our body has an immune system that is capable of combating most things that we encounter. Now that there is a pill for almost every conceivable symptom, we’ve bought into the idea that drugs can and will cure anything. By visiting the doctor, most of us are looking for that easy fix, that magic pill that will make all the problems go away.
I personally only go to the doctor only when there is something I know I am unable to manage by myself. I don’t go for every bump, bruise, sniffle, sneeze, headache, upset stomach, etc. That’s a bit excessive. I have no problem asking for help when I need it, but I’m willing to endure an extra day or two of discomfort to let me body take care of itself.
Is it that men are less willing to go to the doctor to address serious illness, or that we simply appear to be because, perhaps women are more willing to go to the doctor for the slightest reason?
As for the men in your story, if their condition is truly terminal, perhaps they’ve simply accepted their situation knowing that there is nothing medicine can do to cure them.
Obviously people don't in general run to the doctor's office for sneezes and sniffles. I am talking about the guy who has gone a year with that blood in his stools and deep down knows should be looked at by a professional. But they don't. Instead what could of been a correctable condition is often times shrugged off for months on end until the disease/problem is exacerbated to a potentially life ending situation. It makes no sense to me. I am gonna get my butt (no pun intended) to the doc's office. I have but one shot at existence and I wanna stick around a lot longer. :^ )
I suppose it could be cultural, since throughout the majority of human history those who are more masculine are expected to be less dependent (as dependency is thought to be a female characteristic). Are there any cultures that don't have that general inclination?
"I'm alright honey! Bleeding from six holes in the head doesn't hurt, and anyway, I'm not in a coma!"
"Are there any cultures that don't have that general inclination?"
Maybe the French....just kidding.
I had an unfortunate accident when felling a huge tree on my property a couple years ago. The tree bucked backwards off the stump and, while still standing upright, landed on top of my foot. I had to pull with all my strength to get my foot out before the tree went over. Needless to say the weight of a 60 foot oak tree did a number on my foot. But in my stubbornness I would not go the doctor. My reasoning was that there is not a lot the doc can do with a crushed foot. It basically has to heal itself hopefully. It took about 3 months for all the dead blood cells to work it's way out through my toes. That was weird watching my toes turn purple as the blood migrated out from the injury. My refusal to go to the doctor certainly pissed my wife and mother off. But six months later I was back to normal for the most part. I do have a sizable scar on my shin where I had to rip my foot out from under the tree. I am lucky and learnt a valuable lesson about the unpredictability of tree felling.
Is it pride? | <urn:uuid:a5f19d07-d335-4796-97a3-e56c35a86f00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thinkatheist.com/forum/topics/why-are-males-so-reluctant-to-seek-a-doctor-s-help-even-when-they?commentId=1982180%3AComment%3A837649 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979104 | 1,213 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Infants, toddlers join parents for Basehor-Linwood workout classes
Fitness and nutrition classes
• Fun and fitness classes: Feb. 17 and 24 in the Basehor Elementary School gym; “non-walkers” class from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., “walkers” from 10:10 to 10:40 a.m. Open to parents or guardians of children 3 years old or younger, but older siblings can come, too.
• Nutrition classes: Choose My Plate, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Feb. 23; Help for Picky Eaters, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. March 1, both at Basehor Elementary. Includes food samples for parents and children. Open to parents of infants, toddlers or preschool- or elementary-aged children. Daycare provided.
• Sponsored by Basehor-Linwood Parents as Teachers, with a grant from the Kansas Parents as Teachers Association.
Basehor-Linwood Parents as Teachers Fun and Fitness class
Parents brought their infants and toddlers along for a workout class at Basehor Elementary School on Friday morning, sponsored by the Basehor-Linwood Parents as Teachers program.
Jana Deters twisted her torso, shifted her weight from her left leg to her right and back again, and performed squats as her workout leader called out instructions.
As she completed each repetition, she held in her arms a 24-pound weight: her 9-month-old son Colton, who occasionally smiled or giggled.
Deters, of Basehor, was in the gymnasium at Basehor Elementary School Friday morning for the first of three Fun and Fitness workout classes for parents and their infants or toddlers, sponsored by the Basehor-Linwood Parents as Teachers program.
On Friday, Basehor fitness instructor Jen Penegar led a group of women in a dance-themed workout, all the while using a stuffed Elmo doll to demonstrate how they could include their small children. They lifted their babies and toddlers above their heads, held them as they swung their hips and shuffled their feet, or simply let the tots dance or wiggle alongside them when the parents' arms got too tired.
Deters' two children often join her in a stroller when she goes running, she said, but the class Friday opened her eyes to other ways she could include them in her exercise routine.
“I didn't realize I could squat with him,” Deters said of Colton, who was all smiles as his mom swung and dipped him during the class.
The idea behind the classes, Penegar said, is to give parents a chance to work out in a social setting while also setting an example for their children.
“For them to understand exercise is important at a young age,” Penegar said.
Janet Shultz of Basehor said she appreciated the opportunity to learn how to get her 2-year-old daughter Abby involved in a workout.
“Otherwise, it doesn't really happen too much,” Shultz said.
After Friday's workout, the following two Parents as Teachers fitness classes, on the mornings of Feb. 17 and 24, will feature yoga and a more traditional exercise circuit. The groups are funded by a grant from the Kansas Parents as Teachers Association, which will also go toward two evening nutrition classes for parents of young children, Feb. 23 and March 1 at BES.
The first class will focus on the federal “Choose My Plate” diet recommendations, which replaced the old “food pyramid.” The second will offer tips for dealing with picky eaters.
As childhood obesity increases in frequency in the United States, Basehor-Linwood Parents as Teachers coordinator Jacki Himpel said she hoped the programs would encourage healthier diet and exercise habits for families.
With the fitness classes, Penegar said she aimed to convince the young children that exercise can feel like a game. Yoga instructions, for example, might include “stand like a tree” or “look like a goose.”
“We're not going to do 100 jumping jacks,” Penegar said.
Of course, the classes also give parents chances to fit in a workout — an intense one, Michele Grantham said after Friday's session.
“I thought it was going to be a workout for them,” Grantham said of her two young boys, “but it was a workout for me.” | <urn:uuid:7ec92477-6eb7-43ce-a18d-952a08d525c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.basehorinfo.com/news/2012/feb/06/infants-toddlers-join-parents-basehor-linwood-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970051 | 943 | 1.625 | 2 |
A group led by a Maine organic growing organization is filing an appeal of a federal court decision that dismissed its lawsuit against agri-giant Monsanto Corp.
A federal judge last month dismissed a lawsuit brought against Monsanto by the Maine-based Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association that sought to protect farmers against legal challenges from the company. The suit claimed farmers are vulnerable to legal action from Monsanto if their patented seeds are found on a farmer's land without a contract, but contended that many farmers do not intend to have or grow Monsanto patented seeds, and that seeds and pollen from genetically engineered crops can contaminate neighboring fields. OSGATA and 80 agricultural groups filed the suit in March 2011, according to the Portland Press Herald.
The case now goes to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., and could be heard as early as this fall. | <urn:uuid:14502f26-85e7-4b0f-8a06-c864dfec6b10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainebiz.biz/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120329/NEWS0101/120329942/0/POLLARCHIVE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967058 | 180 | 1.585938 | 2 |
This was highly evident in Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman’s exhortation to follow the Psak that 60,000 plus attendees were about to receive from one such Gadol, Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner – also known by his Sefer, Shevet HaLevi. His by now famous Psak was that the Internet is Assur to have in one’s home under any condition. And that even for work it is only permitted with filters. That was followed by his directive that Yeshivos should bar admission to any child whose parents have the interent in their homes for any reason.
This was pretty much the policy of many right wing Yeshivos heretofore. But now it is official. No school who considers itself a card carrying Charedi one can knowingly allow students like that into their schools. Furthermore, I would assume that those who have been in those schools and whose parents refuse to remove the internet from their homes – should be expelled. That is Daas Torah. And it must be followed on penalty of losing your Olam Habah (…at least according to the way Rabbi Wachsman characterized Rabbenu Yona’s Teshuva on such things.)
But is it really Daas Torah just because a Gadol of Rav Wosner’s stature said so? What if he made an honest mistake? Not possible? I am here to tell you that not only is it possible, but that it happened to me.
I had occasion to ask Rav Wosner a Shaila about an issue relating to my father's illness over 20 years ago. His Psak that was surprisingly very Machmir. I walked out in somewhat of a daze - very concerned about telling my father the bad news until it occurred to me that Rav Wosner may have misunderstood my question - perhaps I didn't describe the situation in enough detail. I returned immediately and re-asked it in greater detail. After hearing the more detailed explanation of the circumstances he Paskined very differently - L'Kula.
That episode makes me wonder just how often people receive an erroneous Psak based on their own inadequacy in expressing the Shaila. It also underscores the fact that Askanim can indeed manipulate a Psak out of a Gadol by simply asking the Shaila in a way that will certainly elicit the desired Psak. That may be obvious to everyone by now... but what happened to me is personal evidence to me of that.
It is quite possible that when R' Wosner phoned in his Psak to the Asifa - it was based on an incomplete understanding of what the circumstances in America are for lack of anyone explaining them to him in great detail. This does not mean that Rav Wosner’s level of Torah knowledge is deficient. What it does mean is that he can only Paskin based on the information he is given. The result may then very well be an erroneous Psak. To one who is Chareid L'D'Var HaShem and the recipient of that Psak, it will be the final word. Daas Torah. Not to be contradicted on pain of losing one’s Olam Habah.
Any suggestion like mine that perhaps he was not fully informed will be treated as an affront to the Gadol. How dare anyone say that a Gadol Paskined without being fully informed?! How dare I have the audacity to suggest that a world class Gadol like Rav Wosner would Paskin without knowing all the facts?! And yet it can and does happen, more often than we would like to believe. All you need is a trustworthy person to relate the facts to him and he will tell you what the Psak is based on that.
This happened to Rav Elyashiv. Twice. Once with Rabbi Natan Slifkin and once with Rav Nosson Kaminetsky. Rav Elyashiv Paskined based on information he received from trusted advisers who he knew to be religious Jews dedicated to the welfare of Klal Yisroel. I’m sure they were. But it is certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Rav Elyashiv was misinformed by his advisors because of the way they presented information to him.
Is it the fault of these elderly Gedolim for not doing their own research before they Paskin? One can debate whether it is or not. But the truth is that even the most knowledgeable Poskim will occasionally have to resort to information supplied by others. And once you rely on others, you are at their mercy. And their possible biases. Biases which can affect the Psak.
So I can't really fault them for Paskening without doing their own research given the limited time they have even if they were not elderly.
But what this does tell us in my view is that whatever their Daas Torah is, it may very well not be applicable to the reality of the situation. It is only true that it is applicable to situation as presented.
When a Gadol who lives in one culture is asked to Paskin for another culture that is 7000 miles away and so radically different from his own, it compounds the problem even further. And yet the Charedi world sees the Psak as rock solid. Let the chips fall where they may – Daas Torah has spoken.
What are the repercussions of this? One example can be found in a blog called, Oceans of Joy. The (apparently) Charedi blogger tells the story of her experience in speaking to a principal of the school she thought would be a good fit for her daughter. Here is an excerpt:
To start our conversation, she said, “Tell me, do you have the internet?” To which, naturally, I said, “yes”. (I know, some of you are banging your heads at my idiocy since I’ve repeatedly been told to lie about this question.) I explained to her that my husband works from home using the internet, that I write online, and that our children Skype their grandparents in the US before Shabbos.
I also told her that I had been told I’d have to lie about this for my child to be accepted, and that if my daughter can only be accepted under false pretenses, that it’s not the right fit for us. She appreciated my honesty and then told me that in the past (ie until a couple of weeks ago), they would probably have allowed in a family like us who uses the internet in the way that we do. But now, since a famous rabbi said at the recent asifa that schools aren’t allowed to accept students from homes that have the internet under any condition, they can’t go against the ruling of the leading rabbis of our generation.
Need I say more?
Is Daas Torah like this so sacrosanct that it denies anyone the right to even question how that Psak came about? When Gedolim are put on too high a pedestal they are seen as infallible regardless of their claims to the contrary. Honoring them requires never questioning a Psak… or the circumstances in which it is obtained. Thus their pronouncements have the effect of being inviolable.
So we end up in a situation where there are two realities. One is the reality of unquestioned institutional fealty to the Psak of a Gadol. And the other is the reality that many of the people the Psak is aimed at ignore it… and in many cases lie about it to those institutions. | <urn:uuid:3ea3702e-2e4e-4eb5-ae18-b6d43bdc8fa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haemtza.blogspot.com/2012/05/daas-torah-and-mistakes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979879 | 1,578 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The anti-choice politicians of Wisconsin has decided to take a proactive approach to restricting abortion, proposing to ban telemed abortions in the state, despite the fact that no physicians or clinics even provide them.
Via the Daily Cardinal:
Wisconsin Right to Life Legislative Director Sue Armacost said she recognized the bill would not stop RU-486 from being distributed, but would require the physician who is prescribing it to give the patient a physical exam in person.
But Lisa Subeck, executive director of National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League Pro-Choice Wisconsin said women receive the same medical care during a telemedicine chemical abortion as they would in any other situation.
“Wisconsin Right to Life would like to portray … some concept where you go into a video booth at a local shopping mall,” Subeck said. “We are talking about physicians providing medical care.”
Wisconsin Right to Life and Pro-Life Wisconsin have been especially active in the state since the election of Republican Governor Scott Walker and the takeover of the House and Senate by the Republican party in 2010. Since then, the groups and legislature have worked together to dismantle many programs that provide access to birth control, STI treatments and comprehensive sex education throughout the state. | <urn:uuid:eae2d0e9-6bb9-4770-a42d-672e9b5445f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/12/13/wisconsin-looks-to-block-telemed-abortions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960779 | 255 | 1.757813 | 2 |
It’s not a stretch from talking about Bing to talking about how content is king. In the old publishing world, editors and reporters and some occasional expert guest columnist would be the sole source of your news. Today, content is still king, but it’s ever more likely you’ll be exposed to the flavor of user-generated content, with a premium on “citizen journalism.” You’ve got to spend two bucks and download the new CNN iPhone app right away (of course, you might have to spend two hundred bucks for the phone itself). Not only is it really the best news app on any mobile platform, elegantly done and packed with ways to personalize the experience. But they’ve incorporated one the Web publishing phenomenons that I spent some time researching in the past few years – the impact of citizen journalism on how we gather the news. Yes, right there on the main dock is an “i” icon – standing for the “I report” and making it incredibly easy for CNN viewers to send up their own reports and photos and videos of what’s happening right now. Wow! Talk about a way to be first with breaking news. | <urn:uuid:f41a8950-b28c-4b8d-9bde-f6fea618bf28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alanbergstein.com/category/abs-blog/ | 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 | 0.94565 | 249 | 1.585938 | 2 |
On a positive note, I have accomplished a lot this morning! So, why not share, right?!
First thing I did was make numbers to go around my clock at school. Our campus is closed today, so just imagine a clock in the middle. I'm just hoping (with my fingers crossed) that they fit around the clock nicely. If not, it will be an easy fix! Here's where I got my inspiration! Check below to download a copy for yourself!
Next up, I started on my clipboard bucket. I took the container that I used for my hubby's bday presents and transformed it for my classroom (When I purchased it I had every intention of scrubbing "happy bday" off so that I could use it for my classroom haha!)
Here's how I made it (seriously, easy as pie!)
*I found a font that I liked and pulled it up on my computer. I just eyeballed it, and tried to copy to the best of my ability! I don't have time to trace and whatnot! I wrote it with a thick sharpie marker.
*Using a "galaxy marker" (pretty much a paint-like marker) I drew circles. You can see that they aren't perfect!
*I cut some left over ribbon and tied it to the handles!
SO SIMPLE! Yet, so cute!
And, my last project:
In my class, my hall passes are clothespins that the students just clip onto their collar (we have uniforms, so they always have a collar on). This really helps keep the hall pass from being left in the bathroom... also germy, unwashed hands aren't touching it after they use the restroom!
For the life of me, I can't find a single clothespin in my house to add to my hall pass sign. When I take it to my classroom I'll snap a pic of the sign with my clothespins!
Here are the materials I used (everything is from Hobby Lobby):
I made several signs, but the others are gifts that I haven't passed out yet (That's where the fish and other paint colors came in). As soon as I have gifted them, I will post pics of those signs also! I got my inspiration from here... and their signs are much cuter than the ones I made, but oh well!
Here's how I made the signs:
*I painted a base coat on the wood with acrylic paint and a foam brush. I continued with the coats of paint until it looked nice.
*Using a cup, I traced circles on with a pencil. I did full and half circles.
*Using a foam brush, I painted in the circles with another color.
*Using a black paint marker, I traced the circles to clean up all my messy edges!
*I used a white paint marker to draw little dots around the circles.
*Next, I free-handed the letters with the white marker. I had every intention of keeping the letters white, but it wasn't bold enough, so I went over them with the black paint pen.
*I cut metal wire and hot glued it to the back to make the handle.
*Tie a ribbon around the handle, and you're done (well, I did go over the paint pen a couple of times until it looked nice)
Totally forgot to mention that you can use a thick sharpie to do the letters IF your paint is completely dry!
Now that I have turned my kitchen into my "craft table" I have a big mess to clean up! I'll be busy with that for the next couple of hours! | <urn:uuid:357c4e15-e2cc-4aac-ac25-d916cdae4560> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/2011/07/getting-crafty.html?showComment=1312066676118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973724 | 753 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Why long-term investing still works
You can't just park your money and forget it. You need an active risk-management strategy.
By Dave Moening
It is probably a safe assumption that most people invest in the stock market with a goal of creating wealth over time. And I'm guessing a fair number of people -- especially those seeking investment guidance on the Internet -- would prefer to get rich sooner rather than later.
This is not meant in a derogatory manner. I'm simply suggesting that most investors likely have an investment time frame of 10 to 15 years as opposed to 40 or 50 years. As such, those looking for their portfolios to work within 10 to 15 years don't necessarily have time on their side.
This is not to say that investors can't "get rich quick" these days. Despite the relatively crummy performance of the stock market over the past 12 years, there have been opportunities for profit. The question is whether average investors are up for the task.
Until recently, the mutual fund industry has schooled the investing public to invest for the long term. The simple pitch to investors was to park your money in a good fund such as Fidelity Contrafund (FCNTX) or American Funds Growth Fund of America (AGTHX). Those promoting the approach had history on their side, as they could say with certainty that the stock market had experienced only two negative 10-year periods in the past century. In addition, investors with patience would be rewarded in the long run, as the stock market had never been a loser over a rolling 20-year period.
Then the calendar changed. Since the beginning of 2000, things have not been so pleasant for investors. During the first 10 years of the new century, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) saw double-digit declines four times (10.14% in 2000, 13.04% in 2001, 23.37% in 2002, and 38.49% in 2008). As a result, the rolling 10-year period that began in 2000 saw a net decline of 24.12%. And as of the end of September, the S&P 500 cash index still sports a cumulative loss for the new century.
Those growth funds that were all the rage in the 1990s have actually fared worse. Lipper's Large-Cap Growth Fund Index has produced a cumulative return of minus 17.38% since Jan. 1, 2000. Thus, after 12.75 years, investors in the growth fund index will need a gain of 21.03% from here in order to break even. Ouch.
As such, I believe that investors are now "long term" as long as they are making money. And if they begin to lose money, the fund inflow and outflow data suggest that the investing public is not shy about cutting and running these days.
The problem here is that the public was sold on the wrong idea. Long-term investing still works -- just not the way the mutual fund industry pitched it to everyone. You see, the fund industry wanted you to put your money in their funds and leave it there -- forever. And because of the secular bull market in stocks between 1982 and 2000, most people bought in.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that the concept of managing risk was all but dead by the time the middle of the 1990s rolled around. The "crash of '87" was a distant memory and all ensuing market declines had been quickly erased as the market marched merrily higher. And those of us that focused on risk management? Well, we were publicly scoffed at.
However, what we now call "active risk management" (something that was once referred to as "market timing" -- you know, the old idea of "buy low and sell high") never stopped working and continues to perform well today.
An "active risk management strategy" -- where one moves in and out based on the overall market environment -- tends to perform pretty darn well over the long term. Thus, investing for the long term can and does indeed still work well -- and yes, one can still "get rich quick" (over a 10-year period) -- if you are utilizing an approach designed to function in both secular bull and secular bear market cycles.
But there's a catch. Employing such tactics requires some expertise, some effort and, most importantly, a healthy dose of determination. Although the market has been a rough lately, I can continue to implement my active risk management systems because I know that regardless of how recent trades have turned out, in the long run, I will get the vast majority of market calls right and stay on the right side of the really important trends. However, most investors tend to give up on a strategy if it struggles for even a month or two. They quit before they get their answer.
I can point to a handful of active-management strategies that have produced returns of at least 20% per year for a very long time. However, most investors don't have the internal fortitude to implement such strategies over the long haul. Here's why: The bottom line is that all investment strategies stumble from time to time. And when they do, most investors give up.
The problem is that these investment strategies aren't like bank accounts -- you don't earn interest day in and day out. Any strategy capable of producing big rewards isn't going to be easy to live with at times. Not all trades will be winners and there will be losing trades and drawdowns. During these difficult periods, many investors give up. And this is the reason one of my oldest friends in the business is famous for saying "the average investor doesn't have the patience to get rich quick."
So if you are indeed looking to "get rich quick" (that is, over the next 10 years), my advice is to find a system that (a) works well most of the time (b) you can thoroughly understand and can live with during good times and bad, and then (c) stick with it -- yes, even when the going gets tough.
Positions in stocks mentioned: SPY
For more on the State of the Markets, visit www.StateoftheMarkets.com.
Although everyone can point to good investments or the homeruns they have hit....
Few want to admit when they have had some terrible failures...
Whether it's at a Casino, Wall St. investments, or a bad Real Estate purchase.
Some may find investing rewarding, others should probably search out safer places to put their money.?
I believe if a person is going to invest in the Stock Markets...They have fairly good knowledge how their money would be used...Even if they do not do it themselves..They have to have someone they can count on and TRUST.....Many people probably spend more time, buying a new car, then research where to put a 500 thousand investment portfolio, or who to entrust it with.
It can make all the difference in the world or a good or bad experience.
Buy and hold may not be dead, but any or all investments demand being pro-active...
I expect all the research and buy-sell activity to be HANDLED by the mutual fund people. that's what their fee is for in my mind. they are PAID to handle my cash.
if mutual fund managers can not do this, and if i/we do not have the where withall to do this, then we are screwed for any retirement savings.
Cash flow is king and will be a huge part of future retirement planning. As it stands now, if you have a million bucks at retirement and you put that in CDs or treasuries, you're looking at about $25k interest income per year after taxes - not a very princely sum for being a millionaire, especially when you see the prices of food and energy going through the roof.
Instead of spending your working years throwing money into the stock market, you'd be better off creating several different revenue streams that will generate net monthly cash flow throughout your retirement - real estate, silent partnerships, tax-friendly annuities, private-equity investments, etc... are just a few viable options.
People forget what a great tool the stock market is.In August 1982 the dow was at 777.It`s
up like 1600% before dividens added.It was at 8158 when Obama took office.If you listened to
to guy on the street or Fox news you`d think it was down 80%.
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Follow us on Twitter @topstocksmsn. | <urn:uuid:7e6f099b-3b99-4b04-8243-d9e4a9239e7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=77980846-e095-4bb8-bb3d-d19fe7f07a19&ref=bfv | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962149 | 1,979 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011, file photo, the Kindle Fire is shown at a news conference, in New York. Wal-Mart Stores stores will be phasing out selling Amazon.com’s Kindle tablet and e-readers, the world’s largest retailer said Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans’ news habits are on the move.
Half of all adult Americans now own either a tablet computer or a smartphone, and one-third use their mobile devices to view news stories and video clips at least once a week.
That’s according to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which polled more than 9,500 adults from late June to early August.
The findings have “major implications for how news will be consumed and paid for,” says Pew. About 20 percent of the mobile news users surveyed said they paid for an online subscription in the last year.
But mobile viewing doesn’t necessarily mean that people are cutting back on viewing news on PCs or in newspapers. About half of the tablet news users that Pew surveyed say their tablets spur them to spend more time consuming news, and about one-third say they get news from new sources they didn’t use before. Nearly one-third of the mobile users also have print-only subscriptions, and most have no plans to give them up.
Devices based on Google Inc.’s Android platform are gaining momentum. Pew found that just over half of tablet owners reported owning Apple’s iPad, compared with 81 percent a year ago. Forty-eight percent now own an Android-based device, including Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire. | <urn:uuid:99ae9a2f-7f46-44d2-b5c2-9455eabe5085> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macombdaily.com/article/20121001/LIFE01/121009985&template=printart | 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 | 0.931806 | 371 | 1.703125 | 2 |
CNN — All you might feel is someone brush by you and a slight pin prick. But very quickly you would be suffering muscle paralysis followed by suffocation. You would be dead within a very short period of time.
This is the deadly effect of just one of the weapons found on a failed North Korean assassin last year on the busy streets of Seoul, now shown exclusively to CNN.
Disguised to look like a Parker ballpoint pen, it contains a poison needle and is practically impossible to identify as a weapon.
The second pen shoots a poison-filled bullet which penetrates the skin and releases the toxin and the third weapon is a flashlight, loaded with up to three bullets. They all look completely innocuous but all three will kill.
An individual willing to be identified only as an "investigation official" showed CNN the weapons, pointing out the flashlight as the most significant find. "This flashlight is new," the man familiar with North Korean assassination devices said.
"I've never seen this weapon. If you look at the front, there are three holes, there was a bullet in each hole and here is the trigger. This is currently loaded and dangerous, two bullets remain."
The third bullet had been fired by investigation authorities to test the weapon. It was accurate and deadly. The would-be assassin who was carrying these devices was arrested on his way to kill his target.
That target was anti-North Korea activist, Park Sang-hak, who has since been given round-the-clock police protection by South Korean authorities. We showed Park the footage of the weapons intended for him. He was shocked.
"You'd notice a gun, but these weapons are so innocuous, you can easily kill someone, I'd be dead immediately."
Park says he will continue to send anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border in balloons, a practice which has angered the regime, sparking threats of military retaliation. He was aware he was at the top of North Korea's hit list.
Park had been in contact with the would-be assassin, named only as Ahn, as Ahn had expressed interest in funding his activism. He was on his way to meet him when the National Intelligence Service intervened and stopped him. It was at that meeting Ahn was believed to have planned to kill Park, according to South Korean authorities. Ahn was convicted in April and sentenced to four years in prison.
"I didn't believe they'd try and kill me on the crowded streets of Seoul, I thought the NIS was over-reacting," Park said.
He now knows they saved his life but is also convinced that it will not be the last attempt on his life.
™ & © 2012 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:dc4f869a-cf79-4e47-b4be-edc53bedd0de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kmsstv.com/news/poison-pen-mightier-sword-would-be-north-korean-assassin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985613 | 567 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Sunscreeen lotion, which is of crucial importance in the lives of persons with albinism (PWAs) will soon be made in Tanzania.
The dream will come true after Under The Same Sun (UTSS) and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre’s (KCMC) Regional Dermatology Training Centre (RDTC) sign an agreement under which UTSS will support the construction of an albino comprehensive care unit to be built at the KCMC premises in Moshi municipality.
UTSS Tanzania Executive Director Vicky Ntetema broke the good news at Ilulu Stadium in Lindi at the weekend when briefing National Assembly Speaker Anne Makinda on her organisation’s activities. The latter was inspecting the UTSS stall at the climax of celebrations to mark the seventh Tanzania Albino Day.
Ntetema said the construction of the plant would be a huge relief to PWAs, who are vulnerable to skin cancer owing to their lack of melanin - the natural colour that protects the skin against ultra violet sunrays.
The least expensive imported sunscreen lotion sells at roundabout $30 (47,400/-) per bottle and lasts for no longer than one month.
“There is under RDTC something known as Comprehensive Albino Care Programme, which has been professionally producing sunscreen lotion from a container laboratory for two years now on a pilot basis,” said Ntetema, adding: “The compound was produced using Sun Protection Factor (SPF) 30+ and SPF 40+.”
“The plant to be built within RDTC will be operated jointly with UTSS and will be multifunctional in the sense that it will have two main operational areas, including a laboratory for the production of sunscreen lotion,” she told the Speaker.
The UTSS official also revealed that Mafalda Soto, a Spanish volunteer in-charge of the compounding unit in Moshi, had confirmed that the laboratory would offer training in the “photo-protection” and “compounding” of sunscreen lotions.
There would also be tailoring training unit where women with albinism would make protective hats and clothes for distribution to those eligible as part of outreach activities.
She added that more than USD 135,000 (about 213 million/-) would go into the construction of a much bigger albino comprehensive care unit to be shared by UTSS and RDTC.
“Under the collaboration agreement expected to be signed later this month, UTSS and RDTC will be much better to offer medical support to persons with albinism, create employment mainly to persons with the genetic condition and help them access compounding training,” elaborated Ntetema.
She said the aim was to empower PWAs with professional training “so that they themselves can run the sunscreen production plant in future”, adding that the ideas was to have free high quality sun-blocks given to PWAs across the country.
“When RDTC solicited UTSS support to help it improve, expand and diversify its activities and to cater for more persons with albinism, UTSS founder and CEO Peter Ash made a tour of the existing compounding unit,” explained Ntetema.
“We were elated and inspired seeing UTSS seek to join hands with the RDTC in order to strengthen and expand the services given to PWAs in Kilimanjaro Region and other parts of the country,” Soto once noted.
This year’s celebrations, which were held here at national level, included an exhibition showcasing a wide variety of handicrafts made by PWA.
The event’s organisers, the Health and Social Welfare ministry and the Tanzania Albino Society, said the exhibition was proof that PWAs also “have talents and can creatively contribute to the country’s social and economic development if given opportunity to do so.
The theme for this year’s celebrations was: “The principle of human rights is equality!”
Meanwhile, the UTSS team which was in Mtwara made a public screening of the ‘White and Black: Crimes of Colour’ documentary at the Tanzania Teachers’ College (Kawaida). More than 200 students and lecturers from Saint Augustine University of Tanzania (Mtwara), Tanzania Public Service College (Mtwara) and Tanzania Teachers’ College (Ufundi) watched the film and took part in a participatory seminar led by UTSS Operations Manager Gamaliel Mboya and IK Ero, Research and Advocacy Officer from the organisation’s headquarters in Canada – both of them PWAs.
Participants were surprised to learn that the two, both of them PWAs, were university graduates and that in fact Ero held two masters’ degrees. They were also exposed to the truth about genetic conditions, including the various types of albinism – and that ocular albinism was common in men only.
The total number of people who watched the documentary in Lindi was 740. It was screened at the Sokoine Lindi Regional Hospital for doctors, nurses, other medical students and at the Y2K Hall in the town centre for the larger public.
However, a downpour denied hundreds of other residents of the municipality from watching the documentary at Lindi’s Ilulu Stadium. | <urn:uuid:0a7785d4-d3fb-4bc8-9096-ccd70156f56f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php/oi.poc/wwwaripoti.coatopenx/pl/javascript/?l=41358 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961976 | 1,125 | 1.765625 | 2 |
|Click 'Play' to watch video.|
The following is a transcript of the Jan. 5, 2012, edition of the WaterWorld Weekly Newscast.
Hi, I'm Angela Godwin, digital media editor for WaterWorld magazine, bringing you this week's water and wastewater news headlines. Coming up...
• South Bend to reduce CSOs under new consent decree
• Wastewater well shut down after quakes
• Ski association to file suit over water rights
• Pump maker announces name change
• Typhoid outbreak tied to sewer pipe vandalism
The City of South Bend, Indiana, has agreed to make an estimated $509.5 million worth of improvements to its combined sewer system that will significantly reduce overflows of raw sewage to the St. Joseph River, a tributary of Lake Michigan.
Currently, South Bend discharges over 2 billion gallons of untreated sewage into the St. Joseph River during 80 events annually.
After implementing the improvements required under the settlement, the number of raw sewage discharge events will be reduced by 95 percent to only four during a typical year of rainfall. This will prevent an estimated 700,000 pounds of pollutants from entering the St. Joseph River each year.
The settlement also requires South Bend to pay a civil penalty of $88,200.
A series of earthquakes in northeast Ohio -- culminating with a 4.0 quake on New Year's Eve -- prompted officials to shut down a 1.7-mile-deep wastewater disposal well that was linked to the tremors.
Seismologists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory believe the well is responsible for eleven minor Youngstown area earthquakes over the past year.
Thousands of gallons of drilling wastewater were injected into the disposal well daily since it was opened in 2010.
Officials believe that enough pressure had built up in the well, which was located near a fault line, to cause seismic activity.
Researchers are continuing to study the quakes but say tremors could continue despite the shut down of the well.
The National Ski Area Association, a leading ski industry trade group, said it plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service over a new permit clause gives the federal government water rights at resorts on federal land.
NSAA says the clause takes tens of millions of dollars in private water rights away from ski resorts, and also raises uncertainty as there's no guarantee the Forest Service would continue to use the water for purposes of ski area business.
The Forest Service maintains that the clause protects the viability of ski areas in the long term by keeping resources tied to the land as opposed to the operator.
A Forest Service representative said the new clause isn't finalized and that the agency intends to work with permit holders going forward.
Godwin Pumps, makers of the Dri-Prime automatic self-priming, dry-running pump, announced that, as of January 1st, it has a new name: Xylem Dewatering Solutions Inc.
President of Xylem Dewatering Solutions Michel Bakhos said the name change reflects the company's efforts to provide customers a broader product range, value-added services, and integrated solutions from a growing branch footprint.
The company said that Godwin will remain the brand name for the Dri-Prime series of pumps.
In international news...
An outbreak of waterborne typhoid in Mufulira, Zambia, that has sickened more than 1,200 people has been linked to an act of vandalism.
An investigation by the Mulonga Water and Sewerage Company found that illegally tapped sewer pipes leaked untreated sewage into nearby water distribution lines, contaminating drinking water.
Farmers were reportedly using the raw sewage to irrigate crops.
The water utility company is reportedly working on both long and short-term solutions. Chlorination points have been set up along the distribution lines and the utility is frequently monitoring water quality.
Fortunately, at this time, no typhoid-related deaths have been reported.
For WaterWorld magazine, I'm Angela Godwin. Thanks for watching. | <urn:uuid:74a6b140-a429-4a0b-94fa-c5ba628b6059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2012/01/waterworld-weekly-newscast-jan-5-2012.html | 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 | 0.946159 | 830 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Double Jeopardy3:21 pm - 08/03/2012
In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time for them.
In May 2009, a wealthy 20-year-old was drag racing through the city streets of Hangzhou, China, when his Mitsubishi struck and killed a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The car was traveling so fast that the victim—a 25-year-old telecom engineer of a modest, rural background—was flung at least 20 yards. Afterward, bystanders and reporters photographed the driver, Hu Bin, as well as his rich friends, who nonchalantly smoked cigarettes and laughed while waiting for the police to arrive at the scene.
These images, soon posted online, provoked a public outcry. Anger over the callous behavior of these wealthy Chinese youths was followed by accusations of a police cover-up. First, the local authorities admitted that they had underestimated the speed Hu’s vehicle was traveling by half. (Incredibly, the police had first suggested that Hu was going no more than 43 mph.) Public furor rose again when Hu received a three-year prison sentence, an exceptionally light punishment in a country where drunk drivers guilty of similar accidents can receive the death penalty.
But the most stunning allegation was that the man appearing in court and serving the three-year sentence wasn’t Hu at all, but a hired body double.
The charge isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. The practice of hiring “body doubles” or “stand-ins” is well-documented by official Chinese media. In 2009, a hospital president who caused a deadly traffic accident hired an employee’s father to “confess” and serve as his stand-in. A company chairman is currently charged with allegedly arranging criminal substitutes for the executives of two other companies. In another case, after hitting and killing a motorcyclist, a man driving without a license hired a substitute for roughly $8,000. The owner of a demolition company that illegally demolished a home earlier this year hired a destitute man, who made his living scavenging in the rubble of razed homes, and promised him $31 for each day the “body double” spent in jail. In China, the practice is so common that there is even a term for it: ding zui. Ding means “substitute,” and zui means “crime”; in other words, “substitute criminal.”
The ability to hire so-called substitute criminals is just one way in which China’s extreme upper crust are able to live by their own set of rules. While Occupy Wall Street grabbed attention for its attacks on the “1 percent,” in China, a much smaller fraction of the country controls an even greater amount of wealth. The top one-tenth of 1 percent in China controls close to half of the country’s riches. The children and relatives of China’s rulers, many of whom grew up together, form a thicket of mutually beneficial relationships, with many able to enrich themselves financially and, if necessary, gain protection from criminal allegations.
Full article at Slate | <urn:uuid:50149b2d-2691-4a64-9c57-815e06b69c84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ontd-political.livejournal.com/9897753.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970037 | 665 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Russian opposition activist Sergei Udaltsov has declared a hunger strike, after being sentenced to 10 days in prison for defying police during a demonstration against Vladimir Putin's presidential re-election.
Udaltsov, who leads Russia's Left Front movement, said Thursday the hunger strike was to protest the sentence.
Udaltsov has played a key role in organizing a series of opposition protests in Moscow against Mr. Putin's rule. He has been detained several times in the past few years in connection with similar charges.
In a separate case Thursday, businessman Alexei Kozlov was sent back to jail after a retrial of a controversial fraud case. Kozlov was sentenced to five years in jail and was immediately placed under arrest. He had already served three years in jail.
Kozlov's wife is a leading activist in the protest movement, and supporters say his sentence is related to her political activity.
Mr. Putin, who has been prime minister since relinquishing the presidency in 2008, won the March 4 presidential election by a landslide. He will be sworn in for a third term as president on May 7. | <urn:uuid:cb4eaa90-706c-447e-a0da-115ee7692555> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/anti-putin-activist-announces-hunger-strike-to-protest-jail-sentence-142827495/179688.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989696 | 227 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Linda Gregory found joy in becoming a foster parent, and purpose in helping families like hers. Gregory and her husband became foster parents to little Eddie when he was just 10 months old.
Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans make up less than 10-percent of the college graduates working in the fields of science and technology. This week’s Jefferson Award winner is working to change those numbers, and in the process is inspiring a new generation of scientists.
The mayor of San Francisco is heading to Baltimore for a day of community service in honor of the Ravens’ victory over the 49ers in the Super Bowl.
Some call this Jefferson Award winner “Wonder Woman” – not because she leaps tall buildings, but because she builds them as homes for veterans.
An East Bay cancer survivor has turned his own diagnosis into an effort to heal others. A golf tournament he created has raised more than $1 million in the fight against the disease.
A simple thrift store in Danville has become a community mainstay. The mission behind the market has earned the store’s founder a Jefferson Award.
History of the Awards In 1972, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Senator Robert Taft, Jr. and Sam Beard founded the American Institute for Public Service, a 501c3 public foundation, to establish a Nobel Prize for public […]
They meet weekly at the Palo Alto High School track to run a boot camp. And like most group leaders, Anabel Stenzel and her sister Isabel Stenzel Byrnes set goals.
Hundreds of Bay Area girls are using their summer vacation to pick up some technical training. It’s a project created by this week’s Jefferson Award winner – a bioengineer who’d like to see more women of color join her in the field.
Several Bay Area community projects will get some help in their efforts to serve their elderly neighbors thanks to $10,000 in grants awarded by Coming of Age Bay Area. | <urn:uuid:6a410724-8e22-48c7-861c-aae4a32f9d16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/tag/community-service/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955696 | 409 | 1.625 | 2 |
When I read this, I was intrigued. Was one of the founders of my university an atheist? Could it be that I had worked for over two decades in an institution founded by a kindred soul? That would be pretty neat, if true. But if so, why would that be highlighted in this weird way? To understand this, one has to delve a little bit into my university’s somewhat complicated history.
Case Western Reserve University got its strange name from the fact that in 1967 it was created out of the merger of two separate institutions, the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University. The admissions office says that when they go around the country recruiting, they sometimes hear from high school students and guidance counselors that they had heard of us but assumed from the name that we were one of the military academies.
The original Case School of Applied Science was named after is founder Leonard Case Jr, a philanthropist who wanted to create a polytechnic that would train people in science and engineering and he donated the money that led to its founding in 1880 just after its death. Located initially in downtown Cleveland in the family home, it moved to its current location on the east side of Cleveland in the area now known as University Circle 1885. It changed its name to Case Institute of Technology in 1947.
The other half of the union Western Reserve University was founded in 1826 as Western Reserve College in the small town of Hudson, 30 miles southeast of Cleveland, and got its name from the fact Western Reserve was what this region of the country was called when it belonged to Connecticut before Ohio became a state in 1803. It moved to its present location in 1882 with funding from a rich industrialist Amasa Stone.
In some ways, the union of the two academic institutions was a perfect match that should have gone very smoothly because the two institutions complemented each other, with Case being focused on science and engineering while WRU had liberal arts and the professional schools. The two campuses also adjoined one another so the union immediately created one contiguous campus and they had jointly purchased land and collaborated in other ways before.
But it turned out that the marriage was an unhappy one for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, with the faculty and alumni not getting along at all and it is only now, as all those who were there from the time when they were two separate institutions are slowly dying off, that the sense of being one university is taking hold. But down the ages there have been certain legends that grew around the animosity. One concerns the Amasa Stone Chapel that was built in 1911 by WRU and now sits at the center of the university and is the location of the infamous gargoyle and the allegations of atheism against Leonard Case.
To get to the bottom of this, I consulted a colleague of mine who serves as the unofficial university historian and he set the record straight. This what he wrote:
Leonard Case was not an atheist. He was a Presbyterian, a member of the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church (now “The Old Stone Church” on Public Square). The prevailing mythology at WRU was that he was an atheist, however, both because his gift founded a non-traditional (i.e., technological) school and because he was often in battles with Amasa Stone, the surly benefactor of WRU and father of Flora Stone Mather.
So Case was mistakenly thought to be an atheist because he created a secular university that was focused on science and technology and not based on religion and did not have a church affiliation as was the common practice in those days.
So if he was not an atheist, then what’s the deal with the gargoyle? The newspaper article went on to say that the gargoyle had a more benign explanation, and reflected a common architectural practice of those times. “Architect Henry Vaughan based his design on English medieval churches, where it was common to place a gargoyle on the dark (west) side of the building.” But it is also possible that the ‘surly’ Stone’s heirs instructed the architect to put the gargoyle as a permanent symbol of their father’s dislike of Case.
It is interesting how these legends arise and how the label of atheist is so often used as a form of denigration. | <urn:uuid:85be0440-00a8-48a9-b971-2fe0991484a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2013/01/16/was-one-of-my-universitys-founders-an-atheist/?wpmp_switcher=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987529 | 878 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Our Libyan Ambassador, two retired Navy SEALS, and a computer expert were brutally murdered by Islamist rioters at the U.S. Libyan Consulate. The Libyan attack and scores of others at American embassies on 9/11/2012 were coordinated and carried out by Islamist terrorists and enabled by those countries leadership hosting our U.S. embassies. The Islamic terrorists objectives were to send America a signal that 9/11 is not over.
Hillary Clinton Blames a Movie Not The Terrorists
Our Islamist adversaries were very clever using the film, Innocence of Muslims, as a false flag to distract the American public from the main objective of the 9/11/12 coordinated embassy attacks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found it politically more expedient blaming a movie for the Muslim rioting, rather than The Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Salafists, etc…
Politics On The Ground
President Obama’s Middle East foreign policy objective was to throw out the brutal Western colonial dictators like Mubarak, Qadaffi, Assad, etc. and replace them with…we don’t know just yet except for Egypt. The Egyptian people ousted Hosni Mubarak for Mohammad Morsi and The Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammad Morsi allowed for our embassy to be overrun by The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supported terrorists. Morsi allowed for the American Flag flying over our embassy to be torn down, desecrated, and burned. Mohammad Morsi allowed his MB terrorists and friends to hoist the Black Flag of Jihad over our Egyptian embassy.
In normal times these coordinated violent military operations against our embassies in Egypt and Libya, would be considered an act of war against the United States of America. However, President Obama will not declare war on the Islamist regimes he backed – that would be a sign of failure and could cost him his reelection. President Obama’s new Islamist allies in the Middle East and North Africa needed him to help get them in power. Now that these Middle Eastern Islamists are in power they have limited use for the infidel United States of America and President Obama.
Whose To Blame?
The full responsibility for the protection of our foreign embassies falls, by law, on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directly and her boss President Obama.
USLegal.com explains, “Generally, embassies are considered as an extension of the home country’s territory…The embassy premises and the staff are protected under the concept of diplomatic immunity by the host country.” Any attack on a United States Embassy or Consulate is considered a direct attack on the United States of America, and considered an act of war. Those foreign countries who allow our Embassies and Consulates in their countries agree to provide security to those said embassies and consulates. Foreign diplomacy has operated under these rules since the first American embassy was established in Tangier in 1777.
22 USC § 4865 – Security requirement for United States diplomatic facilities falls squarely on the shoulders of Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State. Section (a)(1)(B) states,
(B) Security Environment Threat List The Security Environment Threat List shall contain a section that addresses potential acts of international terrorism against United States diplomatic facilities based on threat identification criteria that emphasize the threat of transnational terrorism and include the local security environment, host government support, and other relevant factors such as cultural realities. Such plan shall be reviewed and updated every six months.
United State Code, 22 USC 4865 says Hillary Clinton’s authority under section (a)(1)(B) is not delegable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is ultimately responsible for the security environment at the Benghazi U.S. Consulate that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.
Secretary of State Clinton owes our country an explanation why the American Consulate in Benghazi Libya had NO marine guard, bulletproof glass, reinforced doors, safe rooms, and why many intelligence estimates went unheeded foreshadowing the possibility of protests or riots at the Benghazi facility on 9/11/2012.
On 9/13/12 CNN Secretary of State Clinton made some disturbing statements to Moroccan officials in Washington illustrating a profound lack of knowledge of our Islamist enemies who perpetrated these attacks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said,
“To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible,” Clinton said at a meeting with Moroccan officials in Washington. “It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose to denigrate a great religion and provoke rage. But as we said yesterday, there is no justification — none at all — for responding to this video with violence.” Hillary Clinton
The Video False Flag
The video in question is Innocence of Muslims
The video was first released over 3 months ago and nobody went Jihad. So why did it resurface on 9/11/12? In order to have a successful attack one must agitate the Muslim masses. The Imams and terrorist groups all over the Middle East started talking up this American made movie ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, in violation of Shariah blasphemy laws. Most every Middle Eastern Muslim is aware of Islamic blasphemy laws. If a Muslim or non-Muslim accidentally or with intent insults Islam or Muhammad, he or she could be killed under Shariah Islamiyya laws.
9/11/2012 A Coordinated Attack
The coordinated attacks of U.S. embassies on 9/11/12 was successful and the agitated angry followers of Islam took to the streets in 20+ Islamic countries causing mischief, death and mayhem.
Walid Shoebat uncovered in the Egyptian Arabic website Salafi Nour Party an al-Qaeda sympathizer group was linked to the riots. Mr. Shoebat concludes, “With video of Egyptians removing the American flag while carrying the black al-Qaeda flags reminding Americans “we are all al-Qaeda” and on 9/11 inside the Embassy compound is a clear message to remind Americans that 9/11 is not over.” As the black flag of Al-Qaeda flies over the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Tunisia President Obama’s Islamic friends are desecrating our American flag. The black flag of Jihad sitting on top of our Egyptian and Tunisian embassies translates from Arabic to English, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger” signifying an Islamic conquest over the infidel or non believer.
Mohammad Morsi, The Muslim Brotherhood leader of Egypt, graduate of the University of Southern California, has not apologized to the United States for not protecting our embassy. The Muslim Brotherhood, Ansar Al-Shariah and Al-Qaeda have not apologized for killing or aiding and abetting in the killing of four Americans at the Libyan Consulate.
Middle East Cards Come Tumbling Down
President Obama’s Middle East foreign policy has now officially failed. If President Obama should do the bare minimum of withholding U.S. aid to those Islamists he helped install in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, etc… his house of Middle East cards will come tumbling down.
The Ummah Wahida or “One Community” referring to an Islamic world community as written in the Qur’an went out for a successful coordinated test drive on 9/11/2012. Our Islamist adversaries learned they can now coordinate events in the Middle East and North Africa without a Mubarak or Gaddafi brutally killing them and their families or sending them off to prison.
The “Nature” of The Islamic Constitution
American non-Muslims must understand the Qur’an is the Islamic Constitution given to all of mankind by Allah and transmitted directly to their prophet Muhammad via the Archangel Gabriel. Islamic doctrine teaches their Qur’an is the direct word of Allah and not corrupted by man like the Bible and Torah. The Qur’an is the perfect guide for all mankind regardless if you want it or not.
The practical application of this Qur’an is Islamic law or Shariah Islamiyya in Arabic. The followers of Islam believe every word and letter in the Qur’an is directly from Allah and can’t be changed because the doors of Ijtihad were closed over a thousand years ago. Many Muslims would like to open the doors of Ijthad and reform some of the more violent aspects of Shariah Compliant Political Islam but threats of violence and death from their own Muslim brothers and sisters force them into silence and ostracism.
This is the scorpion like “nature” of Shariah compliant Political Islam — at least until brave devout Muslims like Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and Tawfik Hamid can convince Muslims around the world to open the Doors of Ijtihad / Innovation and usher in a new age.
The Pandora’s Box
President Barack Hussein Obama has opened up a Pandora’s box of trouble by accelerating the eventual destabilization of the Middle East and Northern Africa. President Obama has put Israel, our greatest ally in the Middle East, in a very dangerous position while publicly offering no help to the beleaguered nation. The Islamist world teamed up to fight Israel in 1948, 67, and 73. It is only a matter of time before the Islamic world feels emboldened enough to attack Israel again.
President Barack Obama believed he was single handedly qualified to lead the Muslim world into embracing some version of our uniquely American Jeffersonian Democracy. President Carter tried and failed to transform Iran in 1979 when he supported the Islamist Mullahs over our ally The Shah of Iran. 33 short year later, Iran is on the brink of manufacturing nuclear weapons and if successful, will destabilize the world as we know it.
What America Learned on 9/12/12
9/11/2012 was a shot across the bow telling the America people we must wake up and deal with this Arab Spring nightmare President Obama built. The American people must understand that when anyone attacks our U.S. embassies overseas they are disrespecting and humiliating each and every American citizen. From this day forward, when any American travels overseas we are now a high value soft target and better act accordingly. Any American Muslim or Non-Muslim who makes a film telling the truth about Islam; Your free speech has essentially been stolen from you out of fear a violent Shariah blasphemy compliant Muslim will target you.
What The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda Learned on 9/12/12
Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood operatives learned this week they can coordinate operations against American interests in over 20 Muslim countries at any time of their choosing. They learned the Obama Administration’s response to Islamist domination of our embassies was pathetically weak giving them the green light to escalate operations against the United States of America and her western allies. They learned the Obama Administration does not have the stomach to address Islamist terrorism head on. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda supporting groups like MPAC, ISNA, NAIT, ICNA, and CAIR are playing the double game doing damage control condemning the violent tactics but not the Islamist ideology the Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda operate from. The Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda know they won this round and feel emboldened to double down on this 9/11/12 stratagem of war and take it to the Kafir Infidel Americans.
If you ask Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorists in general why they do what they do – they will tell you…It’s our nature.
The Scorpion And The Frog
Aesop’s fable, The Scorpion and the Frog, illustrates the “Obama Doctrine” in the volatile Middle East and North African Muslim countries.
The Scorpion and the Frog
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion
says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”
Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”
God Bless America and God Bless our Troops
Post Script Breaking News from the Long War Journal 9/16/2012
Jihadists assaulted a base in the Egyptian Sinai that is manned by international troops, breached the perimeter, and wounded four soldiers. The attackers reportedly raised al Qaeda’s black banner over the base before exiting the base.
As Yogi Berra said, “It’s deja vu all over again”
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Tennessee wildlife officials say the deer season concluding was a good one that colder weather would have improved even more.
The count stood at about 165,000 on Jan. 4 with two days of the season and a youth hunt on the following weekend remaining. That was about 3,000 more killed than at the same point last season.
Chuck Yoest (YOHST') of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency says when late reports are tallied, the number of deer taken could top 170,000.
Hunter Dave Johnson of Ashland City said the season began well, but it nearly ground to a halt the second week in December when a warm spell and a full moon combined to stop deer movement during the day.
Yoest said TWRA will use biological data from this season to set rules for next year.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:62e0d2b6-4edc-4df0-8197-41701445b376> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.q1075.com/index.php/news/myfox13-local-news/16702-good-deer-season-in-tenn-warm-spell-cut-it-some | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96362 | 196 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Apart from sex, the only realm of human achievement where ignorance and inexperience are widely seen as virtues is politics. Sarah Palin is only the most notorious recent example of the phenomenon; the “vote for me, I have no experience” gambit succeeds with remarkable frequency, which speaks volumes about public attitudes toward the political process and politicians. Politics is seen as a profession in the same sense that prostitution is, practised only by people of highly suspect moral character.
Canadian politicians are no exception, and the merits of this judgment are clearest in this country in the daily disgrace known as question period. To call question period a zoo would be an insult to the relative civility and good temperament of wild animals; one suspects that the occasional parleys between Bloods and Crips in South Central Los Angeles are less partisan and hostile affairs.
There is a tendency to chalk this behaviour up to an excess of familiarity among parliamentarians—the result of too many lifelong MPs going at it hammer and tongs day after day, year after year. The obvious analogue here is the famously entrenched U.S. Congress, which is highly professionalized and yet beset by partisanship and scandal.
Indeed, not so long ago there was a gnawing sense among some Ottawa observers that the incumbency rates in the Commons had reached levels dangerously comparable to those in the U.S. Congress.
And so in 2005, Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe and Mail wrote a sharp column lamenting the steep rise of MPs’ salaries under Jean Chrétien. Canadians, he argued, had become increasingly alienated from the political process, which they saw as the domain of “an increasingly self-perpetuating political class, or caste, with its own vocabulary, rituals, defence mechanisms and, in many instances, rather old ideas.”
Except a new study out this week from the Public Policy Forum suggests just the opposite. Bluntly stated, the report’s conclusions are that the House of Commons is so bad precisely because it is made up (mostly) of men who have little experience and education, lack any institutional memory of how Parliament ought to function, and are widely ignorant of the proper relationship between politicians and the bureaucracy.
The report’s figures are striking. One quarter of Canadian MPs are newly elected, while just over two-thirds have less than five years experience in the Commons and only three per cent have been serving their constituents for more than 15 years. There is a sharp contrast with U.S. and U.K. figures: two-thirds of the U.S. Congress have more than five years experience and over a quarter of representatives have more than 15 years experience; in Britain, two-thirds of parliamentarians have more than seven years experience, and a third have more than 11 years experience.
There is a similar discrepancy with respect to education: only two-thirds of Canadian MPs have a university degree, while 72 per cent of British members have attended university and fully 93 per cent of members of the U.S. House of Representatives have a degree.
David Mitchell, the head of the Public Policy Forum, finds this all pretty alarming. The amateur character of the Commons has led, he says, to “an unprecedented level of partisan acrimony and a high degree of distrust between elected representatives and the federal public service.”
Well, in many ways times have merely changed back, with the Commons returning to its traditional demographic makeup. A major theme in Ned Franks’ classic 1987 text The Parliament of Canada was that in comparison with other Western legislatures, Canadian MPs are political amateurs, cycling through a House of Commons that exhibits unusually high rates of churn. (When Brian Mulroney swept to power in 1984, the turnover rate was 52 per cent!)
This helps explain many of the more unpalatable features of Canadian political life: not only the monkeyfied feces-toss of question period, but also its more substantial failures of accountability and responsible government. The root of the problem is a mismatch: an entrenched and experienced government facing off against a transient and largely clueless House of Commons.
Mitchell places some of the blame for the present structure on the succession of minority Parliaments that has seen Canadians trudge to the polls three times in the past five years, with yet another election threatening sometime before fall. There’s probably something to this, and—for those keeping score—it provides yet another argument against minority government.
But given the historically transient character of the Commons, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Canadians actually like it this way. The great thing about democracy is, you get the political representation you vote for, which is a polite way of saying we’re the ones who keep sending batches of uncivil, hyperpartisan ignoramuses to Ottawa.
In both Parliament and the bedroom, there is something deeply attractive about someone who has yet to be morally tainted by what goes on once the doors are shut. But in both chambers, if it is civility, consideration and effectiveness you are after, it helps to have someone who knows what they are doing. | <urn:uuid:23967788-e1de-4747-9565-f2ccde2d9c7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/05/14/why-every-day-is-amateur-hour-in-the-house/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962124 | 1,045 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The authors thank the women who volunteered to participate in this study, as well as undergraduate research assistants Gretchen Miller and Brian Ogolsky.
Predicting Women's Intentions to Leave Abusive Relationships: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior†
Article first published online: 31 JUL 2006
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Volume 34, Issue 12, pages 2586–2601, December 2004
How to Cite
Byrne, C. A. and Arias, I. (2004), Predicting Women's Intentions to Leave Abusive Relationships: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34: 2586–2601. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb01993.x
- Issue published online: 31 JUL 2006
- Article first published online: 31 JUL 2006
A theoretically derived decision-making model was applied to predict women's intentions to remain in or to terminate physically abusive relationships with male partners. Participants were 48 women residing in a shelter for battered women who responded to questionnaires assessing the components of the theory of planned behavior. Data provided support for the model. Specifically, women were found to have greater intentions to leave the relationships if they held positive attitudes toward leaving and believed they were in control of leaving the relationship. Normative beliefs were not predictive of intentions to leave. Empirically based suggestions for increasing the effectiveness of interventions are discussed. | <urn:uuid:e9fd0252-d476-4339-917f-0d1d2930f3c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb01993.x/abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941462 | 300 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Missouri lawmakers are working toward improving what folks saw last November as Proposition B. Instead of picking on Missouri’s best dog breeders and our right to raise animals, we are now one step closer to a law that makes sense.
This compromise protects the livelihoods of pets and the folks that raise them, without a repeal of the intent of Missouri’s voters.
Senate Bill 113 passed the Missouri Senate on March 10 and now moves on to the House. This measure would allow the Missouri Department of Agriculture (MDA) to refer cases of unlicensed breeders to the Attorney General, circuit attorney or local prosecutor. It also makes it a crime to operate without a license, with punishment ranging up to a Class A misdemeanor. The bill also raises the cap on the license fee for breeders from $500 to $2,500 and removes the cap on the amount of dogs one person can own.
According to Sen. Mike Parson, R-Bolivar, the bill allows Missouri’s best breeders to stay in business. Currently, not one of Missouri’s more than 1,400 licensed breeders meets the standards of Proposition B. Instead of a law that is next to impossible for legally operating breeders in Missouri to follow, we would have rules that help keep the bad actors out of play. There is also wording in the bill that would let the MDA inspect facilities and root out those that are breaking the law.
I continue to argue that if we want to keep bad breeders out of business, folks need to be educated on where their pets come from. We also need to adequately fund inspectors within the MDA. Both sides support this argument, but are focusing instead on where they are divided on issues that simply do not work in the real world.
What was passed by voters last year was a clear message that Missourians desired improvements in the way we raise dogs in this state. The “yes” or “no” option presented to voters provided for no public debate, compromise or review like the legislative process. It also provided no details on how these goals would be met. Senate Bill 113 addresses real-world flaws in Proposition B, including the mention of domesticated animals within the law.
Nobody wants to see animals abused. All of us want animals to be raised in proper conditions. Unfortunately, Proposition B punishes dog owners doing a good job. The goal of the Legislature is not to undo the will of the people. It is to correct errors that would have put a lot of folks out of business for doing nothing wrong.
My hope is this measure will make it through the House and be signed by the governor. We need real leadership on this issue. I do not want to see any hard-working person put out of work, for no reason. Senate Bill 113 works toward making things right again by improving on Proposition B.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Stouffer: New law protects Missouri's best dog breeders
Thankfully for Missourians, who obviously always get initiatives wrong, but never elect the wrong fellows to office, we have politicians like Sen. Bill Stouffer, R-Napton, to help steer us in the right direction. In his latest column, Stouffer talks about the courageous decision legislators are making in tossing out Proposition B: | <urn:uuid:cab93e44-053f-4c04-9327-d693c6b27ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2011/03/stouffer-new-law-protects-missouris.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959283 | 682 | 1.5 | 2 |
Amid the controversy about whether companies should treat employee stock options as a normal cost, only about 50 of the nation's 13,500 publicly traded companies--that's 0.4%--have announced plans to voluntarily make the switch. And it's by no means certain that the trickle will become a torrent any time soon.
Standing in the way is the debate raging over the effect the accounting change might have on the companies' financial results, their stock prices and their employees. One side contends the effect will be hugely negative--lowering corporate earnings and paring the number of options granted to executives and non-management workers. Others speculate that the effect will be minor.
The whole premise behind expensing options is to further clarify a company's accounting, make its numbers more transparent to the public and thereby boost investors' confidence, which has been ravaged by corporate scandals.
Executives involved in those scandals were often lavished with options that made them fabulously rich and allegedly prompted the financial abuses that were aimed at keeping the companies' profits--and stock prices--as high as possible. So options came under assault, and now treating them as a cost to be deducted from earnings is seen as one solution to curbing the abuses.
But some analysts say many investors probably will ignore, or "back out," the cost when they evaluate a company's stock on grounds that a company doesn't immediately pay out cash when it grants options.
Others argue that there are eventual costs. Options increase the potential number of shares a company has outstanding, which could lower its earnings per share that Wall Street and other investors follow so closely. In turn, companies often then spend heavily to buy back their shares on the open market to offset that dilution.
Expensing options will make companies more cautious about how many options they issue, some observers say. But others disagree. "At the end of the day it's going to be a non-event," said David Hilal, technology research director at investment firm Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. in Arlington, Va. "I don't think employees need to be alarmed at the prospect of getting fewer options."
And despite the turmoil surrounding the issue, companies so far "have not scaled back their use of stock-based compensation" to motivate employees and attract new talent, according to surveys by WorldatWork, a trade group in Scottsdale, Ariz., that tracks worker compensation and benefits.
The debate has "yet to convince a majority of companies to reconsider how they administer their options plans," the group said.
Even so, the confusion is expected to increase as more companies deliberate whether to expense their options and while the Financial Accounting Standards Board--which sets the rules for corporate accounting and favors expensing options--ponders whether to make the change mandatory.
Many analysts are hard-pressed to think of another issue in recent years that has so divided the sharpest minds in corporate America and on Wall Street.
On one side there are the likes of General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., two multinational behemoths that plan to expense options to boost investor confidence in their accounting. On the other side are Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and other technology titans that oppose the switch, claiming it would brutally hurt their profits.
Others also oppose the idea, including former American Express Corp. Chairman Harvey Golub, who contends that because options don't actually cost a company anything initially, there is no reason they should they be deducted from earnings. Another reason: the confusion over how the options should be valued.
Methods Will Differ
Analysts say these factors will limit the practice of expensing options in the immediate future. Investors and employees will be forced to grapple with different options-accounting methods at different firms until the change becomes mandatory, or some trigger prompts most firms to start treating options as a routine expense.
Neither is expected to happen until next year, at the earliest.
Options give holders the right to buy their company's stock in the future at a set price. The idea is to give employees an incentive to work harder so the stock's market price climbs higher than the option price. Then the employee can exercise the option, acquire the shares and resell them for a profit.
Companies that issued these incentive options have done so without having to put a precise value on those options and to subtract that cost from their profits. However, under a 1995 ruling by FASB (known as Ruling 123), companies were required to place a "fair value" on the options and arrive at a pro forma, or "as if," calculation of how that cost would have affected their earnings.
The Numbers Are There | <urn:uuid:c8552344-cd18-42ae-9271-ac0a5116edc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2002/aug/11/business/fi-options11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963689 | 951 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I finally got a chance to play around with my new Hanna Calcium Checker so I thought I would write up a quick blog about using it. The above photo shows everything that come with the checker, minus an extra sample cuvette. I will have to saw at first glance the checker is a little intimidating. I really don't have much of a science background so seeing the syringes and the tips was at least a little intimidating to me. The laminated card that came with it, along with a good video put out by Hanna (see below) really helped though. Like I have said before I don't like the tests where you have to compare the sample to a color coded card so the digital read out of the checker in my opinion is worth a little extra work. So here we go, first step is to turn on the checker by simply pushing the black button and add 1ml of Reagent A to a sample cuvette using the syringe with the white plunger.
I think one of the things that threw me off a little bit in using the syringes were the tips. When you pull the plunger back the tip fills up, leaving an air bubble. To me this just seemed like I wasn't getting the correct amount, but I trusted the test and went on. The second step in the test was to add RO/DI water to the 10ml line on the cuvette.
I like that they provided the dropper to get the RO/DI water. After you get the proper amount of RO/DI water you place the cuvette in to the checker (no need to shake it), shut the lid and push the button. This zeros the checker. Once the checker is zeroed it will display "C - 2".
Now comes the tricky part. Using the syringe with the green plunger you have to measure 0.1ml of tank water. This is a fairly small amount, but if you add too much or not enough it will skew the test results. Hanna recommends that you fill up the syringe all the way to 1ml and then add your sample water until the plunger is at 0.9ml. After you add the tank water sample you have to add the contents of a Reagent B packet.
One little trick that I leaned from watching the video was that if you cut off two sides of the packet you can make a nice funnel to add the reagent. Once the reagent is in you have to shake the cuvette vigorosly for 15 seconds and let it sit for another 15 seconds to let any bubbles settle out.
After the 30 seconds you place the cuvette back in to the tester and push the black button again to get your results. Here is what my water tested:
A little higher then I expected but I'll have to deal with that later. Here is the video that Hanna put out (if you have a checker I think its worth the watch):
All in all I'm pretty happy with the checker. Even though it was a little intimidating at first once I went through the process to use the checker I found it fairly easy to use. | <urn:uuid:d54d04c1-1e8d-4eb5-93b1-c1b5afe0be81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newagereefs.com/view-all-blogs/38-Skipper/206-using-a-hanna-calcium-checker | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958155 | 651 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Aliyah-bid couple to get help from shul
A South London synagogue has rallied to the support of a family of black converts who have waited two years for approval to make aliyah.
Carl and Maleka Levy were recently told by Israel’s Ministry of Interior that they must fly out to Israel to attend an official hearing to prove their Jewish credentials.
Now Bromley Synagogue, which the Levys and their five daughters attend, has agreed to underwrite the cost of the couple’s trip to Israel in order to state their case.
The Levys, who were converted by the Reform Beth Din five years ago, had planned to move to Ashkelon in August 2007. But despite testimonials from Reform rabbis, they have been unable to persuade the ministry to approve their application for aliyah.
Members of Bromley Synagogue have also collected a petition on the family’s behalf which is due to be presented shortly to the Israeli Embassy.
Bromley’s rabbi, Tony Hammond, said that the ministry’s demand for the Levys to attend a hearing in Israel had been “sprung on them. Usually, people in their position aren’t asked to do this. I wonder whether there is not some colour prejudice here.”
The ministry is said to harbour concerns that six years ago Mrs Levy came to Israel to have her fourth daughter, Shlomeet, at a natural birth clinic in Dimona. The clinic was run by the Black Hebrews sect, which is not recognised as Jewish, but Mrs Levy has repeatedly denied any connection with the group and says that the clinic was recommended by a friend who knew of her preference for natural birth.
Rabbi Hammond said: “We have no doubt that they are kosher Jews who want to make aliyah as many Jews do and have.”
Mrs Levy said she and her husband, who will be travelling with their youngest daughter, Ahliyah, two, while the other children are looked after at home, said: “We wouldn’t have been able to go if we didn’t have the support of our synagogue and our rabbi. Every time we speak to him, we are grateful for his help.”
Israel’s Supreme Court has upheld the right of the ministry to request a hearing.
Anat Hoffman, director of the Israel Religious Action Centre, which took the Levys’ case to court, said: “Applications for aliyah are processed daily by the Jewish Agency and various Israeli embassies. Therefore, it is not clear why the state is making the unusual demand that this family come to Israel in person for their hearing — especially when it is obviously very costly and an unfair financial burden. This decision is yet another indicator of the discriminatory attitude with which the state of Israel treats Afro-American converts.”
She added: “Having said this, we respect the court’s decision that the Levys must be present in Israel for their hearing. Our congregations in Israel and abroad will do our very best to help them and accompany them to fight for their right to aliyah.” | <urn:uuid:a51561b8-d9ea-4645-bb1e-cf8b1c98e532> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/aliyah-bid-couple-get-help-shul | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980858 | 652 | 1.5 | 2 |
Steve Minnikin, State Member for Chatsworth made the following speech in Parliament today.
I rise in this chamber to discuss the recently introduced carbon tax and the effects it is already having on parts on the economy. I acknowledge that some of my colleagues have raised this issue in the lead-up to the tax’s introduction on 1 July, but I want to inform the House of the impact it is having on businesses within my Chatsworth electorate and beyond.Most people in my electorate of Chatsworth will pay the carbon tax in their electricity and gas bills and will experience this delightful fact when they start to receive their first quarterly bills in a few months time. We are aware that electricity companies are already sending out notices to households and businesses confirming the price rise. The government’s own estimates are for a price rise of 10 per cent over five years. But, as my colleagues here today will attest to, in many cases that rise has occurred on day one and wipes out the so-called compensation.
Every single member in this chamber knows that the federal Labor Party government had no mandate for this legislation. The carbon tax comes at the worst possible time for Australian businesses and will begin a slow squeeze on the economy, hurting current businesses and, just as importantly, driving away future investment. Indeed, one of the small fruit and vegetable businesses that the Premier and I visited in the Chatsworth electorate during the election campaign closed its doors over the weekend as the owner stated quite emphatically that his business was struggling before the introduction of the carbon tax and he doubted he would survive much longer if this extra business cost was introduced.
Another small drycleaning business in Carina is extremely concerned about the impact of the carbon tax on its operations, and this is from a business that has been in continuous operation ever since I was a child. There are several businesses in the Tingalpa light industrial estate that use refrigerants as part of their manufacturing processes. They have expressed alarm at this particular facet of their operation, along with the expected increase in their electricity costs.
Prior to the honour of being elected as the state member for Chatsworth, I developed and managed retail shopping centres around the country. At the last shopping centre I managed I had to inform my small business tenants that the common area electricity outgoings increase would be 20 per cent from 1 July as this was the amount being charged to the lessor. This story will be played out across most shopping centres in Queensland, and which tenants will be affected the most? Small businesses run by mum and dad retailers who get up every morning, only to see their business struggle with ever-increasing business imposts.
The carbon tax is already affecting small business, and if any members doubt this fact for one moment I would invite them to come with me for a visit to Blue Line Dry Cleaners along Old Cleveland Road at Carina or Belmont Shopping Village and visit Uncle Bobs Bakery. The Labor Party simply does not get it at any level of government. The carbon tax policy is another classic example of Labor’s incompetence. Emissions will in fact increase from 2012 to 2020 from 578 million tonnes to 621 million tonnes. The federal Labor government itself estimates that Australians will be spending $3.5 billion in foreign carbon credits in 2020. This will rise to $57 billion in 2050 alone or 11⁄2 per cent of GDP on a system which is the equivalent of Australia’s Defence Force budget.
Contrast this with the Newman government which is trying to restore Queensland’s economy on the back of a four-pillar approach, with agriculture being one of these important sectors. Despite the government claiming agriculture to be exempt from the carbon tax, Australia’s peak farming body, the National Farmers Federation, is now on record saying that the carbon tax will be bad for farmers and rural communities. The flow-on effect from the carbon tax by increasing costs in transportation, electricity and fertilisers is expected to wipe $3.2 billion off farmers’ operating margins.
I am proud of the fact that many of my LNP colleagues in this chamber come from the bush and represent their rural constituents with real passion. They know more than anyone that over the past few years many farmers have been forced off the land owing to flood, drought still in certain pockets, and crippling debt. The carbon tax will force more farmers off the land by cutting their already tight margins.
After 10 days, the slow strangle of the carbon tax has already gripped food, with many food producers suffering hikes in costs. For example, the Gladstone Fish Markets has seen refrigerant prices increase from $50 per kilo to $374 per kilo. Are these companies going to absorb these extra imposts? Of course they are not. Who is going to carry the can? Once again, the consumer. No amount of flash television advertising showing extra cash handouts to families is going to compensate them in the coming months.
The bottom line is that the Newman government is trying to restore the hopes and dreams of businesses and families. The introduction of the carbon tax will impact negatively on Australians until there is a change of federal government that, according to the Newspoll this morning, will surely be coming. The baseball bats are well and truly being oiled as we speak. | <urn:uuid:22f152f3-44ff-4075-8542-954b6bc5e01f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carindaleconnect.com.au/community/2012/07/steve-minnikin-speech-carbon-tax/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972346 | 1,082 | 1.65625 | 2 |
OK you have a laptop and / or a smartphone and / or a tablet and you also have data, perhaps a LOT of data. It creeps up on this hoarding of data / space. You need to be proactive to keep from losing your data. Primarily we speak of genealogy (or family / history) research and of course family photos and scans of documents, but perhaps you are a knowledge worker and use your computer equipment to produce works in your professional career too. I’ll speak of genealogical research / data and you can extend it to any other valuable data / files you may have.
Today’s blog came about from a cousin (alright second cousin, once removed), Robin. She was frustrated by losing files. So her family and friends had a nice debate over what she needs to do. Of course it is a very complex issue and needs to be customized to each person.
Let me state that designing a backup strategy that is free or low cost is almost impossible — unless you only have a small number of files (# and/or sizes) and can get by with the free: DropBox, GoogleDrive, Apple iCloud, etc.
You could conceivably cobble together a solution with enough “Cloud Services” and one account each for Robin and her husband on each service in order to build up a free usable amount of storage for backup on the Internet. OK, lets say that gets you “enough” space to do your backups. First off, you better hope the number/size of files do NOT increase — but industry studies says otherwise, that data more than doubles each and every year. You will therefore run out of “free” space. Also, you will now have to invent a bookkeeping system to keep track of which files are backed up on which service in which account. Is it getting complicated yet?
How much data do you have to backup? This is the first question you need to answer. If you have an Internet service that limits data transfers or subjects you to overcharge fees then you really need to think about using the cloud. Keep in mind that you need to backup and at some point to recover a lost file(s) — now that recovery will double those overage fees. Most people can quickly generate 30-60GB of “data” from their music, videos, books, apps, and their pictures and when you throw in their work products (which actually are the smallest part of the critical space) 30-6oGB goes quickly. My wife’s tablet is almost full and we do not use much music or video.
How do you lose files? Inadvertent deletes/drops? Hardware failures? Accidental overwrites with something else? How about malware/viruses etc. ? All of the above probably. Then you need a backup solution to cover all of those eventualities. How about if you live in Florida (Hurricanes), New Orleans (Hurricanes/Floods), Oklahoma/Nebraska/Kansas (Twisters), California (Earthquakes/Mudslides), etc. or in an area where terrorism can cause catastrophic failures (NYC, DC, Seattle’s Space Needle)?
But Stanczyk, what about my sensitive or private data (financials, non-disclosure documents, personal identity, etc.)? Where do you back that up to? Is the cloud safe? Do they lose data in the cloud? Can the cloud data be stolen/hacked? What happens when the cloud crashes and is unavailable? More worries.
By now I hope you get an idea that backup is:
- Involves Some Costs
- Requires Planning
- Custom to Each Individual / Company
- Recovery Needs to be Accounted for
- You Need Access to Backups
- Disaster Recovery (offsite)
- Need Security
You could be tempted to just rationalize that December 2012 is coming up and either the Mayan Calendar and /or the World will end and why tax your brain to do backups anyway.
Ideally, we want the following features in a solution:
- 3 or 4 copies (counting the original copy)
- 1 remote copy for disaster recovery (fire, hurricane, flood, theft/loss etc.)
- Easy / Fast recovery from the first backup (ergo 1st backup copy must be local)
- Backups allow you to recover from accidental delete (assuming delete happens after the first backup)
- If we backup data with privacy concerns then we WILL use encrypt / decrypt software before or as we make a copy
- The Cloud can be used as the remote copy
Complexity. Just keep it simple, remember the acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Trying to do backups without spending money will add complexity. So complexity / time / money are your trade-offs. In my career, we used to say, “Good | Fast | Cheap; Pick 2″. If you want a fast and cheap backup solution it will not be any good. If you want good and fast then it will not be cheap.
Lets say you have as your work product, family trees (gedcoms), scans of documents / pictures and notes / timelines (spreadsheets) / plans – lists. This is over and above your Apps, Pics, Music, Video, etc. How much space do these files all add up to? Is it 7ooMB, 1,400MB, 2,100MB then you can probably get away with burning CDs (or DVDs). CDs hold about 702MB. Make two (or better yet three copies). You need at least three copies (original plus 2 more).
Put one CD in your bank safety deposit box (if it fits). Send a second CD to one of your family members (preferably another genealogist who lives at least 90 miles away from you). The remote CDs provide for a disaster recovery in case of something catastrophic happens at your residence. You can always retrieve the CD from the bank or your family member who may be outside the area affected by the disaster. Obviously, the further away your other copies are, the longer it will be before you can gain access to them to begin recovery — but the securer the disaster copy will be. This is fairly cheap. The flaw is … you keep getting more data / files or the files keep growing. Your family tree changes repeatedly (additions and subtractions). Sometimes you can rewrite the CD (if there is still space) and sometimes you cannot rewrite because the CD does not allow for rewriting or the space is insufficient to handle the larger file. Also if you have 30 GB that needs to be backed up or more then CDs are not viable because you need too many CDs. It is also hard to keep track of multiple versions in case you need to recover from a version that is not the last backup version. I do not recommend CDs but it is fairly simple and fairly cheap.
You can also substitute DVDs, USB drives (also called thumb drives) for CDs which provide greater space.
Monday - Backing-Up via backup software, external drives, and the Internet/Cloud. | <urn:uuid:778c0576-bf98-4bef-a134-d1fd325587dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mikeeliasz.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/bigdata-means-backup-security-disaster-recovery-rootstech-backup/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=bbf4ba6a50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943364 | 1,467 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Questions for Panelists at Tonight’s Forum on Data Mining and Predictive Analytics?
This evening, I will be moderating a panel on data mining and predictive analytics. In preparation for this I have doing a bit of research and wanted to share a few observations that will anchor the agenda for the talk.
We are inundated with data. It is driven the rapid changes in how we interact, communicate and function in a world that increasingly connected (both people and things) with the Internet. The amount of data being collected is growing at an explosive rate. In 2010, data collected was equivalent to the cumulative of data generated in the previous 5000 years. And the size of this data store is doubling every 2 years.
Consider the following:
- Facebook has at least 30Petabytes of Data, 30B pieces of content shared/month
- YouTube users upload 35 hours of video every minute
- Twitter delivered 25B tweets in 2010
- Zynga generates15 Terabytes of data every day
None of these companies mentioned above existed 7 years ago.
So we have companies that have far more data than ever before. How does this create a new paradigm? What are the ways in which commerce will be transformed? We’ve had companies exploiting large data sets with tools and techniques that have been around for decades- so what’s different now? Are we just dealing with more noise?
These are the topics that I hope we will gain some insight on in tonight’s discussion.
To get the discussion started tomorrow, I am highlighting three changes that I see.
#1) Data Availability-Exponential growth in data is available to everyone- companies and individuals alike. Whereas massive data sets were once the domain of well capitalized companies, now even startups and individuals can use them to find value.
#2) Tools-Data storage and processing infrastructure and tools are becoming increasingly powerful at fractions of the cost. Open source software, collaboration platforms, cloud infrastructure provide mechanisms for not only collecting and storing the data, but also processing it at scale.
#3) Investment-Markets are rewarding companies on the promise that they will find value in the massive data sets that they create. Have you checked out the valuation of Facebook, Twitter, or Zynga lately? To be sure, these companies are achieving astonishing growth rates, but investors are placing their bets on new ways of monetizing the data streams that these and other companies collect and control.
I would be very interested in getting my readers’ ideas on what to ask our panelists. I will try and incorporate suggestions into the flow of the discussion. For those of you who will not be able to make the session I will be blogging on the key takeaways and insights in the days ahead.
Looking forward to seeing many of you this evening. | <urn:uuid:7d7ba4ef-d513-4173-bf5f-0866fa9b8335> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gasparadvisors.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/questions-for-panelists-at-tonights-forum-on-data-mining-and-predictive-analytics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940879 | 577 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Posted 1 year ago on Sept. 22, 2011, 4:36 p.m. EST by Onihikage
from Chapin, SC
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I was thinking that it would be a really good idea for the members of Occupy Wall Street to set a routine for doing certain things, such as facing an American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at 7:00 AM and PM, or perhaps even more frequently. This shows that our allegiance is to the Republic and not the corporations. They could also choose times to recite sections from the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, especially sections that have been violated in recent years or at least are in doubt.
So, things to recite: -The Pledge of Allegiance -Amendments 1, 2, 4, and 6 of the Constitution of the United States
Things to consider: -Article I Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States -Article VI of the Constitution of the United States
There must be other things they could recite. Have them printed on small flyers and passed around or something. I think it might interest people walking by when they hear this huge crowd of people reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or the First Amendment. | <urn:uuid:e6313216-3e7a-416a-8b85-a7b917e1cf9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://occupywallst.org/forum/routine-recitations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966628 | 253 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A ~100 Ma intrusive igneous rock that is characteristic of Cretaceous granitoids of the Sierra Nevada Batholith.
How many minerals can you identify?
If you are ever in northern California. Let me
know I am in Willits and I have museum grade
amber. Clark clarks@pacific,net
I'd love to be able to show you, but I
don't think I've got any amber. :-(
Amazing!! What would a piece of amber look like?
Not a member yet? Sign up | <urn:uuid:772f2a87-daae-4f64-8952-a2f1c2d45f2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/11403/comments | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946118 | 112 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Please forgive my lack of knowledge - if my question seems dumb, I apologize but I'm still trying to figure this out after only three months of dealing with my son's T1.
In reading an article about a night time monitor that works with pumps to alert parents to overnight lows, there were some scary info and stats cited, specifically:
"... most parents of little type 1s get up several times a night (or at least once at 3am!) to check their children’s blood sugar. Every night. Night after night. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. For years. Why? Because nocturnal hypoglycemia is a real, persistent, common, and dangerous threat to type 1 kids. Which means the worst time for the parent of a little type 1 is when the sun sets and all the mythical fears of the night become very real.
In a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics, Dr. Màrta Beregszàszi and her colleagues estimated the prevalence of nocturnal hypoglycemia in type 1 children and adolescents is a whopping 47%; and nearly half the incidents were asymptomatic—meaning the children felt no symptoms of the low. Another study by Dr. Alexandra Ahmet places the prevalence as high as 68% and notes that 75% of all severe hypos in kids occur at night. And if that doesn’t chill your blood, consider Dr. Francine Kaufman’s 167-night CGM study of young boys that found in a full 27% of the nights, the boys dropped below 40 mg/dL in their sleep, and that the length of time they spent low was longer than previously believed."
OK, I will say that when my 13 year old son goes to bed and his readings are less than, say, 4.9, I do test him at about 1:30 or 2 a.m. But most nights, when his numbers are in the 5's or 6's, I leave him be and we've not had any trouble so far (that I know of, I guess...his morning numbers are always in the 5's for the most part). How worried should I be? He is (and always has been) an extremely deep sleeper, and I would be willing to wager that he'd not wake up from a low if it happened.
Anyone else out there with a child of similar age...do you check every night, regardless of bedtime test results? Does age have any relevance here? How confident should I be when I go to sleep at night that my son is going to be okay?
Well...one of the things you have on your side is your son’s age. At this age during the night, hormones and testosterone peak. This is why a lot of kids this age have what is called the dawn phenomenan. Which is basically they wake up high because of all the activity that their bodies go through during the night. Now does this mean your son couldn’t go low during the night? Absolutely not. My son is 13 and we do not check in the middle of the night unless his bedtime BG was questionable, if he is sick, if we have had a recent change in his carb ratio, if he was extremely active that day etc. Does your son wear a pump?
My son was diagnosed when he was 12. He will be 14 next week. He has been diabetic for 1 1/2 years. My son loves and I mean loves the pump. A pump gives so much tighter control, eliminates so many shots and really gave him back normalcy that he lost. Unfortuantely with diabetes, you can do everything right and still be scared 24 hours a day. I worry every day. But I know we are doing everything we can to manage and control his diabetes and for now thats all we can do.
My son was diagnosed at age 8, and did not want a pump at all. We waited a year, and by that time - the thought of pushing buttons every time he ate something became much more appealing than 5-6 shots a day. I wouldn't even push it during the honeymoon phase. Your control is easier, and the pump might not have the benefits it does afterwards. Once he is making almost zero insulin - and every snack, and every second helping requires another shot - he might be more interested. My son also refused the tubes of a pump but has been really happy with the Omnipod. It becomes a very personal decision if you do decide to try. The other thing is that if you decide to try a pump most companies will let you trial the pump first so you can decide if it is worth it or not.
My son definitely feels the cannula being inserted (at pod change) but then he doesn't feel it after that except in a few cases. We notice with a big bolus he feels the insulin and sometimes we get close to a nerve so he will notice the cannula slightly throughout the time that pod is on. Mostly we 'stick it and forget it.'
I have 2 T1s, both on Omnipods. We generally check both kids at midnight or 1. My son (8) does go low in the night sometimes. He is asymptomatic to lows even during the day (dx'd 7 years ago) so that is a worry we have. My daughter (10) has been having what we call stubborn lows. She goes low and it takes several hours to get her back into range. This has happened almost every night for the last month. She does sometimes wake up when she feels low, but not always. We have a Dexcom CGM for both kids. They don't wear them all the time because they don't like having something else stuck to them and they don't keep up with Dex very well. Whenever we start having problems highs or low, we put on Dex so we can get a handle on their trends. The Drawback to Dex is that it is not a loud alarm, so it rarely wakes me up from the other room.
So we just hope and pray and do the best we can. Night times can be hard (harder than days I think). We are getting a Diabetic alert Dog to help us especially with nighttimes.
Oh, and both kids love the OmniPod. It sometimes hurts, but less often than getting a shot 6 times a day.
We all need each other. Glad we are able to offer support.
First of all, especially since you are new to this, there are no dumb questions. Besides that it's a good question.
I would say that it does depend on age, and on length of diagnosis.
Age: according to my doctor, young kids' bodies do not wake up from low blood sugar until they are maybe 8 or so (probably depends on the person). My son is 7 and has never woken up while low. I have type 1 also and I always wake up when low. So age makes a difference. A 13 year old would be more likely to wake up. That said, if he's a deep sleeper, it might be harder to wake up. Let him know that if he *ever* wakes up at night, especially after having a bad dream or if he feels hot/sweaty, he should check his blood sugar. (based on my personal experience, those things happen to me; he may have other symptoms that he will figure out).
Honeymoon: if he is only taking a couple units of fast acting insulin and still honeymooning, then you don't have much to worry about. Save your worry for later when he takes a lot of insulin before bed! :) Not that he would never go low now, but it's a lot less likely during a honeymoon, with a lower insulin dose.
You can ask your doctor about this. He could also try a continuous glucose monitor for a few days/nights to see if there is a problem. If it's flat, then your current plans are probably fine. Worst case, get up and check more often.
First, welcome. Second, do not panic. Type 1 diabetes is manageable, some days more so than others and you and your son/family can do this. You also deserve a good night's sleep!
My daughter is 10-1/2, wears an Animas Ping, loves it. Went first year in honeymoon and on shots first 18 months. I SELDOM check her in the night, only if she had a funky bedtime number or is sick, or as another parent said, if I have changed any of her pump settings.
My daughter is a heavy sleeper but has always awoken when low. I keep tabs and sugar packets next to her bed. My advice is to try to not get too wrapped up in other Type 1 horror stories. It's good to be vigilant, but everyone has different experiences. We allow our daughter to go on sleepovers, stay home with babysitter, whatever. But we have met other parents who are terrified to do those things. Listen to your instincts, teach your son to be in good communication with you about his blood sugars, and don't read too much! :)
I really think it's up to the individual family to figure out what works for them. My son is almost 13 and is coming up on 3 years with diabetes. I check him every night. He has never woken up from a low and I have discovered him sleeping peacefully everywhere from 34 to over 500 with ketones. I do not let horror stories or fear run my life, however, I do keep a very close watch on my child's numbers when he cannot. He stays home alone after school, babysits his younger brother, rides bikes around town and has occasional sleepovers at friend's houses (where he tests and texts me very late at night and very early in the morning). I definitely encourage you not to panic, but make your own informed choices depending on what you're comfortable with.
I say better safe than sorry. My son has been D for 3 years and we still check around 2 to 3 am. All it takes to convince me is to read the posts about death in bed. I always sleep better after checking or else I will lay there and wonder. He is rarely seriously low in the night but sometimes somewhat low and doesn't notice he is 10 years old and wears an Animas ping pump.
Me too, MsShelly!! I can be overboard though checking multiple times a lot of nights. I just can't stand the thought of her being low and usually when I check her multiple times it's because she was high and then I lay there thinking "is the correction working?" so I might as well get up and check. I think a cgm would really help but she's only 6 and I need what little "chunk" she has for her pump sites. Holding out for the "non"invasive cgm........
My little one has a cgms; we've put it in his arm (back of upper arm) or upper thigh. His pump is in his butt. We've done this from age 2 till 7. He's skinny, but it works. It is *so* helpful at night. Without the cgms/when it's not working, I get up at night. Otherwise, I sleep. | <urn:uuid:821002ee-bd76-4370-b359-9ee3e348691d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tudiabetes.org/forum/topics/question-from-a-newbie-parent?groupUrl=parentsofkidswithtype1&groupId=583967%3AGroup%3A6554&id=583967%3ATopic%3A2654639&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979801 | 2,336 | 1.804688 | 2 |
For all that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney talked about the economy during Tuesday’s presidential debate, it is remarkable that neither candidate offered anything like a real solution to the high unemployment and depressed wages that continue to plague America’s shrinking middle class. Romney doubled down on the failed policies of the Bush years, particularly lower taxes and increased drilling. Obama spoke generally about investing in education and promoting manufacturing and green jobs.
With the exception of lower taxes, which historically do not correlate with faster growth, each proposal is a good idea in the abstract. But not one directly addresses the immediate fundamental challenge confronting the U.S. economy: weak aggregate demand. When the housing bubble collapsed, Americans lost trillions of dollars of wealth, real and imagined, and the country entered a period of debt deflation. Emergency fiscal stimulus and loose monetary policy staunched the bleeding, but funds provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were essentially spent by 2011. Without the federal government to prop up demand, subsequent economic growth has been limited by household deleveraging and public sector cutbacks. Despite recent gains, unemployment remains high.
Unfortunately, the rhetoric of both candidates during Tuesday’s debate suggests neither would take the extraordinary measures required to speed the economy’s return to full employment. Romney’s insistence on supply-side solutions like lower taxes on high income “job creators” misses the point entirely. President Obama’s proposed investments in education and manufacturing address long term structural problems on the demand side, such as skill-biased technological change, but ignores the cyclical shortfall in demand that is keeping businesses from hiring.
Of course, there are better ways to discern each candidate’s economic strategy than watching the debates. At a fundraiser in Florida last May, Mitt Romney revealed his secret plan to restore growth (emphasis mine):
If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If it looks like the president’s going to win, the markets should not be terribly happy. It depends, of course, which markets you’re talking about, which types of commodities and so forth, but my own view is, if we win on November 6th there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back, and we’ll see—without actually doing anything—we’ll actually get a boost in the economy.
The “do nothing” strategy is not surprising, considering Romney’s repeated declaration that he will create 12 million jobs in the next four years is identical to the Moody Analytics forecast for employment through 2016. It’s a tacit acknowledgement that Romney plans only to preside over the expected economic recovery, without doing anything other than pursuing the same old Republican policies to redistribute income upwards.
President Obama, on the other hand, has proposed legislation that would directly address the problem of persistent weak demand. It’s called the American Jobs Act, and it failed in a 50-49 cloture vote to proceed in the Senate. The $447 billion bill would have lowered payroll taxes for 98 percent of businesses and employees, extended stimulus programs like unemployment benefits, and spent over $100 billion on infrastructure, education and aid to states. But after the stimulus portion of the bill was defeated in Congress, Obama moved on. He no longer talks specifically about renewed fiscal stimulus, and did not mention the failed bill in either presidential debate.
For the millions who remain unemployed, the message from both candidates appears to be, “keep spending and carry on; the jobs will come back eventually.” It’s hardly the worst policy solution—that dishonorable distinction belongs to the European-style austerity program suggested by Paul Ryan. But if the rhetoric on the campaign trail is any indication, Americans shouldn’t expect anything more from either party until Washington is able to move beyond partisan gridlock. | <urn:uuid:7cf05c46-6830-44ba-80e9-932e43621013> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dispatches.us/post/33845242041/presidential-debate-reveals-candidates-lack-of-vision | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948722 | 802 | 1.828125 | 2 |
An 11th example of the undated double-denominated Sacagawea dollar/Washington quarter dollar mule error coin has surfaced, 11 years after the first example was found in Arkansas in 2000.
Nicholas P. Brown, owner of Majestic Rarities in Chicago, confirmed to Coin World July 12 his purchase of the coin from its owner, who wishes to remain anonymous. Brown would not disclose the purchase price, and added he had not yet physically seen the coin.
The coin was submitted to Numismatic Guaranty Corp., which authenticated the coin as an example of the double-denomination mule error and graded it Mint State 67, according to David J. Camire, president of Numismatic Conservation Services, a sister company to NGC for whom he is also the error coin specialist.
Camire said the current example is tied for the finest known specimen among the 11 confirmed pieces.
A mule is a coin, token or medal struck with dies not intended to be paired together.
What makes the production of this mule error more unusual is that a State quarter dollar obverse die was paired with a Sacagawea dollar reverse die not once, but three times. The known mules are known to have been struck with three separate and distinct die pairs mounted in a coinage press dedicated to the production of dollar coins.
Camire said Brown's coin was struck from Die Pair 1. The key diagnostic is the reverse for Die Pair 1 exhibits a die crack in the f in of in united states of america that is absent from the reverses from Die Pairs 2 and 3. Complete diagnostics for all three die pairs appear later in this article.
Of the now 11 publicly known examples, six are from Die Pair 1, three from Die Pair 2 and two from Die Pair 3.
Brown said July 13 that he was one of several persons approached by the unnamed seller about buying the coin, a process that began three weeks before the deal was completed. Brown said once he learned he was the top bidder, he had the seller send the coin directly to NGC for authentication and certification before the transaction would be completed. The transaction was completed, Brown said, after he received confirmation from NGC that the mule had indeed been authenticated as genuine, graded and encapsulated.
Brown would not disclose the specific location of the seller, other than to say the coin came from the East Coast. He said the seller acquired the coin through purchase and held onto it for the past 10 to 10 and a half years. Brown said the individual who sold the coin to him did not learn from the person from whom it was originally purchased how the coin was discovered — whether in change, from a roll or bag of coins, or purchased from someone else.
Brown does not plan to sell the coin at this time, but will have it on display at his table Aug. 16 to 20 at the American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money in Rosemont, Ill.
The book 100 Greatest U.S. Error Coins, co-authored by Brown, Camire and California coin dealer and error coin specialist Fred Weinberg, recognizes the quarter dollar/dollar mule as the No. 1 U.S. coin error. The authors suggest that approximately 13 examples are known, but the reference published in 2010 pedigrees 10 publicly known pieces.
For error coin collectors, Sacagawea dollars and State quarter dollars offered hobbyists two new series to search through in 2000 in the hopes of finding something valuable. Until May of that year, however, no one suspected that an error would be found that combined designs from both coins.
In June 2000, Numismatic Guaranty Corp. announced that it had authenticated a coin bearing the obverse of a State quarter dollar and the reverse of a Sacagawea dollar, struck on a dollar planchet. The mixture of designs struck by dies for two different denominations was the first error of its kind confirmed on a U.S. coin in the 208-year history of the U.S. Mint — a type of error called a mule by specialists.
U.S. Mint officials confirmed the mule error in a statement released Aug. 4, 2000.
The quarter dollar/dollar mules discovered in 2000 are undated and bear the P Mint mark for the Philadelphia Mint. The reverse die for State quarter dollars (not used for the mule) bears the date along the top border, the same side as the design representing the respective state. The date appears on the obverse die for the 2000 to 2008 Sacagawea dollars (also not used).
The first example of the mule was discovered by Frank Wallis in late May 2000 in an Uncirculated 25-coin roll of Sacagawea dollars obtained from First National Bank & Trust in Mountain Home, Ark. The area is part of the St. Louis Federal Reserve District.
NGC graded the Wallis coin Mint State 66, but a month later the coin was crossed over to a Professional Coin Grading Service encapsulation. PCGS also graded the coin MS-66.
Since the original find, grading services have authenticated, in all, 11 examples of the mule. Nine of the coins have been sold, either in private transactions or at auction, at published prices reaching as high as $70,000. Brown notes that the authors of the 100 Greatest book have confirmation of two pieces changing hands for in excess of $200,000. One coin remains the property of the man who found it.
U.S. Mint officials determined the mules were struck sometime in late April or early May 2000. Coin World sources in 2000 indicated that the Mint may have produced as many as three bins of the coins, although the sources could not tell Coin World what size bins were involved. If the larger of two different bins in typical use at the Mint were involved, the number of mules struck could have totaled several hundred thousand pieces.
When Mint officials discovered the error, they impounded several bins — one that may have contained tens of thousands of the mule errors struck by one press, as well as the bins from two other adjoining coining presses. The coins were ordered destroyed.
Production of the mules led to an intensive investigation by Treasury and Mint authorities. The investigation led authorities to a Federal Reserve-contracted coin terminal and wrapping facility located near the Philadelphia Mint, and authorities advised officials there to be on the lookout for any of the mule errors. An undisclosed number of mules were found at the facility.
While a government investigation found that the errors were produced by mistake and not deliberately, two former Philadelphia Mint coin press operators were prosecuted on charges of selling, but not stealing, up to five of the mules and converting the profits to their own use.
U.S. Mint officials in the summer of 2002 indicated the possibility they might seek forfeiture of some of the double-denomination errors depending on when they were discovered and whether they may have left the Philadelphia Mint illegally, but to this date officials have not pursued civil forfeiture proceedings.
Three die pairs
Hobby experts by the fall of 2000 had determined that multiple die pairs existed for the coin, which might suggest large numbers of the errors were struck. Government investigators were slow to accept the findings of numismatists that multiple die pairs were used in making the coins; investigators did not accept the findings of numismatists until September 2001.
Here's how to distinguish the three die pairs:
??Die Pair 1: The reverse for Die Pair 1 exhibits a die crack in the f in of in united states of america that is absent from the reverses from Die Pairs 2 and 3. The obverse exhibits numerous radial striations attributable to stresses involved during striking, resulting from the slight differences in size between the two dies. The discovery coin is from Die Pair 1.
??Die Pair 2: Die Pair 2 exhibits a perfect obverse die, but a reverse that shows three noticeable die cracks: one each projecting from the rightmost points of the stars above the e of one and d of dollar and a third, curved die crack running along the wing directly above these two letters.
??Die Pair 3: For Die Pair 3, the obverse has been described as “fresh and frosty.” The obverse of the Die Pair 3 coins shows just a hint of the radial lines found on the discovery example. A small die gouge appears in front of Washington's lips. The reverse appears perfect and exhibits no die cracks.
In addition to the genuine mules, collectors should be aware that altered coins/replicas resembling the mules are also in the market.
The pieces are made by several novelty companies and produced by machining out the obverse of a genuine Sacagawea dollar, and then inserting and gluing in a machined-down State quarter dollar with its Washington obverse facing out.
The altered piece is then plated over to simulate the color of the Sacagawea dollar.
To identify the replica, look for a seam where the field meets the rim. The altered piece's weight will be off from the 8.1 grams of a genuine Sacagawea dollar, and the altered piece will produce a thud instead of a distinct ring when tapped, a result of its method of assemblage.
Additional mules surface
Since the discovery of the 2000 mule, several earlier U.S. mules have surfaced and been authenticated: from a 1995-D Lincoln cent obverse die and Roosevelt dime reverse die, struck on a cent planchet; from a 1995 Lincoln cent obverse die and Roosevelt dime reverse die, produced on a dime planchet; and a coin produced from a 1999 cent obverse die and dime reverse die, struck on a cent planchet. | <urn:uuid:46ab8a4e-1a95-4ade-bad3-dc6bf3a68c47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coinworld.com/articles/printarticle/11th-quarter-dollar-dollar-mule-surfaces | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959164 | 2,013 | 1.625 | 2 |
Isadora is a truly lost perfume. It was launched in 1979 as a tribute to dancer Isadora Duncan more than 50 years after her death. The brand Isadora Parfums was owned by a man named Robert Benson who apparently had enough money to have a beautiful oriental created for him and to employ designer Pierre Dinand to create a unique bottle for the parfum extrait. The bottle was inspired by (and often mistaken for) an art deco Lalique creation (you can read more about it here). The perfume itself was clearly inspired by another 1920s classic: Shalimar.
Isadora is not a copy or a clone of Shalimar, but it can be considered a spawn. I have some 1960-70s Shalimar that has a lot of character from the almost explosive opening to the smoky vanilla and an animalic edge. Isadora, despite the scandalous character of its namesake is softer in some aspects while still making a statement. The opening is floral and even a little green. The very first time I smelled it when I found a mini bottle of teh extrait de parfum with the nude figure on top at an antique store I actually thought Isadora might be a chypre. It takes about five minutes to realize that despite a herbal leaning and maybe even some moss this is all wood, vanilla and a smidgen of leather.
The most familiar part in Isadora is the vanilla-opoponax base. It's more innocent than Shalimar, fuzzier and even bordering on a comfort scent. It doesn't have any of the civet you still smell in older formulations of Shalimar and none of the mysterious smoky incense. Still, Isadora is quite rich and opulent. It smells expensive and well thought-out, and above all: it gives pleasure.
From what I could find out, Isadora remained in production until the 1990s. I doubt that it had a wide distribution as it seems many people outside the most devoted vintage fiends among the fragonerd community have even heard of it, and bottles are pretty scarce. As far as I can tell Isadora came in both extrait and EDP concentrations and never had a sibling or a flanker. If you've come across evidence to the contrary please comment. Also please tell me if you've ever worn Isadora.
Photo of Isadora Duncan circa 1915-1918 from the NY Public Library digital collection. | <urn:uuid:b115074a-caab-40b7-a86a-eb25b2b597f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenonblonde.com/2012/08/isadora-by-isadora-parfums-vintage.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969706 | 511 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Date of birth:
Date of death:
|Political and military information|
- "Sir, I think I got nicked."
- —Dante's final words.
It was said that he had "near magical abilities" when it came to explosives. He always knew when they would explode and when they would fail.
Dante entered the SPARTAN-III program, developed by Colonel James Ackerson, around 2546 while between the age of 5 and 7 when he, along with other orphans, volunteered to become a SPARTAN-III to avenge his family or home planet after their destruction by the Covenant. Once on Onyx, he and the other SPARTAN-III candidates were trained by Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, Lieutenant Commander Kurt-051, and surviving Beta Company SPARTAN-IIIs Lucy-B091 and Tom-B292.
Battle of Onyx
- Main article: Battle of Onyx
On October 31, 2552, Dante and Team Saber were competing for top honors with Gamma Company's other teams near Zone 67 when they came under attack by Sentinels. Forced to halt their training exercise due to the attack, Dante and Team Saber successfully evaded the drones until regrouping with other UNSC forces at Camp Currahee. Soon after, they were joined by Dr. Halsey, Kelly-087 and SPARTAN-II Blue Team.
With their help, Team Saber destroyed a pair of Sentinels before retreating to Zone 67, which revealed to house an enormous Forerunner city. Entering a large, domed structure in the city, the Spartans discovered the map room of Onyx and the location of Team Katana, whose signal Olivia had picked up earlier before communications with them were lost. However, a Covenant fleet led by Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree arrived at Onyx, dispatching ground forces to pursue the Spartans.
With the Covenant closing in, Kurt ordered Dante to place C-12 shaped charges around the domed structure. When the Covenant breached the structure's interior, he and the others were ordered to fall back into the map room. After covering the group's rear, Dante and Lucy helped drag an injured Frederic-104 to safety. Dante was mortally wounded when his left side was grazed by a plasma bolt and a number of Needler rounds exploded on his chest, exposing his ribs. Dante fell behind as the group retreated, and caught up just when Kurt noticed his disappearance, limping and holding his side. Dante then collapsed and died.
The others wrapped Dante's body in a thermal blanket, and eventually took it to the shield world, where he was buried by the survivors of the battle who then held a funeral service to him and the other fallen Spartans.
List of appearances
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 100 ("On average only twelve years old...")
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 116
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 117-119
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 170-176
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 261
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, pages 131-132
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, pages 304-309
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 317
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, pages 378-379 | <urn:uuid:208c767b-789d-4457-888a-ff6b61030eb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.halopedia.org/Dante-G188 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953049 | 705 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A 21st century gold rush that's good for the environment?
The reality that a single ounce of any substance is worth $1,400 can exert a considerable influence on a person.
Especially when the substance in question is legal and can be peddled on the open market.
(Certain drugs have a comparable value, but dealing in them, unless you’re a licensed pharmacist, is a clandestine matter. Also, the people who get into that line of work frequently end up not with a lucrative investment but rather a long prison sentence or a bullet in the head from a short-barreled handgun.)
Gold, by contrast, has for centuries been a socially acceptable, and treasured, commodity pretty much everywhere on the globe.
It’s no coincidence, certainly, that the colloquialism is “good as gold” rather than “good as cocaine.”
(Also why the world’s greatest athletes don’t win the heroin medal.)
Anyway, since the price of gold began its record-setting escalation a couple years ago (a record if you don’t adjust for inflation, that is) I’ve been awaiting tangible evidence that this trend is having any effect around here.
Something more tangible, at any rate, than my own daydream about mucking around with a pan in a local stream for a few hours and sifting out enough flakes to buy a lift kit for my FJ Cruiser.
I was interested, then, to learn a few weeks ago that the lure of profits had enticed somebody to plow several feet of compacted snow from two forest roads near Sumpter so they could get to the historic mining district at Cable Cove.
This action implies to me a powerful impatience on the part of the plower, considering the warmth of spring will do the work for free.
(In theory, that is. I can appreciate someone being skeptical about the timely onset of spring hereabouts. It is surely the least reliable season.)
Knowing little about economics and less still about mining, I can’t manage even a semi-educated guess about whether anything noteworthy, or precious, will come of this presumptive plowing.
It’s an intriguing question, though — the more so because the pursuit of gold was so integral to the birth of Baker County and Baker City.
The wealth of the mines built many of our city’s finest homes and commercial structures, and it helped to ensure that the city would become one of the important settlements of Eastern Oregon.
As indeed it remains, almost a century and a half after Henry Griffin made the first strike in a gulch several miles southwest of what today is Baker City.
Yet to gauge how much time has passed since the extraction of gold has made more than a trivial contribution to the county’s economy, consider this: Back then nobody in the music industry except Sam Phillips could tell you who Elvis Presley was.
The year, to be specific, was 1954.
In that year the last of the massive dredges which plied (or plundered, depending on your ecological perspective) Sumpter Valley’s gold-bearing alluvials ceased its relentless digging.
During the ensuing 57 years, agriculture, timber, tourism and government have fueled our economic engine.
(Although timber, in the past dozen years, has dwindled to a position barely above gold mining.)
A lot of rock still gets gouged from the mountains, to be sure, but the biggest operation, at Ash Grove Cement Co.’s factory near Durkee, could better be described as quarrying.
The limestone there fetches a fair price, but Ash Grove needs considerably more than an ounce of it to clear $1,400.
(Considerably more than a ton, I imagine, come to that.)
The high but brief plateau in gold prices in early 1980 prompted a flurry of gold prospecting in Baker County, including the digging of a substantial tunnel on the southern outskirts of Bourne.
But prices soon plummeted, and mining companies focused on the more accessible gold deposits — and more friendly regulatory atmosphere — of Nevada.
A significant percentage of Oregonians would, I suspect, prefer that the status quo continue.
Gold mining, to be sure, can be a messy business.
I wonder, though, whether reviving the industry here might actually restore, rather than further degrade, places sullied by the rather indiscriminate mining that went on before there was such an entity as the EPA.
(Or the DEQ, or a host of other agencies known by their initials.)
Back before the First World War, when much of the truly intense hard-rock mining was being undertaken in these parts, miners took few precautions with the sometimes poisonous process of separating gold from ore.
Cyanide, for instance, was a common ingredient. And based on what I’ve read, mine owners in those halcyon days needn’t worry much about the government saddling them with a ruinous fine if they let some cyanide seep into a stream.
Nor was reclamation — basically, cleaning up your mess after you’ve extracted the gold — a matter of great concern.
Today, by contrast, if you want to do much of anything besides dipping a pan in an unclaimed section of creek (and beware that: you’re responsible for making sure you don’t violate somebody’s legally staked claim), you’ll probably need a permit.
Certainly you won’t get away with leaving piles of arsenic-laden tailings strewn about to sterilize the soil and spawn two-headed trout.
It seems to me plausible, should gold keep its current glittery status for a few years, that investors will try to plumb some of the richer old veins.
I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t focus on proven deposits, anyway. Besides which, this might prove whether the adage, “there’s more gold in the hills than was ever taken out,” is legitimate.
Considering the major advancements in technology, it might even prove profitable to do today what Chinese miners did a century and more ago — to rework the waste rock that whites had already skimmed.
Such an operation, performed under current environmental standards, could amount to essentially a dual process: mining and reclamation in one step.
Which is sort of like digging up a landfill to get at the recyclables.
Except gold is worth a lot more than plastic milk jugs.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald. | <urn:uuid:20cc29df-3f93-4224-a874-53bc12fe8c43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bakercityherald.com/Columns/A-21st-century-gold-rush-that-s-good-for-the-environment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954895 | 1,377 | 1.820313 | 2 |
BCM mentors under-resourced urban teens through transformative outdoor experiences to enrich lives, broaden horizons, and instill critical life skills. Big City Mountaineers helps under-resourced kids build confidence in themselves and respect for others like no other program can. Provide a once in a lifetime opportunity that is sure to shape kids' futures and broaden their horizons by partnering with BCM.
Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. It is the buying and selling of human beings that involves recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion, or other means for the purpose of exploiting. Shoe Revolt sells donated shoes on their online store to raise money for programs and organizations that support survivors of sex trafficking. By shopping at Shoe Revolt, men and women are taking a stand against the sexual exploitation here in the United States.
Deeply rooted within the music and environmental communities, Reverb educates and engages musicians and their fans to take action toward a more sustainable future. Reverb provides comprehensive, custom greening programs for music tours while conducting grassroots outreach and education with fans around the globe. Hundreds of thousands of music fans are reached every year with a positive, uplifting message of environmental sustainability.
Ensuring access to safe, clean water worldwide is critical and more than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. CannedWater4Kids is committed to the mission of distributing clean drinking water to children all around the world, whether it's supplying water packed in aluminum cans, providing funding to dig wells, or supplying water storage containers.
Since 1985, Heal the Bay has been working with the community to fulfill their mission of keeping the beaches, coastal waters, and watersheds of Southern California safe, healthy, and clean. For almost 30 years, the environmental nonprofit has made a tremendous impact through their beach cleanups, educational outreach, and legislative initiatives. Fifteen percent of each purchase of an Erik Abel Kelpafornia bottle will be donated to Heal the Bay, supporting the goal of keeping our coastlines beautiful.
When you purchase a USONW bottle from Liberty, $10 of each bottle will go toward providing all the comforts of home to service members and their families. This great organization supports our military in everything from travel assistance, troop deployment and homecoming events, mobile canteens and care packages. Their mission is to "lift the spirits of America's service members and their families, until everyone comes home." Let's help them do just that. | <urn:uuid:afaf19c2-71e2-4b9f-a877-cc8afdc3a7ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.libertybottles.com/Liberty_Shop_Collection.asp?collection=karma | 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 | 0.946622 | 512 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Mon July 6, 2009
Afghan Sword Needs Ploughshare Part
Kansas City, Mo. – The current U.S. military surge in Afghanistan is "on track" in the mind of Missouri Senator Christopher Bond. But the G.O.P. lawmaker considers it only a partial strategy.
Missouri's senior senator is careful to avoid making parallels with military actions in Iraq. He says the senate intelligence committee, of which he is a member, sent its recommendations to the Obama administration early this year.
Senator Bond says those points seem to be part of the overall military approach in Afghanistan. In his words, "We need an Afghan face, the Afghan army needs to lead the way. What the Missouri National Guard is doing is recognized by everybody as the wave of the future."
Senator Bond says the national guard has been filling a gap left when the US Agency for International Development couldn't or didn't sent agricultural help to the embattled country. Forty eight guards men and women with agricultural backgrounds moved in to teach modern farming methods, converting from poppy growing to vegetables. The senator says, where the opium trade held sway, now there is commercially grown broccoli. | <urn:uuid:d03134fb-9cf9-4f15-9073-055907dcc1b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcur.org/post/afghan-sword-needs-ploughshare-part | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959171 | 235 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Warning after cooking fire
by Angela Cole
Fire crews are warning people not to leave
cooking unattended following a kitchen fire in Tonbridge
Two appliances were called to Speyside shortly before
9.15pm after a saucepan overheated on the hob and caught alight.
The resident, who had left the kitchen, heard the smoke
alarm and called the emergency services.
Firefighters found the flat smoke-logged and took the pan
away from the heat, removing the smoke using a positive
pressure ventilation fan.
Tonbridge crew manager, Martin Westbrook, said: “There are some
important safety messages to come following this fire; firstly
never leave cooking unattended. If you leave the room, turn the
heat off. Secondly, fit working smoke alarms on every floor of your
home and test them regularly. They will give you the early warning
needed to escape in the event of fire in your home.”
For fire safety advice call 0800 923 7000 or go to www.3breaths.info for further
- Click here for more Maidstone news...
- Click here for more news from across the county... | <urn:uuid:fbc020d1-330e-4d72-9a05-34ca3e010f46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent_messenger/news/2013/march/garden_suburb_meeting/warning_after_cooking_fire.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937123 | 245 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Ice Breaker Games - a Perfect Way to Get Your Party Started!
Ice Breaker Games can help you get your party off to the best of starts, especially, if all or some of your guests have never met one another.
Ever arrived at the party, only to have your hostess show you in and "waltz" out of the room to greet other guests or to finish up other things, leaving you in a room with other people you've never met?
Remember those awkward glances and the silence?
Of course, you're a sociable person and you found something to say.
But you made a mental note for yourself, next time you're throwing a party to think of something to help your guests avoid feeling this uncomfortable.
The easiest way to achieve that (unless you can be in two or three places at the same time) is to find a couple of fun icebreakers for your guests to play, while you're putting some finishing touches on your party.
Those who've arrived early (or simply on time) can start an icebreaker game that won't take too long and, as new guests arrive, they can join a second or a third round of the game.
You, on the other hand, will have the prefect choice of joining the game with your guests or finishing up some things in the kitchen.
These party icebreakers are a great way to get the party started and provide your guests with a comfortable and fun way of getting acquainted.
LIST OF GAMES :
Adam and Eve - The Ultimate Ice-Breaker: A great fun party game which will ensure that everyone mixes and mingles.
Autographs - Figure out who everyone on the guest list is and get their autographs!
Checking Out The Competition - This ice breaker game will give your guests the opportunity to show off their powers of observation while enabling them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge about the other guests.
Feelies - Guess what's in the basket by feeling the objects.
Four-Letter Words - This game is the perfect way to make your guests meet and mingle.
Get Rid of It! - In this game players need to choose a piece of their property that they would like to get rid of and list the reasons why. Ideal for early evening entertainment.
Odd Bean - Win the game by collecting the most beans.
Who Am I? - This is one of those fun get acquainted games where players need to find out who they ARE by asking other people questions.
Who's Next? - This game will help everyone remember other people's names.
More games coming soon ..............
Expecting a lot of guests who've never met each other? Visit our Get Acquainted Games page.
Here is your chance to get 17 Fun Party Planning and Free Party Games ebooks created especially for all those occasions to celebrate that need careful consideration and planning.
There is everything from Kids Birthday parties, to Valentines Day, and also Bridal Showers, Wedding Reception Games, and that naturally leads to Baby Showers, not to forget Fancy Dress and Halloween, and of course Thanksgiving & Christmas, then you need to plan for your New Years Eve party. And all the other occasions in-between are covered as well!
Each monthly edition of the "Great Time Free Party Planner!" has an article about planning a party for that month's theme, and some extra party games, and then as a bonus you get one or two top quality free party ebook downloads as well!
I even add a little dash of humour to each edition of your free magazine. You will love getting this eZine every month, but if you ever change your mind, you just unsubscribe with a simple click - it's that simple!
Just complete the details in the form below and after you confirm your subscription you will be receiving your first report and eZine!
Return to The Top of Ice Breaker Games Page
Return to Home Page | <urn:uuid:aa76e467-9ace-41df-ac47-6f98d8c55597> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.great-time-party-games.com/ice-breaker-games.html | 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 | 0.944753 | 808 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Description: This photograph is a cleaned-up version, by A.F. Weaver, of the Hexagon Hotel, at approximately the time of its completion. (The site has been cleaned, and the trash removed.) Construction of the Hexagon Hotel started in 1895, and it opened for business in 1897, to ameliorate Mineral Wells' torrid summertime heat more than sixty years before air-conditioning became available. A DC generating plant (seen behind and to the left of the hotel) furnished power to an electric light in each room. It was the first electrically-lighted hotel in Mineral Wells. The builder/owner, Mr. David G. Galbraith was the inventor of a paper clip; and, with five other men, he held the patent for acetate. The original photograph, included in the A.F. Weaver collection, shows evidence of construction-related activity and debris along NW Holland Street (now : NE 6th Street).
Contributing Partner: Boyce Ditto Public Library | <urn:uuid:bc473b38-82ed-4fea-879f-2354aa420533> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/partners/BDPL/browse/?sort=default&fq=untl_decade%3A1890-1899&fq=dc_type%3Aimage_photo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94969 | 208 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Paul Emsley's portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge. / National Portrait Gallery
LONDON -- Britain's National Portrait Gallery has unveiled the first official painting of the Duchess of Cambridge.
Paul Emsley, the 2007 winner of the Gallery's BP Portrait Award competition, painted the portrait of Kate Middleton.
The gallery said that the duchess took part in an initial meeting to talk through the process of the painting. This was followed by two sittings, in May and June 2012, at the artist's studio in the West Country, England, and Kensington Palace.
"The Duchess explained that she would like to be portrayed naturally -- her natural self -- as opposed to her official self. She struck me as enormously open and generous and a very warm person. After initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait I think it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling -- that is really who she is," Emsley said in a statement.
The painting went on show to the public Friday afternoon in London. The duchess and husband Prince William had a private viewing of the painting on Friday morning.
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: First official portrait of Duchess of Cambridge unveiled | <urn:uuid:e2c55b94-b5c0-40a3-993d-1a0cd2d3cfa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailyjournal.com/usatoday/article/1826141?odyssey=mod_sectionstories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973943 | 260 | 1.6875 | 2 |
AUSTIN — Texas NAACP officials said the number of reports of voter intimidation have gone up since the 2008 election and are offering suggestions to combat it.
State NAACP President Gary Bledsoe outlined the laws some voters may be unaware of or find confusing, such as the language on the back of the voter registration certificate, which reads that the 2011 Texas Legislature passed a law requiring photo identification. While true, a federal court in August blocked enforcement of the law after registration cards were sent out.
“Bad things can happen when you have people deputizing themselves to enforce the law because they believe the misinformation about people voting when they should not,” Bledsoe said.
Another problem he said people may run into is poll officials failing to uphold election codes, which Henderson resident Lenecia Muckleroy alleged she experienced when she voted.
Muckleroy said a man inside the polling location audibly made racial slurs in reference to the president and was not asked to stop or lower his voice.
“I wasn’t expecting that because I’ve voted so many times before,” Muckleroy said. “It’s like this election is bringing out what’s deep down in people.”
NAACP legal redress chair Robert Notzon said speaking out in favor or against a candidate in a polling location is considered electioneering, a criminal offensive, and election officials should have addressed the man.
“If it just comes down to training, that’s great, let’s get the training, but we think more is going on,” Notzon said.
Bledsoe referenced a Fort Worth resident who went to vote and was confronted by a woman without a name tag outside a polling location. She allegedly demanded that voters allow her to check their ID’s. The voter walked around her and went inside to vote without being stopped.
The NAACP and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund are asking that people call them to report incidences of intimidation.
“Even though we are not a swing state, the right to vote is just important in Texas as it is across the U.S.,” said Luis Figueroa, a staff attorney with MALDEF.
Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater recently wrote about his experience trying to vote at the polls in Williamson County using his current utility bill, an accepted form of identification. He was told by the poll supervisor that a voter registration card or driver’s license was preferred.
A list of acceptable forms of identification and more information can be found at the Secretary of State’s website.
Friday is the last day for early voting in Texas. | <urn:uuid:d5c19537-5c3b-47e2-982f-e9e4db94760d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/tag/election/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96945 | 558 | 1.773438 | 2 |
2010 Energy Conservation Evaluation of Pacific Gas & Electric Company's Energy Alerts and Customer Web Presentment Programs
- Created on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 12:48
Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s (PG&E) Energy Alerts and Customer Web Presentment (CWP) are two informational energy conservation programs for residential customers that were first marketed in 2010. The program allows customers to have advance warning via email, phone or text message if their electricity usage is projected to push them into higher pricing tiers by the end of the current billing cycle. Energy Alerts are also sent out when the customer’s usage has actually entered any of the higher pricing tiers.
As of the end of December 2010, there were 1.4 million customers with current account numbers in the My Account program, of which 1.1 million had SmartMeter™ meters. Of these, about 128,000 logged in to CWP at least once in 2010.
This is the first evaluation of these programs. Statistical matching strategies were employed to select control groups for use in evaluating the energy conservation impacts of these programs.
The estimated conservation effects for both programs for 2010 are zero. However, there is significant uncertainty in these estimates, so it is possible that the programs could affect usage by 1-2% in either direction. | <urn:uuid:a9290259-469e-4600-9297-6cf18507070c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fscgroup.com/index.php/publications/98-2010-energy-conservation-evaluation-of-pacific-gas-a-electric-companys-energy-alerts-and-customer-web-presentment-programs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946483 | 265 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Economics For A Tea Party
I hate to pop your bubbles but this is a classic childish "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. Grow up because it is impossible to have it both ways. For those of you in the party who call yourselves conservatives and who think we must spend trillions to defend our nation, there is a fundamental error in your thinking. This kind of spending for anything will bankrupt the nation possibly destroying it even more quickly than any overseas foe. You are advocating spending our nation to death.
On the other side of the coin there are many who are just fine with domestic spending especially by the federal government on all sorts of social programs like Medicare. However, this spending especially now is also deadly to our nation as well as totally unnecessary. If we get our economic and social house in order around the concept of more personal and economic freedom and less foreign and domestic intervention by the federal do-gooders and profiteers we can turn this mess around in a year or two. Within five to ten years we would again be the wealthiest nation by far. Here is how:
1. Completely scrap all taxes on labor, sales, production and ownership - except for the ownership of land. Why so? We need more wealth right? Wouldn't that make everything better if we all just had more wealth? However, wealth doesn't grow on trees unless someone picks it and brings it to market. So wealth is land resources plus human labor mixing together and it results in the stuff humans either want or need to live a modern civilized existence. Our trouble for five thousand years or more is the governments and kingdoms have always taxed the labor and capital (saved up labor) part of wealth creation while mostly ignoring the land part. By taxing just the value of the location that individuals, groups and corporations owned it could easily bring in trillions. Mind you the buildings and other land improvements would be tax free. We should only tax the value of the location. The main beneficial effect of this shift in economic thinking is it makes urban land hording unprofitable for speculation. Owners of those slum properties, boarded up buildings and under used urban tracks of land would be paying the same tax as the owner next door with a nice building who now pays ten times more in tax for this privilege. The effect of this simple change in our approach to taxation would cause an enormous explosion in building and improvements which means jobs, jobs and more jobs. This tax can't be evaded period so everybody who owns land that has location value pays the tax. People owning land in the out lying areas would pay little tax and farmers would pay zero tax. Food would become more plentiful and cheaper at the same time.
2. But this is only the revenue side of our problems. The spending side must be address as well or all this new efficiently collected cash will just be squandered especially on this empire nonsense to make us safe. This is the same idea as you equipping your home with the most advanced electronics to guard against thieves, build a moat around your property, have laser beam weapons on the ready but have no money left to pay the mortgage or buy food. How stupid would that be? But this is exactly what our current batch of politicos do to supposedly make us safe. Tell me how safe people feel when they and their children live in the streets like millions of Americans do today. It's a disgrace and must end or the nation will end. So the philosophy of war spending until our nation's ending must stop! Bringing the troops home will end the trillion dollar subsidy to foreign nation - many of whom now despise us. That wealth will stay in America and peculate around in our economy. An additional trillion dollars a year into our economy is just the medicine we need right about now.
3. On the domestic side of the spending question we must stop spending billion each year restricting liberty. In just about every case the government has sold you these restrictions as necessary for your safety when the reality is these laws are for the safety of the profits of the powerful. Take hemp for example. Hemp and its cousin marijuana are illegal to protect big multinational corporations from being wiped out by their inability to compete in a free market. By the way we have no free market. We have corporate crony capitalism based on the elite having legal privilege and monopoly and the people - not. Therefore, the vast majority of Tea Party folks rail at the cost of gasoline yet are not up in arms about legalizing hemp which might cut the cost of gas in half. Hemp would cheaply replace petrochemical fertilizers and can even be made efficiently into fuel compared to corn. The homegrown fibers of the plant would revitalize the America garment industry. It's cousin marijuana has too many medicinal values to name here but I will mention one. The pharmaceutical industry would be decimated by legal pot because it would replace many of their toxic pharmadopes that are literally killing the patients today.
Just these three proposals would radically change America for the better and virtually overnight. The changes in the tax law, the millions of troops spending and living at home and the savings reaped by not banning positive things like hemp and marijuana would create tens of millions of jobs immediately many in the local government. These new areas of economic activity would need to be made "regular" in the vernacular of the early Americans meaning honest and responsible. It did not mean government being busy bodies minding every aspect of our personal business. So it is true lots of people will lose jobs in say, the petrochemical industry and the oil tanker jobs will wain. But these jobs will be replaced with ten times more higher paying jobs - at home.
Just because you may not understand economic law will not suspend the effects of economic law. You just won't know why the economy is screwed up and you will demand childish things as a result that will only make matters worse as children often do. Plus you have no unifying principle to fuse into a viable political movement without the above changes. Many Tea Party folks are willing to sacrifice tomorrow for some pleasure today. Stop acting like junkies and children and be more responsible and grown up. You know the current system is broken and we are sinking fast. Have the courage to change now or the Tea Party will eventually collapse in chaos along with the nation. | <urn:uuid:fca55458-c97d-4362-989d-86d7a52f7d33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tomasestradapalma4today.blogspot.com/2010/04/economics-for-tea-party.html | 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 | 0.964619 | 1,276 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Shortly before the bombing and shooting spree in Norway last month that left 77 people dead, Anders Behring Breivik e-mailed a thousand people the document he called his “compendium” -- a more accurate label than “manifesto,” as some have called it, since large chunks of text were cut and pasted from various sources rather than composed by the murderer himself. In its opening, Breivik says he spent three years preparing the work. It runs to 1,518 pages in PDF. There is no table of contents or index. Its final pages contain a number of photographic self-portraits. In one, Breivik is dressed in a uniform with a patch that reads “Special Issue Multiculti Traitor Hunting Permit.” He holds a weapon, aiming it somewhat to the reader’s left.
Just having the file open on my computer’s desktop for the past couple of days has proven to be depressing. I was in no hurry to read Breivik’s magnum rantus, and the decision to download it was not a matter of morbid curiosity. If anything, I tried to avoid learning more about the massacre than absolutely necessary. Certain kinds of sensationalism leave you feeling contaminated. In any case, the inescapable details proved all too familiar. Breivik’s anti-feminism and Islamophobic rage, his conviction that “multiculturalism” and “political correctness” are destroying civilization, and must be stopped -- all of this is the usual stuff of contemporary resentment. Even his "traitor hunting permit" is standard-issue misanthropy.
But there turns out to be more to Breivik’s text than the usual hateful boilerplate. The killer was also a perverse sort of public intellectual.
He devotes almost 30 pages of single-spaced text to a peculiar tour of 20th-century thought. It is poorly informed but passionate. Breivik thinks of himself as an enemy of critical theory, which, by his reckoning, has ruined modern culture by undermining the rightful authority of European males. In particular, he appears obsessed with the influence of the Frankfurt School of philosophers and social scientists who fled the Nazis in the 1930s. (Many ended up in the United States; their research foundation, the Institute for Social Research, was affiliated with Columbia University between 1935 and 1950.) From the account in Breivik’s compendium, the school emerges as a tireless, ruthless, single-minded force seeking to destroy the good old days. This is unintentionally funny, given that a number of Frankfurt School thinkers were culturally -- and by the 1960s even politically -- rather conservative.
These opening pages of Breivik’s compendium are polemical and delusional, in equal measure. But the document is significant for at least a couple of reasons. The first is that it is the cornerstone of an effort not just to rationalize an act of violence, but to encourage others to follow his example. (A few hundred pages later, he gives advice on explosives and so forth.)
The other noteworthy thing about Breivik’s section on intellectual history is its provenance. All of his ideas came from the United States. Even that may be understating it. Nearly every syllable of Breivik’s diatribe against critical theory, “cultural Marxists,” and militant feminism was taken from a think tank in the Washington, D.C., area. His rampage was, in effect, the American culture wars continued by other means.
A good summary of Breivik’s opening pages appears in “The Time of the Spectacle,” a book now being written by Douglas Kellner, who is a professor of philosophy at UCLA. He has published a number of volumes on critical theory -- including a study of the Frankfurt School figure Herbert Marcuse, who features so prominently in Breivik’s text as to be one of the main villains. Kellner provided me with some paragraphs from a recent draft of his work in progress, and I would prefer to quote his remarks on the compendium rather than having to spend any more time reading the damned thing.
Breivik uses the term “cultural Marxism,” writes Kellner, to label “everything that he opposes, including all forms of left, liberal, and progressive thought…. In his genealogies of cultural Marxism, he privileges the Frankfurt School whose work he interprets as the origins of the ‘political correctness’ movement (i.e. anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and other forms of tolerance)….” There is no evidence that the author read a single work by a Frankfurt School thinker or anyone else that he denounces. “The presentation is generally trite,” notes Kellner, “and based on secondary sources.”
Nor, may I add, are those secondary sources always reliable. We are informed that the Italian Communist thinker Antonio Gramsci concluded that “a Bolshevik-style uprising could not be brought about by Western workers due to the nature of their Christian souls.” From this we must conclude that the Russian Orthodox Church was either pro-Bolshevik or non-Christian. (Of course, that would assume some knowledge of the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church.)
“At a secret meeting in Germany in 1923,” reads another especially silly passage, the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukacs “proposed the concept of inducing ‘Cultural Pessimism’ in order to increase the state of hopelessness and alienation in the people of the West as a necessary prerequisite for revolution.” Now, the whole point of Lukacs’s work was that alienation and disintegration were the inevitable products of modernity itself. Besides, nobody had to organize a secret meeting to generate cultural pessimism in Germany in 1923. If you wanted to find some, you could go out on the street.
Examples could be multiplied ad nauseum. The text almost collapses under the weight of its own misinformation. But Kellner’s point is a bit different. He notes that Breivik’s remarks on critical theory open “with the claim that ‘one of conservativism’s most important insights is that all ideologies are wrong.’ ” As an attempt to trump the Frankfurt School, this misses the point by a mile. Their work was never an effort to create an ideology; it tried to analyze the logic of social systems, and most of all to understand the origins of fascism, but never offered a programmatic alternative. (Nor did they find much good to say about the Soviet Union. A German Communist once said he wished the Frankfurters would join the party just so they could be purged.)
Kellner notes that Breivik’s compendium “clearly [embodies] an ‘ideology’ in which he imagines Europe was [until recently] free of Muslims and all forms of cultural Marxism.” But if all ideologies are wrong, then Breivik has negated his own enterprise. The whole thing “self-deconstructs,” in Kellner’s appraisal.
Unfortunately, self-contradiction never kept a homicidal maniac from completing his mission. And as it happens, the pages in question were not actually written by Anders Breivik. The ersatz erudition all comes secondhand, from a collection of articles called Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology, edited by William S. Lind, which is readily available online. It was published in 2004 by the Free Congress Foundation, a think tank founded by the prominent conservative fund raiser Paul Weyrich in 1977. (Its offices are currently in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Va.)
The foundation once sponsored a TV network called National Empowerment Television, which is now defunct. In 1999, it aired a program called “Political Correctness: The Frankfurt School.” One of the talking heads appearing on it was Martin Jay, a professor of history at UC Berkeley. A substantial chunk of Breivik’s text consists of a tendentious chapter-by-chapter account of Jay’s study The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research 1923-1950 (Little, Brown, 1973). This summary is taken, more or less verbatim, from a chapter of the FCF's book from 2004.
In an essay appearing in the winter 2011 issue of the cultural journal Salmagundi, Jay wrote about finding himself involuntarily associated with “an odd cast of pseudo-experts regurgitating exactly the same line” about the Frankfurters. “When I was approached for the interview,” he writes, “I was not informed of the political agenda of the broadcasters, who seemed very professional and courteous. Having done a number of similar shows in the past on one or another aspect of the history of the Frankfurt School, I naïvely assumed the end result would reflect my opinions with some fidelity, at least within the constraints of the edited final product. But what happened instead was that all my critical remarks about the hypocrisy of the right-wing campaign against political correctness were lost and what remained were simple factual statements confirming the Marxist origins of the School, which had never been a secret to anyone.”
The claims that the Frankfurt School intended to destroy civilization and impose a new tyranny upon the word were expanded upon in Political Correctness: A Short History of an Ideology. But the book cast its net a little wider than the Frankfurt school -- devoting a few pages to deconstruction, for example. Breivik took a selection of material from the collection, making it more appropriate for the audience he hoped to reach. When necessary, he tweaked the text a little. Mentions of the United States or “this country” were made into references to Europe.
Not everything could be repurposed, however. The best parts of chapter five would not have spoken to the Norwegian condition, but I recommend it for its interesting revelation of the American political passions infusing the book. The chapter is called “Radical Feminism and Political Correctness,” but it goes to some places you might not expect from the title.
As much trouble as the Frankfurt School and the cultural Marxists have caused, it seems, “the feminization of American politics” has even deeper roots than that. It began with “the idealistic Transcendentalists” like Margaret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau.The problem was not simply that they were feminists. They were also “abolitionists, bent on destroying slavery and Southern culture as well.” Their ideas "propelled our nation toward Civil War.” Things have never quite gotten back on track. And now, 150 years later, the major political parties hold “’feminized’ conventions featuring soft, emotional, Oprah Winfrey-type orations and sentimental film clips of the presidential candidates.”
Clearly Ralph Waldo Emerson is just as responsible for this totalitarian nightmare as Friedrich Engels -- possibly even more so. In any case, we have the Transcendentalists to blame for ruining a perfectly good plantation system.
Just before deleting Brievik’s document and related drivel from my laptop, I called Stephen Eric Bronner, a professor of political science at Rutgers University. He has published a good deal about the Frankfurt School, including a recent volume on it for the Oxford University Press series of “very short introductions.” Not surprisingly, he was aware of the Frankfurt derangement syndrome. “It’s the usual mixture of relatively legitimate claims with complete nonsense,” he said.
It’s the nonsense that’s toxic, of course. But the imaginary gallery of bogeymen is strangely revealing, even so. The real-life Frankfurt School thinkers “were concerned with liberty and autonomy,” Bronner said, “and opposed to mass society. Their entire outlook was shaped by the Holocaust, which also shaped their fear of political action, their very deep distrust of mass movements. Their outlook was individualist, nonconformist, bohemian. This idea that they wanted to dominate the culture is absurd.”
Absurd, but not inexplicable, perhaps. Brievik et al. can scarcely hide the wish to dominate their own societies. They yearn for a mass movement to wipe out any obstacles to that happening.
Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a column about a book from the late 1940s called Prophets of Deceit. Its main author was Leo Lowenthal, a German émigré sociologist and member of the Frankfurt School. Lowenthal and his colleague analyzed the speeches and writings of a certain kind of demagogue that became prevalent during the 1930s. They warned of subversive foreigners and sinister elites bent on destroying everything their audience held dear. Lowenthal wrote that these figures concocted narrative that were “always facile, simple, and final, like daydreams.” They gave their followers “permission to indulge in anticipatory fantasies in which they violently discharge [their] emotions against alleged enemies.”
Sometimes the fantasy is enough -- but not always.“The Frankfurt School wanted a more cosmopolitan, civilized, open society,” said Bronner. “I think that’s part of why the School has become part of these bizarre stories.” That sounds right. They conceived a world beyond resentment. It seems like that would be a good thing. But not for everyone; for some people, resentment is all they have left. | <urn:uuid:9929e30a-8b2d-45ec-b5fb-760984acd7d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee_on_norway_massacre | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965522 | 2,860 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Under current law, candidates' campaigns are not allowed to coordinate with superPACs, although they clearly benefit from their messages. As result, candidates have performed feats of verbal gymnastics in order to talk about them. Host Scott Simon speaks with NPR's Peter Overby about the role of superPACs in the presidential race.
SIMON: Last week, we spoke with Clay Johnson, an open-source advocate and digital strategist, about his new book, "The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption."
CLAY JOHNSON: You know, our minds are really wired to be affirmed and to be told that we're right. And that's the central premise of "The Information Diet." It's really, who wants to hear the truth when they can hear that they're right?
China appears to be rethinking its reliance on oil from Iran. Here, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (right) visits with the members of the Saudi Arabia-China Friendship Association on the outskirt of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier this month.
In the late 19th century, scores of celebrated, valorous explorers attempted to reach the North Pole. Groups of explorers from the U.S., Europe and Scandinavia invented clever new equipment, raised money, stirred national pride and enthralled the world by attempting to march, sail or sled to the most cold, remote and unseen place on Earth.
But it was a perilous business: Of the 1,000 people who tried to reach the North Pole in the late 1800s, 751 died during their attempt, author Alec Wilkinson tells NPR's Scott Simon.
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum shakes hands with supporters prior to speaking during a campaign stop at Captain Steve's Restaurant on Jan. 20 in Fort Mill, S.C. Fort Mill is just over the line from North Carolina, and some voters wish they could cross over for the GOP primary on Saturday.
Credit Mark Wilson / Getty Images
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks during an event on Jan. 11 in Rock Hill, S.C., just over the border from North Carolina. | <urn:uuid:5ef1668e-3fb0-468d-b97f-39282cc91764> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wknofm.org/npr-news?page=4578 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952578 | 432 | 1.75 | 2 |
Language and communication, in both visual and verbal forms are played upon and deconstructed in Hard Copy, a collaboration between Chris Lloyd and Wayen Gruffudd.
Before entering the gallery at g39 you come across a piece of work at the front door: a brass plaque which lists, by name and title, all of the artists who have worked in the gallery to date. The nameplate by Chris Lloyd confirms all the past efforts of individuals involved, while the future of the artist-run space at g39 is looking uncertain. In the fast changing, cut-and-thrust of the Cardiff cultural scene, a long wait for funding decisions means this may be the last exhibition in the gallery. The nameplate is worryingly poised somewhere between being a company sign and a '...once worked here...' heritage plaque. This is typical of Chris's work: The objects are familiar while the message is not the one that we expect. Chris Lloyd's work uses a system of re-presenting things that are already familiar to us, but by subtly subverting or changing it he stealthily takes us by surprise.
In making Sprachgitter
, Wayne Gruffudd has meticulously deconstructed the entire dictionary and re-presented it as a room whose walls advance and retreat as you attempt to decipher the sheer overload of information. The columns of words are all-encompassing so that in order to truly see the work the viewer is forced to step back, leaving behind word and definition.
Second floor Sprachgitter
(Language mesh) Language is a mesh barrier through which we attempt to communicate with others. Emotion, feeling etc. reduced to a limited medium that is (mistranslated by the listener reader. Language is the claustrophobic space in which we live, yet it remains the object of desire - the false hope of 'true' connectedness. Attributed to Paul Celan 1920-70 | <urn:uuid:00ff6691-8d72-4aff-ad84-0fab8555672d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://g39.org/cgi-bin/website.cgi?place=exhibitions&id=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949338 | 391 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Counterterrorism Calculus in Yemen Shortchanging Political Solutions
Cross-posted from the Arabist.
The Washington Post, stating what ought to be obvious about the US “secret war” in Yemen, In Yemen, U.S. airstrikes breed anger, and sympathy for al-Qaeda:
Since January, as many as 21 missile attacks have targeted suspected al-Qaeda operatives in southern Yemen, reflecting a sharp shift in a secret war carried out by the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command that had focused on Pakistan.
But as in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where U.S. drone strikes have significantly weakened al-Qaeda’s capabilities, an unintended consequence of the attacks has been a marked radicalization of the local population.
The evidence of radicalization emerged in more than 20 interviews with tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from four provinces in southern Yemen where U.S. strikes have targeted suspected militants. They described a strong shift in sentiment toward militants affiliated with the transnational network’s most active wing, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
Presumably, the CIA would disagree that this sort of approach is undermining US counterterrorism efforts -- even though it is said that it deeply disturbs the White House when “errors” like this occur:
On December 17 , the Yemeni government announced that it had conducted a series of strikes against an Al Qaeda training camp in the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province, killing a number of Al Qaeda militants. As the story spread across the world, Shaye traveled to al Majala. What he discovered were the remnants of Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs, neither of which are in the Yemeni military’s arsenal. He photographed the missile parts, some of them bearing the label “Made in the USA,” and distributed the photos to international media outlets. He revealed that among the victims of the strike were women, children and the elderly. To be exact, fourteen women and twenty-one children were killed. Whether anyone actually active in Al Qaeda was killed remains hotly contested.
Or rather, we believe it deeply disturbs the White House, since as the Daily Kos diarist Jesselyn Radack notes, the White House “can neither confirm nor deny” the air war in Yemen and invokes a black ops non-disclosure rule to keep the books closed.
But the US is not “involved in some domestic conflict,” of course. Why? Because President Obama himself said so:
“We’re not in Yemen to get involved in some domestic conflict. We’re going to continue to stay focused on threats to the homeland—that’s where the real priority is.”
This distinction is patently absurd — and, as Esquire’s Charles Pierce noted, awfully like what JFK talked up in cabinet meetings about Vietnam. What is going in Yemen is first and foremost a domestic conflict, and by taking a side in that conflict — alongside the Saudi-backed government in Sana’a, against AQAP and the Ansar al-Shariah — we have involved ourselves in a domestic conflict — perhaps even deeper than the CIA will admit. I would be inclined to just dismiss this statement as a “he kept us out of war” promise in campaign mode, if it weren’t for the fact that so many reports out of Yemen — including leaked State Department cables — illustrate that the US really is so fixated on al Qaeda it seems to disregard any suggestions that its air war is destabilizing the country, and that all the “collateral damage” is helping anti-government Islamists in southern Yemen make greater inroads towards Sana’a, and more willing to cut deals with al Qaeda cells “in order to place themselves in a better bargaining position with the central government.” Some of those likely involved in the US war effort seem to understand this, but the present policy does not seem to reflect their qualifiers on the composition of the anti-government forces. These qualifiers are not unlike the distinction between the Taliban and the original al Qaeda organization — i.e., that the Taliban emerged independently in the 1990s from al Qaeda and Mullah Omar ran his own war effort while maintaining a special relationship with bin Laden’s lieutenants and, in particular, the “55th Arab Brigade” that fought against the Northern Alliance, which, while linked to al Qaeda, was a distinct entity.
Yemen watcher Gregory Johnsen notes that AQAP, formerly the refuge of several dozen hardline Saudi clerics and thugs, has greatly expanded to take in hundreds of members from neighboring Somalia, and more importantly, many Yemenis as well. The now Yemeni-heavy AQAP would therefore have several units composed of foreign fighters and sympathetic Yemenis — in effect, “international brigades”1— serving among (loosely) aligned anti-government tribal militias in Yemen like the Ansar al-Shariah. But even so, AQAP is not the same as Ansar al-Shariah, a view seemingly accepted even by members of the Beltway’s inner circle of counterterrorism:
“While AQAP has grown in strength over the last year, many of its supporters are tribal militants or part-time supporters who collaborate with AQAP for self-serving, personal interests rather than affinity with al-Qaeda’s global ideology,” [National Security Council spokesman Tommy] Vietor said. “The portion of hard-core, committed AQAP members is relatively small.”
The danger in this reading, therefore, is that the US’ actions, by generating sympathy for AQAP, will blur the line between mainly tribal actors (especially Ansar al-Shariah) and AQAP by popularizing the latter among Yemeni Islamists — which could help AQAP build up its networks and resources to the point where it actually does succeed in one of its plots against US targets… or, against “softer” Saudi ones. And then the chips would be down for whichever administration is sitting in the White House at the time.
But the main American diplomatic concern — one shared by the Yemeni military, whose air force does not have the capacity to carry out “signature strikes” — is apparently that the US not be too closely associated with the drone strikes. The secondary concern, that there are underlying ethnic and economic tensions in Yemen which require addressing to keep the country from turning into another Afghanistan, is simply secondary. In part, this is because the central Yemeni government, despite its dependence on US largesse, really has no desire to help US observers go around the country to better report back to Washington on the civil strife. All the practical issues — and there are many — of doing so aside, the central government really has no real desire to enable this because such a survey of the country would probably make it very clear just how divided society is and how many tribes are so resentful towards the government in Sana’a (the US’s limited historical interest in Yemen certainly helps keep things in the dark). Given the choice of adding more drones to the aerial armada or recruiting civil society monitors, the White House is, from its past record, certainly going to choose the tech over the people because identifying the larger problems does not immediately produce deliverables — i.e., the AQAP body count. That fixation, Johnsen believes, is helping to blur distinctions between AQAP and Ansar al-Shariah.
The head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC), one of the key behind-the-scenes players in all this (only those “in the loop” know his name) — embodies these discrepancies quite well, it seems: “We’re killing these sons of bitches2 faster than they can grow them,” he reportedly said in 2011 regarding the “signature strikes” program implemented in Pakistan and now practiced in Yemen (and possibly Somalia too) under the designation “terrorist-attack-disruption strikes” (TADS). And yet the “sons of bitches” quote comes from a man who has also reportedly conceded to his close associates that “this is not a war you’re going to be able to kill your way out of.”
Unfortunately, it appears to be precisely what the US is trying to do in Yemen.
Note: We’ll follow this post with a detailed breakdown of the forthcoming PBS Frontline documentary on Yemen from one of our contributors.
1To be clear, my analogy is based on seeing a similarity in an order of battle — foreign fighters in units fighting alongside a homeland “liberation” movement — not that the “original” al Qaeda is somehow running the show with AQAP, or Ansar al-Shariah.
2It’s not clear if he meant actual militants, or any male capable of bearing arms in the target zone, since the White House’s casualty assessments rely on the assumption that all males capable of bearing arms in the target zone are “militants” unless proven otherwise. | <urn:uuid:cd3e09bc-9623-4ca8-b093-53f8ea5b7280> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fpif.org/blog/counterterrorism_calculus_in_yemen_shortchanging_political_solutions?q=Tag%3AIreland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956204 | 1,896 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Many Central New Yorkers drive through the Memorial Parkway in Utica on a daily basis.
But, how often do you get the chance to get out of your car to appreciate the landscape and monuments?
It's called the summer "Walks and Talks" lectures.
And Monday night residents parked their cars to get an up close and personal view of one of Utica's well-known streets.
We know thousands of runners each year run through the Memorial Parkway for the annual Boilermaker Roadrace.
And you may even pass through it every day, only knowing that there are various monuments that decorate the street.
"I drive by and it's a blur," explains New Hartford resident Sheila Himmelman.
Himmelman says she's enjoying the outdoors with her dog fluffy and learning a thing or two.
"It's good to be able to take it slowly and admire each statue and find out what it is and why it is," says Himmelman.
This is all a part of the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica's Summer "Walks & Talks" lecture series.
On Monday night, residents got a quick history lesson on the various historical monuments and were able to appreciate the landscape designs.
"No matter how big or how small you are trying to figure out what you are trying to accomplish with your design and who you are trying to interest," says Kate Cardamone, the Central New York Conservancy's Landscape Design Consultant.
Cardamone says she wanted to make the monuments pop with color.
"Most of these monuments you don't get up close to them you drive by them and we want them to be beautiful as you drive by," says Cardamone.
And the trees you see providing shade for walkers and drivers along the Parkway, it's planted with a purpose.
"Along the edges of the Memorial Parkway we like to have trees that are canopy trees, big shade trees that really accent with the intention of driving through a boulevard," says Cardamone.
There are fourteen monuments along the parkway. And the first monument given to the city was the swan fountain sitting pretty on the corner of Elm and Pleasant Streets.
For more information about the summer lecture series go to uticalandmarks.org | <urn:uuid:1a401933-4c98-46ef-aa0e-4df2a8dc77e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cnyhomepage.com/fulltext-news/?nxd_id=159302 | 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 | 0.962309 | 467 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Tens of thousands of people came again to Madrid’s Neptuno Square on September 29 confronting the police and demanding the resignation of the government and a constitutional reform process.
The action was conceived of in July by a group called Stand Up Platform (Plataforma En Pie), which is made up of members of various collectives, including the Platform of People Affected by the Mortgage and some assemblies of the 15M movement. A few days after Stand Up Platform released its call to “Occupy Congress,” several thousand people signed on for the event online. But many people had doubts about the call: nobody knew who was behind it, and when some extreme right-wing groups showed their support for the 25S call, most of the 15M movement’s assemblies rejected the initiative.
In early September, Stand Up Platform asked for support to organize the protest of 25S. Dozens of members of the 15M assemblies created a 25S Coordinating Committee, which held open assemblies in El Retiro Park in Madrid. They didn’t have much time until the date of the protest, but within a few days they formed three work commissions: Communication, Action and Content. While the Communication commission worked on spreading the call, the Action commission drew up a plan for the day of action and those involved with the Content group worked on proposals to change in the current system.
Soon, the name of the call — Occupy Congress — was changed to Surround Congress to make clear the nonviolent intent of the action, despite government allegations that described the 25S call as an attempted coup d’etat and threats to charge the organizers with crimes “against the nation’s institutions,” which could mean prison sentences of between three and five years.
The government attacks on the 25S call escalated on September 15 when some members of Stand Up Platform and a few unionists were arrested for carrying a banner that said “Surround Congress” in a demonstration organized by the largest unions. This was the beginning of more direct repression. In the following weeks, police went to El Retiro and identified everyone in the assemblies of 25S Coordinating Committee and Stand Up Platform.
“The trucks arrived and several policemen came out like they were a S.W.A.T. team,” says Chema Ruiz, a member of Stand Up Platform. “They cornered everyone, even elderly people.”
On September 20, the squatted social center, Casablanca, was closed by police who believed it was the headquarters of the 15M movement. In fact, the center was full of organic vegetables belonging to consumer groups and cooperatives, and more than 10,000 books collected by BiblioSol during and after last year’s Sol square encampment.
Nearly a thousand people went to Lavapiés square that day to protest the closure of the social center, where a member of the Casablanca collective read a manifesto which connected the closure to the call for the 25S protests and invited people to go that day to the Congress:
We know that this is not a random eviction. This is a product of a process of increasing repression closely related to the recent calls for civil disobedience that demanded the recovery of popular sovereignty. In this context, the eviction of Casablanca today is part of the strategy used by economic and political elites to fight a new stage of social mobilization. We who want to build a new reality have passed from a position of resistance to direct confrontation, and 25S will mark the turning point.
The detentions and closure of Casablanca won over many in the 15M movement who still had doubts about the call for 25S.
Meanwhile, Democracia Real Ya — which organized the protest that swelled into the 15M movement last year — invited people to tell legislators not go to the Congress that day. Members of Parliament received more than 6,000 tweets with the hashtag #queridodiputado, meaning “dear member of parliament.”
September 25 started with dozens of buses headed towards Madrid to join the call to action. Some of them were stopped by police, who identified and registered everyone inside. “When we reached Madrid, there were three police trucks waiting for us,” tweeted one of the people coming from Granada.
By late afternoon, however, there were thousands in Plaza de España and Atocha, the two meeting points. At 5:30 p.m., they marched towards Cibeles, where the two marches met to go together to the Congress. Soon, the Congress building was surrounded by more than 1,400 policemen, who formed a security perimeter of 500 meters in diameter around the building. The city center was also taken over by police.
The demonstrators responded to the police barricade with a citizen barricade. Hundreds, holding hands, surrounded the security perimeter. “If they don’t let us surround the Congress, we will surround the entire city center,” shouted the protesters.
At 10:00 p.m., police began charging against them. Many sat on the ground and remained in Neptuno Square, but many others were forced to retreat towards Atocha Station, where they were chased by police, who fired rubber bullets at them inside the train station.
Half of Madrid became filled with police trucks, and police officers asked people for their IDs in the street. Alberto Casillas, a waiter at a coffee shop near Neptuno, refused to let the police inside the establishment, where demonstrators were taking refuge. “You will not enter here with batons,” shouted Casillas to the police.
By the end of the day there were 35 people arrested and more than 60 injured.
But the threats made by the government about charging the demonstrators with crimes against the nation’s institutions have fallen on deaf ears. Last Thursday, the National Court refused to investigate the 35 demonstrators arrested and said that charging them with that kind of crime would be a “legal aberration.”
Inside Congress, support for the protest is growing. The party Izquierda Unida asked for an investigative commission regarding the police actions of 25S. Photos and videos of the police repression are flooding social networks, and more than 50,000 people are demanding in an online petition that the government punish those responsible. Meanwhile, the 11 Izquierda Plural legislators have announced that they will join the protest themselves.
Last Wednesday, thousands came back to Neptuno Square to ask again for the resignation of the government and the release of detainees from the day before. There were fewer people, but the message was clear: 25S was not only a one-day protest. Last Saturday, hundreds arrived to Madrid again from all around Spain and several other cities, including Murcia and Barcelona, for their own demonstrations. The next call for protest in Congress is for October 23 or 25, the day the members of Parliament have to discuss the Spanish National Budget. Autumn in Spain promises to be hotter than ever, now that the people know what they want.
This story was made possible by our members. Become one today. | <urn:uuid:ae0eb282-066c-4f8b-832f-0b542cbe415a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/25s-marks-a-new-wave-of-protests-in-spain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975242 | 1,466 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Virginia Parks is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration. Her fields of special interest include urban geography, urban labor markets, immigration, racial and gender inequality, residential segregation, and community organizing and development. She teaches courses at SSA in policy formulation and implementation and in community organizing and development.
In her research, Professor Parks analyzes the patterns and ramifications of spatial inequality, particularly as they manifest in urban environments at the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender. Her primary interest is in how space and place bring about and mediate labor market outcomes, such as unemployment and low-wage work, for immigrants, native-born minorities, and women. A central concern informing Professor Parks's research and teaching is how local communities can respond to these patterns of inequality through various organizing and development efforts.
Professor Parks is a 2008-09 Russell Sage Visiting Scholar. Her project at the Russell Sage Foundation, with Dorian Warren (Columbia University), examines local political responses by communities of color to economic inequality and the plight of low-wage work through a comparative case study of two anti-Walmart campaigns: a campaign in Chicago, IL, that led to the passage and subsequent mayoral veto of the Big Box Living Wage Ordinance aimed at Walmart and the low-wage retail industry in 2006 and the zoning defeat of Walmart in Inglewood/Los Angeles, CA, in 2004. These cases reveal how, when, and with what success ordinary people--local residents and grassroots political actors--can exercise their political voice to influence urban economic development and the new economy of low-wage work.
Professor Parks received her Ph.D. in Geography and M.A. in Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Before her life as an academic, Professor Parks worked as a community organizer.
969 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637 | <urn:uuid:de6914cd-f11e-4d15-9c20-2568985f6b28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/v-parks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9491 | 378 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Sylt is the biggest and the most northern located island in North Frisia at the coast of the North Sea. It is famous as it includes the three most popular health resorts Westerland, Kampen and Wenningstedt. Very special is also the 40 km long western sandy beach. Due to its location and the rough storm waves, Sylt is a victim of constant land loss.
As the wind at the sandy western beach of Sylt is so strong every year the world's best windsurfers come here together for the final Surf World Cup of the tour. The East of the island is more calm as it is a part of the Wadden Sea shore. In the North of Sylt you will detect wide ranges of dunes with lighthouses, as well as fields of heath, yellow rape flowers and Sylt roses. These few facts point out the diversity of this extraordinary landscape that provides many great objectives with an amazing impact. Select one of our Sylt posters that will have a refreshing effect in your home!
One of the best-known cities on the Sylt-island is Westerland. While it kept his own identity and traditions, Westerland is the spotlight of the island as it provides a lot of attractive possibilities: excellent restaurants, bistros and coffeehouses as well as designer boutiques. Not only a poster, but also art prints, canvas prints and gallery prints can bring a bit of Sylt's elegance into your house! | <urn:uuid:279e753f-7cfd-4a48-bc7d-b5c2341d663f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artflakes.com/en/sylt-poster/l/holidays/c/regions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961009 | 299 | 1.59375 | 2 |
On this page you'll find:
1. Advice from Rebecca Mojica, a former intern with the Nonprofit FAQ.
2. Some notes by Jayne Cravens, an expert on nonprofits, who also wrote for the Nonprofit FAQ (click here to jump down).
by Rebeca Mojica
Corporate sponsors seem to be everywhere in today's world. Take the Olympics, for example. Hard to imagine what the skating rink would look like without those ubiquitous banners touting fast-food restaurants and telephone companies. It's not just the big events that draw sponsors, either. Small, local events—10K runs, award dinners, neighborhood festivals—usually have a slew of corporate logos in the accompanying literature.
Why is corporate sponsorship so prevalent? Quite simply, it makes money. Done correctly, it can make a lot of money and build important relationships. Done poorly, it can cost money and waste many people's time.
I've put together a 9-step guide that offers tips on soliciting, acquiring and retaining corporate sponsors. It is by no means a "definitive" guide, but it is a good starting point. The guide was written with small- to mid-size events in mind, however most of the suggestions offered apply to larger groups as well.
Note: This article will NOT tell you what type of event you should do. That's another subject. There are many things to choose from, from dinners to auctions to golf tournaments to walk-a-thons. Before you proceed with the nine steps, though, make sure you have a good event. You should not be soliciting sponsors until you've planned the event. Once you've figured out what your event is going to be, where it's going to take place, etc., then you're ready to move to Step One...
Sending "blind" proposals usually does not work well. Knowing your audience helps you figure out who to solicit.
Events that are successful in securing sponsors often 1) have a ton of people involved or 2) have a very specific focus. Sponsors like the former because they can reach a large audience in one shot. The latter works well for sponsors who are trying to reach a particular target market. Unless your nonprofit has the resources to handle an event with thousands of attendees, you should explore the "specific focus" route.
When you're planning your event, try to go beyond your organization. For instance, if your agency provides shelter to animals, think about hosting an event in which you can invite local veterinarians, pet store owners, zoo employees, etc. One reason to invite "professionals" is because it is lucrative from the sponsors' point of view. Sponsors may not be interested in your organization, but they may be interested in getting their product into the hands of these professionals. Another advantage to inviting a new pool of people is that more people will know about your organization and possibly volunteer or donate money.
Once you have established your audience, do some brainstorming. Think about which companies and local businesses are likely to be interested in reaching your audience.
Make sure the benefits at each level are distinct and enticing enough to encourage previous sponsors to move up a level.
It's a good idea to have a wide range of levels so that smaller businesses as well as larger companies can find a level that suits their needs and budget. If your event is quite small, your entry-level sponsors might simply receive a small ad in an accompanying program or flyer for $50. For larger events, sponsor levels might begin at $200, $500 or even $1,000. Depending on audience size and publicity opportunities, cost of a "title" sponsorship could range from $750 to $10,000. Title sponsors receive maximum publicity, and their logo should appear in ALL publicity material.
You should base your sponsor levels on the benefits to the company. Put a price on each benefit you'll offer and add the prices in each level. This will give you an idea as to the cost of a sponsorship at each level.
Know in advance that you may have to be flexible and customize levels for some sponsors to meet their marketing needs. Some sponsors might be interested in a half cash, half in-kind (product donation) sponsorship. Food and beverage companies often would like to see their logo on T-shirts, hear their company name announced, etc. They may want to have a table or booth available to distribute their products.
Depending on your event, these are a few benefits you might want to consider offering (but proceed with caution to address the possibility that the revenue might be subject to Unrelated Business Income Tax — UBIT):
The most time-consuming—but ultimately money-saving—step: Get on the phone and pitch your event as a great marketing opportunity.
Call local business to find out if they're interested in reaching your market. When you begin your conversation, focus on how the company will benefit: "This is Such And Such from My Organization. I thought you might be interested in marketing your company's products/services at an upcoming event we're hosting...do you have a few seconds?" Come up with a pitch that in 20 seconds OR LESS explains the event, audience and some benefits to the company. If they are interested, you can always go into more detail or send more information.
Your calls will vary with the type and size of company you contact. You'll probably speak directly to owners at small local businesses. Medium-size companies may have marketing departments or human resource departments that take care of sponsorships. Large companies receive countless requests for sponsorship, and they may have a sponsorship recording that gives you their guidelines for requests. These companies usually put together their budgets once a year, often October, so you may have to send your proposal months ahead of time. Be sure to pay attention to corporate areas of focus: Some companies make commitments to only sponsor certain groups such as children or environmental organizations.
For potential sponsor ideas, talk to your board, staff and volunteers. Investigate their ideas and connections. Try contacting advertising and public relations agencies to see if they think any of their clients might be interested in your event. See if any events similar to yours-or events with similar audiences-already exist, and review their sponsor lists.
Once you've made all these calls, review your notes and prepare a list of companies you will solicit. Yes, this takes a lot of time, but it can save your organization money. Instead of blindly sending out proposals to hundreds of businesses, ignoring their guidelines and focus areas, you can send dozens of proposals to companies who have already expressed interest in your event.
It's important that sponsors feel you are asking money specifically from their company, and they're not just part of a massive group.
Keep your letters short. As in your phone calls, concentrate on the exposure the company will receive for their money, not on how the money will help you. With large corporations, it's especially true that their marketing budgets are usually much larger than their charitable donations budget. You may come across a few companies that aren't as interested in the publicity; they want to sponsor your event because they truly believe in your organization's mission. They're a very rare—but much appreciated—bunch.
Whenever possible, customize the letter. A good attention-getter is attaching a post-it that says, "Thanks for speaking with me. Here's the information on our event." With the size and type of company in mind, request a particular level from each potential sponsor. Tell them the anticipated impressions such a sponsorship will yield. Impressions are calculated by finding the total number of times a sponsor's name will be seen or heard. For instance, say your event is expected to draw 100 people. Your entrant-level sponsors might receive: space to display a banner (100 impressions), their name announced twice (200 impressions), and their name in your organization's newsletter (350 impressions) and annual report (475 impressions), for a total of 1,125 impressions.
Make sure sponsor benefits are easily found in your letter and they're easy to understand. Consider using bullet points to make the benefits stand out. Make sure your letters include your name, address and phone number, the date and location of the event and the address(es) to send checks and in-kind donations. If you have 501(c)(3) status, be sure to say so, as some companies will only sponsor those agencies. If your letter doesn't include a short description (two paragraphs, or a few bullet points), on what your organization does, then include a one-page fact sheet or a tri-fold brochure on your organization. Hand sign each letter.
Finally, include a chart or brochure that details sponsor benefits at each level. If this is the second time your organization is hosting the event, include a flyer that lists the sponsors and describes the audience from the previous time.
Don't be afraid to call potential sponsors to find out their thoughts on sponsorship.
After receiving your letter, some companies will call you to say they're interested in sponsoring. Most will not. It's up to you to follow up with them about two to three weeks after sending your proposal. Some people hesitate to follow up, thinking it will bother the company. Generally most large companies do not accept follow-up calls, so note that when you're making your initial call. But for those that do not mention "no follow-up," it is perfectly OK to do so. In fact, it's the best way to find out that an interested company did not receive your letter.
Some interested companies may request face-to-face meetings, but most sponsor communication will be done via phone, fax and e-mail. One possible way to begin your follow-up call: "This is Such And Such from My Organization. I just wanted to follow up on the sponsorship request I sent. Do you have a few seconds?" If they don't, ask when would be a better time to call back. Then be sure to call back at the requested time. If they say yes, your response might be: "Do you have any questions? Does it look like something you might be interested in for this year?" If they aren't interested, find out why not. Keep good notes so you remember next year not to re-call people who said they definitely would not be interested. If they say yes, congratulations! You're on your way to building a strong list of sponsors.
Don't drop your sponsors once they've agreed to send you money.
One of the worst messages to send to a sponsor is: "I just cared about getting your money. Now that I've got it, I'm going to disappear." Make sure sponsors see that you value their support. Once a company has agreed to sponsor, send them a thank-you letter that recaps the benefits at the level they've chosen. After you receive their check, send another thank-you. If your organization has a newsletter, begin sending it to them. If you don't have a newsletter, send them periodical updates on your organization and/or the event. Any time you think a sponsor has a concern about something, give them a call. If a sponsor calls you, make it a point to return their call as soon as possible, and absolutely within 24 hours. If you'll be out of the office for a few days, make sure your voice message directs sponsors to a live person.
Perhaps people who weren't able to sponsor may be interested in attending your event.
As your event draws near, send invitations to some of the companies that did not sponsor. You might want to say something like, "Even though you weren't able to sponsor us this year, we hope you'll consider attending or volunteering during the event." Sometimes, an employee from the company will attend, see what a great event it is, and make sure money is budgeted next year for sponsorship.
Publicity is why your sponsors signed on...so make sure they get it!
This sounds obvious, but make sure your sponsors receive everything promised. If you can give them added publicity, by way of name announcement, etc., do so. You don't want to put all the work into acquiring sponsors and then not deliver results.
Don't drop your sponsors after the event.
Send thank-you letters to sponsors after the event. Let them know how successful the event was, how much money was raised, the final attendance count, etc. For sponsors at high levels (or, if your event was very small, for all sponsors), put together packets that showcase their publicity. Include copies of all the ads they appeared in, photos of their banners at the event, photos of people using their products at the event, etc. If some sponsors had any concerns at any point, give them a call to see how they think things worked out. Even after the final tasks of the event have been taken care of, and that last thank-you has been sent, keep in touch with your sponsors! Continue sending them your newsletter or updates on your group. Send them your annual report. Invite them to other events at your organization. Send them quick notes if you see their company given a positive mention in the newspaper. You don't want to only contact them once sponsorship solicitation starts up again. On the other hand, don't go overboard. For example, some sponsors prefer not to receive holiday cards from nonprofits, because they feel as though their money isn't being spent in the best way. It can be a fine line, so use your judgement. The bottom line is recognizing that each sponsor has unique needs and concerns. Do what you can to accommodate your sponsors while striving to make your event a successful continuation of your organization's mission.
When the event is over, debrief (with yourself, if you did this alone; with your team if you had help). Make notes on what went well, and what didn't. Think about refining your presentations and your event planning to build on what went well and avoid the bad bits.
Then, of course, do it all again for the next event.
By Jayne Cravens (8/25/03):
I feel like a lot of people are looking for The Magic Database of Grants and Corporate Sponsorships... and it doesn't exist.
Finding funding and sponsorships is about building relationships and presenting opportunities.
I start with asking my volunteers (including board members) what companies they work for, and if they would be comfortable approaching the company, with our organization's support, about corporate sponsorships (going and knocking on the HR director or Marketing director's door, for instance, sitting down face-to-face, telling the person about his or her volunteering experience at the organization, asking if volunteer opportunities could be communicated to other employees, and asking if the company has a corporate giving program, etc.)
I also suggest walking around the block, then walking around a two block radius, and so forth, and writing down the names and addresses of every for-profit business nearby. Then prepare a flyer or letter that specifically introduces those neighborhood companies to your organization. Invite them to visit your web site, invite them to volunteer, and talk about the difference your organization makes. Once you have established relationships with these companies, then think about how best to approach them for sponsorships/donations. You may get a response, "Oh, our corporate office in (insert different city and state) handles all donations." Fine — when you write that corporate office, mention the local affiliated in your neighborhood.
As for what I look for in a corporate partner to fund a project, I look for companies that:
And when I go for the "big ask", I make sure I know exactly what it is that I am asking for. I want to be able to say, clearly and with assuredness, why I think the organization or project is worth supporting, and all of the various ways the company could support it (from simply mentioning it to their staff to in-kind-donations to financial donations and everything in between).
I also go with the attitude of "I have an opportunity for you to make a difference" rather than "please, we need money."
I should add that I'm basing this all on previous experience — I don't fund raise in my current position.
Jayne Cravens writes and speaks frequently about success for nonprofits. More of her writing and other resources are on her website. | <urn:uuid:dff9741e-9d24-46db-bd36-93d314b26c17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.idealist.org/info/Nonprofits/Dev2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968251 | 3,376 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Carr Lot Multi-Modal Transit Center & Confluence Park
The site known as the "Carr Lot Property" is located on the east side of Taylor Street in the city of Montpelier at the confluence of the North Branch and Winooski Rivers. It is approximately one acre in size.
Up until recently, it was leased by the City as a public parking lot, accommodating approximately 100 vehicles. Vermont Transit Company used to use the property as an intrastate bus station. Due to environmental concerns, the site has been closed for public use.
Centrally located in the downtown business district at the confluence of two rivers and adjacent to the State's Capitol Complex, the City of Montpelier hopes to transform what was once a scrap yard and train depot into a state-of-the-art transportation and commercial center and public park.
Carr Lot Committee
The conservation commission began exploring the potential for redeveloping this site back in 1998. In 2001, the City Council formed and appointed members to an official Carr Lot Redevelopment Committee to further investigate the feasibility of redeveloping this site and to help the Council and community determine whether the City should pursue purchasing it.
The citizens of Montpelier voted in March 2002 to authorize the City council to spend up to $800,000 for the purchase and redevelopment of this property.
History of the Site
The site's environmental concerns emanate from its uses as a marble yard, train depot, train maintenance facility, and agricultural warehouse in the 1800s, as a stone mason's shop and transportation depot in the 1900s, and as a scrap metal salvage and processing yard from 1945 until the early 1980s. The City currently leases the property for use as a parking lot. The City has a "right of first refusal" to purchase the property. A property value assessment was completed in November 2001.
The site is has become contaminated through materials associated with past uses. There were two known fires at the site involving a former crane building and an adjacent office shed. An underground petroleum storage tank was removed in 1991 and an aboveground storage tank containing kerosene was once present at the site.
December 2001, fieldwork for a Targeted Brownfields Assessment (TBA) was performed at the site. The August 2002 TBA Report prepared by Metcalf & Eddy identified the following indications of environmental contamination:
Specifically, surface soil collected from ten locations indicated surface soil contamination with PCBs, petroleum hydrocarbons (EPH), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and metals including arsenic, chromium and lead. Three subsurface soil samples did not indicate reportable levels of PCBs, EPH, or PAHs. Arsenic was detected in the subsurface soil samples but at a lower concentration than the surface soil samples. The highest concentrations of these contaminants appear to be located in the center of the site near the former railroad tracks and junk processing areas. Groundwater obtained from three groundwater monitoring wells indicated elevated levels of iron, manganese and sodium. Samples obtained from two of these wells contained trichloroethene (TCE) and tetrachloroethene (PCE) above the VGES.
- fill materials with elevated head space readings for volatile organic compounds(VOCs),
- surface and subsurface soil containing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and metals at concentrations above EPA Region IX Preliminary Remediation Goals (PRGs),
- surface soil with elevated petroleum hydrocarbons in the vicinity of a reported former above ground storage tank,
- groundwater samples with VOCs, perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and metals in excess of Vermont Groundwater Enforcement Standards.
Adjacent properties to the north of the site have reported releases of hazardous substances including petroleum hydrocarbons from leaking underground storage tanks associated with former and current automobile service garage and gasoline stations as well as chlorinated solvents associated with a former dry-cleaning operation.
A Field Task Work Plan Amendment for the site has been accepted and field work was completed in November 2002. A report was submitted in 2003 (see plans & public involvement)
The site has been placed on the State's hazardous sites list and is requesting further investigation. The City has, as the prospective purchaser, taken on the responsibility to investigate and cleanup the site through the Brownfields program. The City has also requested from the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources an application to participate in the Redevelopment of Contaminated Properties Program and is prepared to pay the application fee and other required escrow fees in order to be a participant.
In December, 2002, the City submitted an Brownfields Clean-up Grant pre-application to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, New England Division.
Site Plan for Multi-Modal Transit Center | <urn:uuid:6c937f61-848b-431e-a084-3fcc24b68a05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.montpelier-vt.org/group/102/Carr-Lot-MultiModal-Transit-Center.html?id=eNUpNoba | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957641 | 1,011 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Introducing… Chris Rackley
I first noticed Chris Rackley’s art when I found a link to his thesis exhibition, Behind the Sky (January 2012). The DC-based artist is a MFA graduate from George Mason University (and member of Floating Lab Collective) who creates “cinematic vignettes” inspired by distant worlds and sci-fi films. His work was recently featured in a group show at Artisphere in celebration of Countdown to Yuri’s Night called Elevator to the Moon: Retro-future Visions of Space. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity. So I emailed Chris for a quick Q&A to hear more about his inspirations, creative practice, and new work. Here’s what he had to share.
On a daily basis, what inspires you?
Scientific research related to the fundamental nature of the universe is fascinating. Knowing about the most basic structures of reality has always been a thrill for me. Years ago, when I worked in a darkroom developing X-ray images trying to make money after college, I spent hours trying to understand special relativity. As soon as it was safe to turn on the lights in the darkroom, I would read from a textbook on modern physics, working through the problems on my old TI-81 graphing calculator. After a few minutes, more X-ray film would arrive for me to develop and I would have to turn off the overhead lights and return to work. In the dark, I thought about Einstein’s postulates, reviewing his thought experiments again and again until, in the dim red light, my mind would finally comprehend and I could see. Understanding special relativity for the first time was like waking up from deep sleep. Although I did not like my job, and despised confinement in a small darkroom, I felt as if I could see beyond the walls into the very fibers of the fabric of reality. I felt powerful and I felt free.
Today, my RSS feeder includes updates from Fermilab, CERN, NASA, and Wolfram’s MathWorld and I continue to seek moments of lucid understanding by learning about current physics research. I am obsessed with efforts by physicists to find a theory to explain everything and I recently lost an entire afternoon to reading about the construction of a Holographic Interferometer at Fermilab. When I make artwork, I work to maintain a sense of connection to the structures behind the everyday, visible world.
Can you explain your creative process?
I am always working on several projects at once. Some ideas work best as paintings; others work better as video pieces or as drawings. The pieces come together around a collection of ideas and interests in a process not unlike the way planets form. My reading in physics, math, philosophy, and science fiction exert a sort of gravitational pull on a variety of media, techniques, and methods. I collect images, videos, old electronic parts, discarded plastic; anything that seems like it could become part of a little world goes into my categorized collection. Sometimes I keep something to use as a reference for a painting because I prefer to paint from life whenever possible. Other found objects sit in my collection for a long time, maybe a year or more, before an appropriate occasion arises: a plastic cup may finally become a rocket ship or an old telephone may become a rover. For me, art making is a way of knowing. If I am ever wondering what to make next, I usually ask myself what it is that I want to learn.
Latecomers to the Universe, installation view, 2012.
What are your thoughts on CERN’s Higgs Boson announcement?
For me, the significance of CERN’s update on the search for the Higgs boson is that the universe is still full of mysteries. Rather than view the announcement as the discovery of the final piece of a puzzle, it might be better to think of the detection of a Higgs-like boson as merely one piece of a small section of much larger puzzle from which many, many more pieces are missing. Even if the properties and behaviors of the particle recently uncovered at CERN are found to exactly match predictions, physicists like Brian Greene keep reminding us that the mathematical model used to make those predictions is still far from supplying a complete description of the universe. Extending the puzzle analogy, not only are there missing pieces to the particle physics puzzle, but the puzzle box with the completed picture on the front is also missing. In other words, physicists are still in hot pursuit of a mathematical model that can describe the whole picture of the universe. I get the sense that understanding of the fundamental nature of the cosmos is at a beginning rather than an end and it seems as though physicists are on the verge of some very startling discoveries.
How do you view the connection between art and science?
Experimentation with physical observables as an approach to discover new knowledge is present in the methodologies of both science and visual art. Scientists and artists spend a great deal of time isolating and scrutinizing matter, time, and space, seeking for something behind or inside the surface of everyday experience. The fruits of both disciplines offer a shift in how the world is perceived. As an example of a perceptual shift offered by science, everyday experience tells me that time runs the same for everyone everywhere, but Einstein’s theories say that my movement alters the speed of time—when I go for a run, my watch runs more slowly. An example from art: everyday experience tells me that a color like cadmium red is always the same, but Josef Albers’ paintings show me that a color can change depending on surrounding colors.
Scientific and artistic discoveries require imagination in order to strike out from what is already known into unexplored territory to contribute to a body of knowledge. It is strange that efforts in the fields of science, art, math, and technology came to be viewed as divergent activities, and especially strange that art making was viewed as a less rational or less intellectual activity. These activities did not seem to be at odds in the minds of Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci, nor do they seem to be at odds in the minds of contemporary artists like Tim Hawkinson.
Long Voyage, installation view, 2012.
What are your current favorite artists, books, or movies?
Sarah Sze has found a poetic way to relate mundane objects to the elegance of cosmic structures. With installations like A Certain Slant, I feel as though I am seeing the fundamental forces involved in the formation of a world. Ian Burns’ work creates an aesthetic moment that is at once beautiful, silly, and intellectually engaging and his pieces display an economy of means that I find attractive. Tim Hawkinson makes pieces that often utilize ingenious mechanisms that seem to originate in the mind of a mad scientist. John Wood and Paul Harrison also make work that I find humorous, especially since they deliver it with straight faces. Their performance pieces feel like science experiments because they use minimal materials to isolate an aesthetic moment in the same way scientists isolate physical phenomena in a laboratory. The work by these artists has helped me understand how to make art that is inspired by scientific ideas while avoiding merely diagramming or demonstrating scientific concepts.
What are you working on right now?
Recently I have been making contraptions consisting of wood construction, lights, motors, found objects, and my own paintings. I think of the contraptions as little reality experiments. A small video camera and a television monitor are paired with each contraption, and from the point of view of the camera, a cinematic image is revealed on the monitors. The images on the monitors are inspired by science fiction film and television. Ambient “space noise” is generated by the motorized movement of the contraptions and amplified.
To design the structure for each piece, I borrow strategies developed by special-effects artists who created cinematic images before the advent of computer generated imagery. Each piece is designed such that visitors can enter the scenes on the televisions by placing themselves, or part of themselves, in front of the camera. The scale of the viewer’s body relative to the objects on the screen changes with each image—in one scene the viewer is larger than a galaxy while in another the viewer fits comfortably inside an impact crater.
Walk-in Crater, installation view, 2012. (View the piece on Vimeo.)
In addition to making the viewer’s scale uncertain, the narrative connection between the images is also unclear. Although science fiction aficionados will find familiar tropes (a planet seen from orbit, a desolate planet surface, an exterior view of a space ship, etc.), the absence of the human figure and the physical separation between the scenes on the monitors allows viewers to insert themselves as explorers or invaders. | <urn:uuid:249611e0-12fd-485a-92f6-9340dae63cf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jumpsuitsandteleporters.com/post/27834592473/introducing-chris-rackley-i-first-noticed-chris | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952693 | 1,800 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Speak for the trees
Sudden oak death (SOD) is now inside Santa Rosa city limits, making it extremely timely that an SOD informational meeting is being held in Occidental on Saturday, Aug. 18. Scientists believe the devastating disease is caused by a water-borne pathogen. This region experienced extremely wet springs in 2005 and 2006, setting up what experts believe were prime conditions for spreading SOD. "It was kind of the perfect storm as far as the pathogen," notes Katie Palmeri, of the California Oak Mortality Task Force. "There have been tons of new infections, tons of new die-off." The North Bay's coastal fog belt has been hit hard. Providing details about the disease, including current heightened fire risk and other concerns, the workshop will be held from 1pm to 4pm, at the Occidental Fire Department, 3821 Bohemian Hwy.
Sausalito resident Duane Martinez was one of six rappelling down China's Great Wall on Aug. 6, unveiling a 450-foot-square banner proclaiming "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008" in English and Chinese. The protest was held one year and one day before the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which Tibet independence advocates charge is being used to legitimize China's illegal occupation of that country. "We're appealing to the international community to shine the light of scrutiny on China in the coming year. The Olympic dream of Tibetans is freedom by August 2008," says Rinzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet. The Great Wall protesters were detained by the Chinese police for two days, then deported to Hong Kong together with two other Free Tibet activists.
Back to paperAfter several years using electronic machines, Napa County voters may be returning to traditional paper ballots. On Aug. 3, Secretary of State Debra Bowen released the results of two months of study by University of California experts, showing that the systems could be easily compromised. Bowen "de-certified" the use of Diebold, Hart and Sequoia voting machines except for one per polling venue to satisfy federal accessibility requirements. Bowen's decision affects about 9 million voters, more than half of the registered voters statewide, says Napa County Clerk John Tuteur. Napa has been using the touchscreen Sequoia machines since March 2003 and according to Tuteur, they work well. The more than 20 counties affected by the de-certification could file a lawsuit. But, says Tuteur, "if it's not overturned by the courts, we will comply." | <urn:uuid:8826d9fe-eab2-44be-9117-19e6e050641a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bohemian.com/northbay/news-briefs/Content?oid=2171486 | 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 | 0.948368 | 524 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Nicole Edmonds was just trying to get home after her night shift at a Wendy's. Shawn Tiller was out on his own, having refused to live under his mother's rules. The two didn't know each other. But they share this: They are the most recent teenagers to be murdered in a city where the killers are as young as their victims.
Youth shouldn't be a gateway to death.
But it has been for 25 juveniles murdered so far this year. That's nearly double the 13 killed in the city in 2005. And in Baltimore County, juveniles are becoming more involved in violent crime than they have been in the past, accounting for more than a third of violent crime arrests, up from 20 percent last year.
While there are some gang-related murders in the city, they don't dominate the killings. A petty argument is as likely a trigger as a dispute over drug turf, which makes crafting a solution to the youth killing that much more difficult. There is no one course of action required, no one group to single out.
Strategies to identify at-risk kids and programs for them have been put in place since 2002, when 36 juveniles were killed and Mayor Martin O'Malley demanded that city leaders redouble their efforts on this front. The city has toughened its curfew law and police have enforced it rigorously - nearly 2,700 kids were taken off the street between May and September. Police have sought out the most violent youth offenders, but the easy access to guns in some areas of the city allows a novice to exact swift revenge.
Murder victims Nikki Edmonds, 17, and Shawn Tiller, 16, couldn't have been more different in how they led their lives.
She was one of eight children of two working parents who was commuting to Linthicum to work at a fast-food restaurant. On their way home Nov. 7, Nikki and her younger brother got off the light rail train at the North Avenue station and were accosted by three people, one of whom fatally stabbed her. For what? Nothing.
Shawn left home this summer. He didn't want to live under his mother's rules, and had dropped out of school and moved in with a friend. He was shot and killed in East Baltimore this past weekend, and soon after, "RIP Shawn" appeared scrawled on a building nearby.
Nikki's parents had taken her out of public school and were educating her at home; they felt her city high school was too dangerous. Shawn's mother says she tried to keep him from the streets, but he wandered nevertheless.
Two different lives, the same tragic end. | <urn:uuid:37df1c53-d0f1-407d-9545-a26e76278f27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-11-17/news/0611170140_1_shawn-tiller-violent-crime | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990117 | 542 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Sometimes travel takes you straight down the rabbit hole.
Macau is an easy day trip from Hong Kong, but as soon as I had the opportunity to spend a few hours walking around, I sincerely wished I were staying for at least a few days.
Because it’s the strangest place I’ve ever been.
To understand exactly what makes this place so perplexing, I’ll need to give a bit of backstory: Macau is the result of the combination of a strategic placement at the mouth of the Pearl River, a strong tradition as a trading centre, a history as a Portuguese colony, and an identity that is mercurially Chinese. Guangdong farmers settled it, Portuguese traders expanded it, Chinese rulers allowed it because of the benefits Portuguese trade brought. It remained under significant Portuguese influence and control until 1999, when it was ‘handed over’ to China just as Hong Kong had been returned by the British a few years earlier.
And that’s, obviously, just the short version.
As a result, modern-day Macau is a truly bizarre example of multiculturalism: there are streets you can walk down which are lined with smooth, perfectly European colonial buildings, yet filled with Chinese businesses; signs on corners and ads are written bilingually in Portuguese and Chinese, which creates a seriously startling juxtaposition; graves in the local cemetary have pictures of Chinese women in qipaos with names like Maria Rosa and Luisa Antonia. At lunch, I flipped through a magazine featuring interviews with local Macanese residents – people who trace their heritage back to generations of intermarriage between the Chinese and Portuguese. Mixed haphazardly along the streets are pops of blue-and-white tiles, Lunar New Year firecrackers, and tiny shrines with curls of smoke rising from them next to bakeries selling pastéis de nata.
Tell me again why I thought I should just make this a day-trip?!
It’s true, Macau is microscopic and it’s more than possible to visit the majority of sights in just a day, but as I spent time exploring I sincerely wished I had more time to delve into this culture and atmosphere of this strange place. I wish I had had time to meet the locals, to talk with Chinese residents and Portuguese exchange students alike, to try and get some insight into what identity and sense of self-awareness comes from living in such a (and though the word will always sound trite, this is meant honestly) unique place. For serious, guys, I wish I could have gotten my anthropologist on!
So, friends and readers, take my advice, from someone who didn’t quite realise the sometimes-gravity of travel – if you have a chance to travel down the rabbit hole, don’t come up before you’ve gone all the way to the other side.
There are multiple ferries running between Macau and Hong Kong daily, from either the Shun Tak in Central (Hong Kong Island) or the China Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon Island). They run roughly ever 30-60 mins, frequently enough that you don’t really need to book ahead – though if you’re feeling particularly baller, you can also hire a helicopter!
Things to Do:
While I was perfectly happy just wandering the city (especially in the historic centre and Taipa – awesome strolling neighbourhoods!), there are plenty of other activities for interested travellers. One of my favourite moments was visiting the Lou Kau Mansion, a quiet pocket of the old town that you can check out for free. And seriously, what would be a post of Macau without mention of the casinos? If gambling’s your game, the downtown area is absolutely crawling with neon lights and betting tables. Poker, blackjack, and roulette abound…so go win back that money you’ve been blowing on nights out!
(If you enjoyed this post, please like us on Facebook! Your support is greatly appreciated :) | <urn:uuid:e94c7abe-8e72-45cf-a5c6-fd2823153f1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.anywhere-but-home.com/the-strangest-place-ive-ever-been/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954635 | 834 | 1.710938 | 2 |
July 20th & 21st, 2013
Gi & No Gi
- Sat July 20th 2013 - Gi
- Sun July 21st 2013 - No Gi
- Doors Open at 7:00am
Registration Now Open!Register
Parents Reaching Out for Help
From rich to poor, from featherweight to heavyweight, from bullies to victims, from aggressive to passive, I have watched students from all walks of life come through the doors of my schools in Southern California. Many times it is the parents that are at their wits end looking for a sport for their children, who are either performing poorly in school, struggling with behavioral challenges such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or do not enjoy traditional organized sports.
There are two things I explain to parents. The first is that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is not a miracle drug. It’s a program designed to shape young minds over a period of time. Through hard work, dedication, passion and pride they will develop character traits that will be with them for the rest of their lives. Instilling self-confidence, self-control, integrity, discipline, focus, and memorization in students is far more important to me than teaching a proper arm-bar technique, although it does get my blood flowing!
Like so many things in our society, parents assume that after enrolling their child into a school they will see an overnight change in their child’s behavior. I can not reiterate enough to those concerned parents that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is an activity that requires an investment and commitment from both the children and their PARENTS. I often use the example of farming to explain the growth process to parents. The hard work day after day for months and maybe even years leading up to the harvest will determine how successful the crop will be.
The second thing I talk to parents about is how a student progresses within Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the role of parents, masters, and instructors during the participation of organized competition. The competition gives students an opportunity to test their skills, which measures their progress both personally and technically. I remind parents that participating in a tournament is a privilege and should be a reward for their child’s dedication to their daily household chores, school work, and proper behavior including how they conduct themselves during their jiu-jitsu training.
The most important thing to remember is that whether a kid wins or loses, tournaments are a demonstration of the student’s integrity, self-control and courage that they learn from their training and their role models. Masters and instructors all want their students to win as much as their parents do, however not every student will win first place. The way we respond to adversity during competition is as important as the competition itself.
Do you as a parent and/or coach blame the referee or tournament director when your child or student doesn't win or do you adhere to the code of conduct that is instilled in students everyday? Being a positive example to your children or students and rising up to meet the next challenge will have a greater positive impact on the student’s progression within Brazilian jiu-jitsu than losing self-control, getting angry, and loudly placing blame.
There is no secret to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It is a wonderful and fun sport that requires hard work, dedication, passion and pride. It can be a very positive answer to parents reaching out for help as long each of us sets an example and adheres to the high fundamental personal values and standards of behavior of this tremendous art that is enjoyed by so many.
Last Updated (Monday, 17 September 2012 11:36) | <urn:uuid:2afef17f-7190-4386-ade8-8e18485f6724> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidsworldbjj.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971058 | 744 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Detroit Union Applies its Radical History to Fighting Foreclosures with Direct Action
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"The time it takes us lawyers to win even the easiest of victories means most homeowners will not be helped. ... When people try to get modifications, the banks tell them documents are lost, and give contradictory information. People are told, ‘You can’t be helped unless you’re behind in your payments,’ and later they’re told, ‘You can’t be helped because you’re behind in your payments.’”
—Ted Phillips, Executive Director, United Community Housing Coalition of Detroit
Much of the once-grand city of Detroit has been reduced to a ghostly ruin, and the recent upturns in profitability of U.S. auto firms have hardly helped it, since the companies have few plants left in the city. The heralded rebirths of GM and Chrysler hasn't helped workers much, as the Obama administration declined to insist on shoring up auto production in the United States in return for massive federal loans.
Abysmal poverty afflicts the city; 40,000 households have suffered water shutoffs. The specter of thousands of new home foreclosure stalks the city, threatening to push more Detroiters out of their homes on top of the 67,000 bank foreclosures—more than 20 percent of all household mortgages—that hit the city between 2005 and 2009 alone. The city already has an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 vacant homes. With the ongoing wave of foreclosures, home values have been plunging. Foreclosed homes sell for $38,000 in Wayne County and less than $11,000 in Detroit, according to RealtyTrac.
With little realistic prospect of besieged homeowners getting help from overwhelmed lawyers serving the poor, or Obama administration programs (see here and here), United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600 has been stepping in to help fight foreclosures. Working closely with groups like People before Banks, Occupy Detroit, Moratorium Now!, Jobs With Justice, and other groups, Local 600 has been an integral part of actions that have succeeded in blocking evictions. “All the good guys came together in an ad hoc coalition,” explained Vinny Pfursich, editor of Local 600’s newspaper.
Local 600 has 10,000 active members and about 15,000 retirees. It represents workers at 40 diverse workplaces, including nurses and lawyers as well as the traditional base of Ford auto workers at the River Rouge plant.
Labor educator Steve Babson, a leader of People Before Banks and author of Working Detroit, recounted a recent action that was “a scene straight out of Charles Dickens." An elderly African-American couple, with husband William legally blind, missed some mortgage payments to the New York Bank of Mellon Trust. In a sheriff’s sale, the bank bought the home for $12,000, meaning that the Garretts would have to move from their home of 22 years in the dead of winter.
At one point, Bertha Garrett thought that she had persuaded the bank sell the home to the Garretts for the $12,000 that the couple had managed to scrape together. But then the bank backed out of the deal, insisting on a sale price of $24,000, far out of reach for the couple.
Usually, what happens next step in the foreclosure process is the arrival of a truck hauling a dumpster, with a crew ready to throw out a family’s belongings.
But UAW 600 and its allies confronted the would-be eviction team with a tactic appropriate to the Motor City: cars and lots of them. The anti-foreclosure forces surrounded the Garretts’ home with dozens of cars, and the bank’s evictors were shut out. When the eviction squad called in the police, officers came to the scene but dismissed it as a “civil matter” and drove off. That left the anti-foreclosure forces still in command of the situation, and the evictors left the scene. | <urn:uuid:c5dc6757-b677-4bbb-8277-b4965c64ca26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/story/155100/detroit_union_applies_its_radical_history_to_fighting_foreclosures_with_direct_action?qt-best_of_the_week=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959917 | 849 | 1.539063 | 2 |
A feeling of energy is a key to feeling happy. When you feel energetic, you feel much better about yourself. On the other hand, when you feel exhausted, tasks that would ordinarily make you happy -- like putting up holiday decorations, getting ready to go to a party, or planning a trip -- make you feel overwhelmed and blue.
When my energy feels at a low ebb, I try one of these techniques (well, first I drink something with caffeine in it, but if I feel like I need to take further steps, I try these strategies):
1. Exercise. Even a quick 10-minute walk will increase your energy and boost your mood. This really works! Try it! People often say they're too tired to exercise, but in fact, unless you're exercising at a very intense level, exercise tends to boost energy rather than deplete it.
2. Listen to lively music. This is one of the quickest, easiest ways to get a jolt of energy.
3. Get enough sleep. If the alarm blasts you awake every morning, you're not getting enough sleep -- and it matters. Most adults need at least seven hours each night. Don't kid yourself about how much sleep you need! (Here are some tips for getting good sleep.)
4. Act energetic. Research shows that when people move faster, their metabolism speeds up. Also, because the way we act influences the way we feel (to an almost uncanny degree), acting with energy will make you feel more energetic. Stand up while talking on the phone, walk more quickly, speak with more animation.
5. Talk to friends. We get a real charge from connecting with other people. I've noticed that if I'm feeling low and then run into a friend on the street, I walk away feeling much more energetic. Reach out if you need a boost. This is true for introverts and extroverts alike.
6. Get something done. Crossing a nagging chore off your to-do list provides a big rush of energy. For a huge surge, clean out a closet. You'll be amazed at how great you feel afterward. A friend once told me, "Every to-do list should include one item that can be crossed off in the first five minutes." If that's all you can do, do it; you'll feel better.
7. Skip the food strategy. It's tempting to reach for a carton of ice cream when you're feeling listless, but in the end, all those extra calories will just drag you down. In general, be wary of the urge to treat yourself when you're feeling low.
Energy (or lack of energy) is contagious. If you feel energetic, you'll help the people around you feel energetic, too. And that makes them feel happier. In fact, in his excellent book The No A***ole Rule, Bob Sutton reports that being an energizer was one of the strongest predictors of a positive performance evaluation at work. (This is related to the Radiators vs. Drains distinction.)
Have you found any good, quick strategies for boosting your energy? Do you agree that your energy affects your happiness?
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Follow Gretchen Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gretchenrubin | <urn:uuid:cd691c33-376c-4619-b774-1d450f6b87da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gretchen-rubin/energy-boost_b_1683578.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946792 | 739 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Reddit is about one of few tech-related social news sites that I read regularly (especially programming.reddit.com). The others are Slashdot and Hacker News. The big news is — they have gone Open Source!
Since reddit’s beginning, we have stood on the shoulders of giants in the open source world. Every library, tool and platform we depend on is open. Until now, the only portion of reddit that wasn’t freely available is reddit itself. We are proud and excited that we’re finally giving back to the community that has given us so much.
Reddit started with Lisp back in the Y Combinator days. Then moved to web.py, and recently moved again to Pylons — it is one of the biggest Python-based website based on open sourced web framework, and now it is open sourced itself! Its git repository is now available online for everyone to see — delicious! It is certainly going to be a great resource for all Python developers to peek into the “how” of scaling a Pylons site.
Of course, to most SV journalists covering Web 2.0, “code” is nothing more than what is powering their profit-less website so they can raise venture funds, and “free software” merely means you don’t have to pay for it.
Reddit, the news voting site that was bought by Conde Nast in 2006, is making the code behind its site open source… That means anyone can now make their own Digg-like site. Not that there has been any lack of Digg clones in the past. Reddit’s move to open-source its software is merely an acknowledgment that it is already a commodity.
There are many other push-button products that are far easier to set up than open sourced Reddit, so that makes this recent announcement redundant? By no means. The source code of an actual website is the best way for any developer to learn — far better than any tutorial out there. It is all about empowering the programmers. It is like you are a car mechanics, an Aston Martin DB9 drives into the garage, and you are free to inspect any aspect of this beautiful craft… And people on the outside said, “oh, only because it is slower than the Ferrari”. Huh?! | <urn:uuid:917cc841-6919-4504-8203-fc5680645cc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scott.yang.id.au/2008/06/reddit-opensource-techcrunch-clueless/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959985 | 478 | 1.617188 | 2 |
AFTER they had co-founded the exhibition service Independent Curators Incorporated, Susan Sollins remained its director and Nina Castelli Sundell departed, to become, eventually, head of the Lehman College Art Gallery and, more recently, an independent curator on her own. Now, the two have come together again, their purpose to celebrate the organization's 15th anniversary. And what better way to do this than with a show about collaborating artists?
The display, titled "Team Spirit," is opening its tour here, at the State University's Neuberger Museum. Of the 80 or more partnerships around, the curators have chosen 26. They come in pairs, trios and larger groups, some using the names of their members, others collective pseudonyms or titles.
Although anonymity is no proof of esthetic cooperation, the history of partnership art seems to begin with the paleolithic era of cave painting and includes the mostly nameless architects and artisans behind Gothic churches. It also includes the workshops of old masters like Rubens and Rembrandt, as well as movements like Pre-Raphaelitism, Dada, Surrealism and Bauhaus.
In a catalogue essay, Ms. Sollins and Ms. Sundell cite most of these groups, observing their different characters and motives. But having also noted that the "concept of isolated genius emerged in the Renaissance, along with capitalism," they contend that the early collaborations did not call for the subordination of the individual ego to that of a group. This, they imply, was left to the collectives of the 1960's and 1970's.
It is hard to gainsay that idea but, given the narcissicism rampant in the second half of the 20th century, it is equally hard to agree with it. When Gilbert and George hit the world as "singing sculptures," in the late 1960's, they seemed to epitomize the cult of personality. Yet the curators insist that in the setting of "Team Spirit," they "point a way -- both forward and back in time," being believers in art as "a socially redeeming force."
And as such, the artists are connectable to Russian revolutionary art as well as to movements like Dada and Futurism that were symptomatic of the world situation (as is all art, willy-nilly). But with the grids of photographs here -- one shows Gilbert and George "praying" in black and white under fruit on a bough dyed yellow, the other is a multi-colored composition that features them presiding, small, over the heads of boys photographed large -- they could have fooled this reviewer.
But then it is sometimes hard to distinguish between artists who exploit the topical as subject matter and those trying for something that will last longer. A clear example of the first is the three-man collective General Idea, which offers an installation similar to that in the Aldrich Museum's "Language and Art" show in Ridgefield, Conn. Appropriating Robert Indiana's LOVE symbol, they adapt it to AIDS, the price that millions have paid for love.
The Canadian group Fastwurms (a literal translation might be "nearly worms") explains in a statement that it is challenging the "patterns of pathology and hypocrisy underlying the 'dominance' rationale of Western culture." Mocking the misuse of the word culture, it shows an example of the honkytown variety, a wishing well with shingled roof and sides that includes a bucket from which emanates a flashing strobe light. | <urn:uuid:38d46a67-d358-41ef-a933-58689e22bc01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/25/nyregion/art-a-provocative-look-at-collaborations.html?src=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964207 | 718 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Springer Spaniels and SM
I am pretty sure I know the answer but thought I would put it out there. I came across this that was posted on the ASAP (American Syringomyelia & Chiari Alliance Project) and thought I would ask.
"It was certainly an eye opener to know that Springer Spaniels can have SM and Chiari. But through advances in radiological tests, surgery, medications, genetics, and nutrition great strides will continue to be made for people who live daily with SM and related illnesses"
I think this statement came from someone who just attended the conference and got Springer Spaniel and Cavaliers confused because I am sure if they talked about this topic it would be Cavaliers. I have never seen Springer Spaniels listed as a breed affected with CM/SM.
Has there been any connection with this breed? For some reason I thought I have seen talk about outcrossing to Springers maybe in the future so I would imagine they would not consider this breed if it was also considered a breed afflicted with this condition.
Gosh, I hope you are right Anne, and it was just an error on the persons part about yet another breed being affected.
There are two breeds of Springer Spaniel, English and Welsh. The one considered as a possible outcross for Cavaliers is the Welsh Springer, as in appearance they look rather like a large Blenheim Cavalier. For someone not very familiar with either breed, or unfamiliar with Cavaliers, it could be quite easy to confuse a photo of a large Cavalier with a photo of a Welsh Springer. As far as I know, neither Springer breed has produced CM or SM.
Kate, Oliver and Aled | <urn:uuid:7a2fb34c-5768-4240-8f9a-ffe03ab13cdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/printthread.php?t=42479&pp=10&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971946 | 342 | 1.5625 | 2 |
So yesterday at work one of the other trainers asked me a few “would you rather…” questions.
One was about which piece of equipment I would choose from the gym as a weapon if a zombie apocalypse happened…
And the other was about which I would rather give up, nuts or dairy.
Which got me to thinking, isn’t a healthy lifestyle really all about “would you rather?”
I mean think about it…If you could eat whatever your favorite food is every day and look and feel great and be healthy, wouldn’t you? Would you really eat vegetables or cut out gluten and processed foods if you didn’t have to?
BUT that isn’t reality.
The reality of it is you are always playing a sort of “would you rather” game. Would you rather eat that pint of ice cream and feel crappy later or eat a natural, whole foods meal and feel energized and good later?
Would you rather eat pizza and chips and not perform well or eat a burger without a bun and a salad and get in a great workout?
I personally would rather eat well and feel great, be healthy and perform well. That is why I eat well most of the time. Plus I do find that I enjoy all of the whole natural foods that I eat. I love grass-fed beef and fish and fruits and veggies (especially cauliflower for some reason haha).
BUT there are those cheat days when I WOULD RATHER indulge and even risk feeling super crappy the next day than eat healthy.
Eating well is a choice and sometimes it isn’t always an easy choice. When you are stressed or pressed for time or put into situations where the EASIEST thing to do is cheat, you are more tempted to just give in without really thinking about the consequences of your choices (and how you will feel tomorrow about them).
Eating well and working out isn’t easy (yes it is easier for some people than for others), but it is a choice.
So think about it…What would you rather do?
So I definitely have solid views on nutrition, but I actually don’t vocalize them as much as you would think considering I rant and rave all the time about them here.
If someone asks me my opinion, I will tell them what I personally think.
Like yesterday, the volleyball girls asked me about post-exercise nutrition.
My answer? Eat a lean protein source and a simple carb. Those will be quickly absorbed by your body and used as fuel.
When asked what counted as a lean protein source or simple carb, I answered…
Turkey, chicken, whey protein, rice, potatoes, fruit.
Notice I didn’t say no gluten. Notice I didn’t say no protein bars. (Heck notice I didn’t even say, “Well honestly, I don’t even worry about pre and post workout nutrition…That is something that really only a top few elite competitors/athletes/bodybuilders need to worry about…That the most important thing truly is to eat a whole, natural food diet throughout the day and make sure you are eating when you are hungry!)
I simply listed things I believed are good – things that I would eat.
When asked specifically about bread or gluten or processed foods, I usually say, “Well I don’t believe in eating those things, but there are other people who do x, y and z and it works for them.”
I will almost always present the other side. (Except of course for here where I get to rant about the other side! YESSSS!)
Because it isn’t up to me what you choose. I can provide you with information about my reasons for my decisions, but I can’t tell you what is right.
Because it is a gamble. There are literally thousands of studies and people on both sides of the fat/gluten/carb/vegetarian fence.
Which side you decide to pick is ultimately up to you.
I’ve picked a side and am constantly doing research to make sure that I know WHY I make the decisions that I do.
Anyway, the reason I thought about all of this is because I’m writing up a “10 Healthy Lifestyle Tips” for this Heart Healthy Expo Jeff and I are going to tomorrow.
I was reading through a lot of the different heart-healthy tip things online and I couldn’t bring myself to provide people with recipes or tips that included canola oil and other such crap as healthy.
So below are the 10 Heart Healthy Lifestyle Tips I came up with. I managed to make the tips stay pretty darn mainstream WITHOUT going against my beliefs. I didn’t say not to eat whole grains…I just most definitely didn’t say to do it!!!
- Eat whole, natural foods and cut back on processed, pre-packaged food items. Processed foods are loaded with sugars and bad fats that cause inflammation.
- Use healthy fats such as olive oils, coconut oils and naturally-raised animal fats INSTEAD OF canola and soybean oils, which cause inflammation because they are loaded with omega-6s.
- Cut back on sugar and consume more complex carbohydrates especially fruits and vegetables, which are rich in vitamins and minerals that protect our health.
- Cook more meals. No matter how healthy the restaurant meal supposedly is, it never measures up to a home-cooked meal. Even with our busy schedules and long workdays, we can fit in time to cook. It just takes some planning. Find meals, like casseroles and crockpot recipes, which allow you to make huge portions all at once so that you have leftovers for all those busy days when you don’t have time to cook!
- Plan in some “me time.” Too much stress can negatively impact our health. It is important to take some time each day. This can mean going for a walk with friends, reading a book or anything that allows you to relax for even just 5 minutes at the end of your day.
- Get more sleep! Those who average five or fewer hours of sleep per night have a far higher incidence of “silent” heart disease. In a study done, 27% of those who slept five hours or less per night developed calcifications that can signal heart disease after five years, compared to just 6% of those who slept an average of seven hours or more.
- Do 30 minutes of low intensity aerobic activity (walking, hiking, swimming, chasing after your kids on the playground) 2-3 times per week. Low intensity aerobic activity helps to strengthen our heart and burn fat.
- “Sprint” once a week. To sprint means to do short, intense activity once a week where you get your heart rate up and then let it recover before you go again. The intensity of your sprint will be dependent on your fitness level. A sprint should be between 8-20 seconds of intense work followed by a long period of rest (2 to 5 times the amount work).
- Lift weights! Too often we ignore weight training when it comes to heart health, but strength training is important! Resistance training has been shown to decrease heart rate and blood pressure while improving cholesterol levels and glucose metabolism. All of which result in a healthier heart! Add in weight training 2-3 times per week.
- Skip the two a days! More time in the gym doesn’t always equal better health. Overtraining can actually have negative effects on your health. Your workouts don’t need to be more than an hour especially if they are super intense. So don’t worry about how long you workout for – focus on your intensity!
NOTE: I am not ashamed of my beliefs, but I do believe that sometimes if you are too vocal upon first conversation with someone who you can actually get them to shut down and complete tune out all of the good stuff you are saying. Sometimes if you ease people into the unknown they are more accepting of the things you have to say!
I’ve been asked this question numerous times recently when I’ve been lifting and have wanted to give up.
It always manages to amp me up just enough to push hard until the end even when I thought I had nothing left to give.
It even got me through my workout on Friday – and I literally almost skipped the workout because my body was just so tired.
I was bruised and beaten down. Just about every muscle was sore. I was on the verge of being completely overtrained.
And I talk a lot about NOT overtraining. But there are some points where you just have to give everything you’ve got and more.
There are going to be the rare times, like when training for competition, when you might have to overload your body to really get the results you want.
This overload isn’t prolonged. At most it is a couple of weeks. But still…those weeks leave you feeling destroyed and sometimes even emotionally drained.
But you push through knowing that the harder you work, the bigger the payoff in the end.
You push yourself because you know this isn’t the norm.
You fight even when you want to give up.
You prove how bad you want it.
Now I ask you, when is the last time you wanted something so bad that you fought through sweat, blood and tears?
When was the last time you pushed until you really had nothing left to give?
Well than maybe you just haven’t yet found something worth fighting for.
In my opinion though, being fit and strong and healthy is sometimes worth the pain. It is worth sometimes feeling like the odd man out because you aren’t indulging in junk food at the party. It is worth sometimes going to the gym even when you just want to go home.
It is worth a little sweat, blood and tears.
Do you love talking about health and fitness?
Do you love to find the latest trend and read about it and go all gung-ho for like three days and give up?
I feel like over the past few years I’ve met a ton of people who seem to like TALKING about healthy eating and working out, but that DON’T actually do it.
And those are the same people who wonder why they aren’t getting results.
Sorry but talking about being healthy doesn’t make you health.
You’ve got to actually WORK AT IT.
You’ve got to PRACTICE what you preach.
I don’t sit on the couch eating chips and bread as I tell you to eat only meat and veggies.
I don’t ask anyone to do something that I haven’t done before or am not willing to do myself.
I don’t try a new diet or workout program AND RAVE ABOUT IT only to give up on it a few days later.
Every guideline, every recipe, every workout or tip I’ve written about I’ve tried…And believed in.
As with everything, I’ve evolved. I haven’t given up…I’ve just found better ways of doing things.
So what I’m saying is…
For one, you’ve got to actually give something a try. You can’t just get all pumped about a new diet and talk about it to everyone. And rave about how great it is going for the first week only to give up because of some dumb excuse the next week.
For two, once you give something a try…like really give it a chance to find out if it works, you CAN’T stick with it after it has PROVEN not to work for you.
Basically I’m telling you that you can’t just talk about being healthy or rave about something that isn’t getting you results.
And if you want results, you’ve got to give your diet and exercise experiments a chance to prove if they work. At least a month is needed of strict adherence to know if that program works for you.
On the flip side, if you want results, you also can’t stick with something that you’ve tried and hasn’t work. You can’t just stick with something because it worked for someone else. Don’t just keep following something like a drone. Think about it!
Anyway, the point is that you won’t get results by just talking about being healthy. You’ve actually got to go after it. You’ve got to try things…and I mean really try them. You’ve got to find things that work and things that don’t work and you’ve got to keep growing and evolving.
So stop talking about getting fit and start DOING IT!
Holidays are usually full of partying and bad food. The question is, “Do you cheat or do you stick to your diet?”
Both can work. And frankly what I do depends on the holiday.
On holidays where BBQ is common, like Memorial Day, the fourth of July and Labor Day, I find it very easy to stick to my diet.
So I do.
BUT on holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Ryan or my birthday, I find it much harder to eat well.
I don’t believe in all of those tips to keep the fat off during the winter holiday seasons. I mean seriously…get a smaller plate so you don’t eat as much?!?!
I would much rather just eat badly with family on those days and then go right back to my diet afterwards. I would much rather eat super clean before the holidays and super clean afterwards than deprive myself of food in a social environment that has so much meaning for me.
I don’t like having feelings of deprivation. That is why I eat the diet that I do!
So if I think I’ll feel like I missed out, I indulge. A little indulgence one day could keep me from binge eating for the next week or so.
But it is really up to you. The question I always ask myself way in advance is, “Will I feel like I missed out enough to make me want to cheat for the entire week after or will I be satisfied eating well?”
In Boston, all too often Ryan and I would spend time together by watching TV or a movie. We would do active things together, but not near as frequently as we should have.
Since moving to Cali, we’ve spent so much more time together doing active things – even just activities such as walking around a farmers market together.
There is something about being ACTIVE together that brings you even closer together. There is a bonding that goes on when you DO things together.
Like yesterday…We did a quick workout together then got some coffee and walked about 4 miles on the beach, watching the waves. We later put together some furniture. All active things. All times to bond.
There is just something about the bonding that happens during physical activity that is so different from the bonding that happens at any other time.
That is why I encourage all of my clients, friends and family to DO things together. Go paddleboarding. Go rock climbing. Go for a hike or jog or even do a workout together!
Yea there may be some competition when you do a workout with your spouse, friend or family member, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The fact that you are overcoming a challenge together will bring you closer. The fact that you are both talking and playing together while getting endorphins from the exercise will bring you closer.
Playing together will help you develop a stronger bond. A healthier relationship. And a healthier you.
So today…go play with your family and friends!
If you’ve ever pushed or pulled a sled, you know it is perfectly wonderful torture.
Tonight Ryan came in to the gym for a workout and I started our workout out with a sled pull (pull the sled toward you by pulling a long rope in) and then pushing it back to the starting position. (This was made even more torturous by the fact that you then had to bear crawl backwards back to the beginning.)
BUT tonight I’m not going to discuss how torturous the bear crawl was. I’m going to discuss the torture and the benefit of pushing and pulling a sled.
If you want to develop strength and power in your legs, you should be doing sled pushes. If you want to strengthen your core and your upper body, you should be doing sled pushes. Sled pulls are great too for the upper body, core and even the legs.
The sled helps you develop POWER and STRENGTH. AND it also helps you develop great ACCELERATION and SPEED.
Corey, one of the owners and trainers at Innovative Results, posted this article about sled training to our Facebook group a few weeks back and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
It is a very functional tool that can work your entire body.
So why aren’t you doing workouts with the sled?!?!
Add this circuit into your next routine:
5 rounds with a challenging weight on the sled:
Sled pull toward you for 20 ft.
Push it back to the starting position (20ft)
Then bear crawl backwards to your starting position at the rope (20ft)
I hate this question.
To me this question means, “I don’t like to work hard and have given up in the past and want you to have some secret that will make me better almost instantly.”
Do you think I am reading too much into this statement.
Not one bit.
When people ask this question, it means they really aren’t ready to commit to all of the hard work, dedication and time it will take to reach their goals. They aren’t willing to sacrifice or really change anything that they are currently doing.
I never ask how long will it take me. I sometimes think, “Ok how long should this take me or what is a realistic time-table.” But never how long will it take me.
The more I think about the question, the more I hate it.
And usually I respond back to the person, “Well how hard are you willing to work and how dedicated will you stay to the program when I’m not there.”
I usually get a whole bunch of “Uhmmmm” and “I don’t know” and “How hard will it be?”
Honestly, that to me means that you won’t achieve your goals unless we change your attitude.
Accomplishing any goal is HARD WORK. It usually takes time and a clearly laid out plan. It will involve a lot of ups and downs and times when you want to just give up.
I mean do you ever really achieve your goal and go “Well I’m done. Back to not working out and eating badly.”
I most certainly hope not!
Most health and fitness goals don’t have a set end date. They are ongoing.
So please don’t ask how long it will take to get you to your goals. Set and goal and lay out a plan. Work each and every day toward that goal in some small way.
And guess what?
You’ll get there when you get there but you’ll feel good every day knowing that you are working toward something that matters. You’ll feel good knowing that you were willing to sacrifice and work hard!
I haven’t posted a recipe in a while. Unfortunately, I haven’t been doing as much cooking as I had planned to since Ryan and I are staying with his very wonderful, generous and hospitable family until our lease starts.
So since I’m not always in control of cooking the dinners, there are always temptations around.
And unfortunately, I am human.
I don’t find it necessarily a sacrifice to forgo the flour tortillas or the bun on the burger, but boy do I have a hard time passing up guacamole and chips, homemade baked goods or frozen yogurt.
There are just certain trigger foods that you just can’t seem to ever resist.
And I’ve been indulging, in my opinion, way too often.
So yesterday Ryan and I made a pact to eat completely Primally this next week with no small indulgences.
Maybe this works for me because I’m competitive, but committing to eat well with someone else always seems to motivate me. I don’t want to cheat because I don’t want to let the other person down and because I don’t want to “lose” the bet.
By committing to eat well with Ryan, I’ve not only gained a support system to help me achieve my goals but I’ve also made myself RESPONSIBLE for being someone else’s support system. By eating well together, we have found a way to hold not only ourselves, but also each other, ACCOUNTABLE.
There are many ways you can hold yourself accountable.
Telling other people about your goals is one way.
BUT I’ve found that telling other people works even better if you can get them INVOLVED in helping you accomplish your goals.
When people are involved in helping you accomplish your goals, they are much more likely to stay on top of you to achieve them. Also, if you can get them to try to accomplish the same goals, you then have even more RESPONSIBILITY toward them.
For instance, with Ryan and I both working to eat perfectly Primal this week, I won’t want to eat badly because then he will know I failed AND because I don’t want to eat badly and tempt him to then cheat as well.
The accountability along with the added responsibility of helping him achieve his own goals keeps me on track to achieve mine.
So next time you attempt to achieve something that maybe you’ve failed at accomplishing before, get a friend or family member to work toward the same goal with you! Holding yourself accountable and making yourself responsible are key to achieving your goals! | <urn:uuid:537240b2-2ecf-45e2-ac21-3567931c2e27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manbicep.com/tag/healthy-living/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962985 | 4,700 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The winning entry in the 2004
'Places on Maps That Relate to David Hasselhoff'
"So called…of Knights well-armed and mounted at the Tower Royal [
|Knightrider Street as it appears today.|
According to Louis Zetterson in his 1917 book "
|Here I'm standing in Knightrider Court with my back to |
the Thames, facing towards St Pauls Cathedral.
|With my back to St Pauls, walking in a straight line from |
Knightrider Court, I'm standing on the Millenium Bridge
looking to my left over at The Shard.
Another reference is found in the work of the Jacobean playwright, Middleton, "Family of Love", where a character praises a physician as neither:
"The wise-woman of
|I'm standing in the same spot as the photo above, but looking right instead of|
left, towards Tower Bridge.
There are two main theories as to how Knightsbridge got its name. The first involves two knights getting into a fight passing over the bridge, falling in the river and drowning, and the second theory is that the area was synonymous with highwaymen and that it was not safe to pass without a knight as chaperone.
|With thanks to Cheezburger.com| | <urn:uuid:bf562ff1-ca17-461e-a4be-ef001e8389ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/unofficial-london-knightrider-street.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958791 | 271 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Israeli politicians say that their war on Hamas will go on whatever it takes. This means they have given themselves the right to have a free hand. But as long as there are the laws of wars, going beyond them must be a crime against humanity.
However as long as it’s unlikely that Israel can face international sanctions from its allies, mainly the EU and the USA - its major economic and political partners, it will continue to bombard Gaza at will. The irony is that NATO was able to intervene militarily in ex-Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing there and the international forces led by the USA invaded in Iraq. Now the international community is watching Israel pound its bombs in civilian areas and “calmly” asking for a ceasefire. As such Israel isn’t just defending itself but it’s being defended by its allies on behalf of which it is waging a war against Hamas.
In short, Israel in its history of bloody attacks is used to the pattern of diplomatic condemnations and angry wide public protests. It has a deaf ear to them because the drones of the engines of its weapons and the sounds of the explosion are louder than them. Israel doesn’t need justifications as it has no one to account for its actions. It’s the law of the strong against the weak, not the modern laws of war.
Israel has the right to defend itself, but not at the expense of the innocent civilians caught in the fire attacks. The Israelis exposed to Hamas rockets have only fear to deal with, considering the casualties when contrasting 14 Israeli killed by Hamas rockets versus 5,000 Palestinians killed by Israel sophisticated weapons in the past seven years.
Israel can reserve the right to respond to those who attack it, but not through indiscriminate killing which it euphemistically can call collateral damage.
The best way for Israel to defend itself is not to allow extremism grow around its borders and beyond, by being realistic about its approaches to its conflict with the Palestinians. One of the approaches can be for it to speed up the establishment of a Palestinian state and not to use Hamas and Iran as an excuse for further delays.
World Have your Say on TV | <urn:uuid:1c7fb4bc-47cc-41c2-91a7-34ecf536a60b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abdoukili4.blogspot.com/2009/01/israel-on-defence-against-defenceless.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970092 | 444 | 1.804688 | 2 |
April 19, 2010
CONTACT: Gordon Ovenshine:
SRU dedicates renovated Harmony House environmental center
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. - A $250,000 renovation of the Harmony House at Slippery Rock University's Robert N. Macoskey Center for Sustainability Education and Research will be dedicated Saturday. The center has received a new entrance, pop-up roof, twice the classroom space, a "green kitchen" and a geothermal heat and cooling system.
The facility will be dedicated at 11 a.m., followed by tours throughout the afternoon.
SRU, a leader in sustainability education for 20 years, expanded the facility to increase energy efficiency and provide more educational opportunities for students and residents who want to implement sustainability at home, said Thomas Reynolds, center director.
"Sustainability is not a new thing for SRU; we have a lot of experience in these arenas," Reynolds said. "The expansion will allow us to present more programs that we have been unable to present and it will be provide more opportunities for students to get involved in projects and make changes to the center in the future. That is the point of what we do."
The biggest change is the new entrance and pop-up roof that added enough space and day lighting for upstairs offices, Reynolds said. The entrance facing Harmony Road has been closed. A covered porch entrance with a roof that slops downward as a wind-breaking element was installed on the north side of the house, facing the barn. The porch beams were salvaged from a construction site in Ohio.
A new roof, improved floor systems and more storage space are among the improvements. "New roofing, the new entryway and improved insulation are all part of the building's envelope," Reynolds said. "Having a greater envelope means greater efficiency in terms of heating and cooling. We'll also be planting trees to shade the house in summer and keep the curtains closed during sunny days to block the sun's heat."
The main floor was expanded to accommodate a class size of 30 people. The kitchen has been equipped with energy-efficient appliances and countertops constructed from smart woods and post-consumer recycled paper.
Reynolds said the renovation meets federal standards for green design.
"Buildings can have a high impact on the environment, and they produce waste," Reynolds said. "We worked with LEED certified architects to assure that the renovation uses only recycled materials and the most stringent federal guidelines for sustainable development. We're getting more and more students involved and we need more space for them."
Harmony House anchors SRU's 83-acre Macoskey Center for Sustainable Systems Education and Research. Macoskey, an SRU professor of philosophy who died in 1990, conceived the Harmony House. The property supports SRU's master's degree in sustainable systems and includes a greenhouse, orchards, vegetable plots, a compost toilet and a wind turbine and solar energy system that produce clean electricity.
"The renovation boosts the house's thermal performance, demonstrates affordable green building design and maximizes natural resources such as the sun," Reynolds said.
Slippery Rock University is Pennsylvania's premier public residential university. Slippery Rock University provides students with a comprehensive learning experience that intentionally combines academic instruction with enhanced educational and learning opportunities that make a positive difference in their lives. | <urn:uuid:e7ee7f00-86e5-4568-9886-043bc2c1fcb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sru.edu/PublicRelations/newsInfo/archive/Pages/4-23-2010-10-51-46-AM.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951266 | 676 | 1.59375 | 2 |
By Chris Schultz Winsted-Lester Prairie Journal & Howard Lake-Waverly Herald, Minn. Aug. 7, 2000
Hunting regulations booklet signals that fall is near
The fishing has slowed, the days are getting shorter (an hour less of daylight since June), and the thoughts of many outdoor enthusiasts are slowly changing from the sunshine and angling seasons of summer to the crisp, cool nights and hunting seasons of fall.
To Minnesotans, a customary sign of this slow and gradual change is the publication of the Department of Natural Resources' hunting and trapping regulations handbook. The 2000 version was distributed to area license vendors last week.
The handbook details season dates and bag limits, summarizes a host of regulations including new ones for the upcoming year, and includes a pothole full of information that all hunters need to know for the upcoming season.
The 2000 handbook is about 130 pages long, includes a big game permit area map, sunrise and sunset tables, a few advertisements, and highlights of new regulations are listed on page 2.
Please grab a few copies of the handbook and read and review it thoroughly. It's a great way to get yourself prepared, because soon, the transformation of summer to fall will be complete and the hunting seasons will be in full swing.
Area lakes fishing report
Hot weather and pick-through sunnies have been the standard for local anglers in the last week or so.
According to reports, the panfish are hitting hard on many of the lakes in the area. But, it's about a one in 10 average. That means, for every 10 fish caught, one is big enough to keep. The other nine are little worm snatchers that go back into the lake.
Lakes providing the best action include Big Waverly, Howard, Eagle, Granite, Clearwater, and Mary.
Joe's Sport Shop in Howard Lake reported: It's been too hot, the dog days of summer are here, and on Howard, the only fish hitting are small panfish. The best action has come from the north end.
Other reports have action on Mille Lacs being good on walleyes for this time of year. Stella is producing small walleyes, and a few lakes are giving up bass along deep weed edges.
- National Hunting and Fishing Day is set for Saturday, Sept. 23. This year marks the 29th anniversary of the event.
- Get a copy of the 2000 Minnesota Hunting and Trapping Regulations Handbook and plan your fall hunting trips now.
- For sunfish, head to the deep outside edge of the weedline and fish with small leeches. Leeches always seem to be the best bait for bigger sunnies at this time of year.
- Now is the time to start getting your dog in shape for the upcoming hunting seasons. It's a good idea not to work dogs on hot days or during the mid-afternoon.
- The Winsted Sportsmen's Club will meet Tuesday, Aug. 8 at 7 p.m. at the Lake Mary Clubhouse. Raffle tickets for the fall will handed out and arrangements made for the Winsted Legion Days parade.
- The water level on the Crow River has stabilized a bit and the angling has picked up.
- Look for big sales on outdoor equipment at various retails outlets very soon. The first sales on archery equipment already started last week. | <urn:uuid:503f2c06-5406-4263-a67f-a0968415858f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.herald-journal.com/sports/outdoors/1999/c080700.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935884 | 705 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- Post 21 January 2013
- By Bankole Thompson, Michigan Chronicle Senior Editor
- Hits: 275
As America officially enters the Obama era with President Barack Obama preparing to take the oath of office Monday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, laying his hand on the Bibles of President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., swearing to defend the Constitution, the buzz among many inaugural attendees is that this is the time for another Justice Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court.
And two names Attorney General Eric Holder and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick are been circulated around as individuals who meet the qualification to inherit the legacy of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first Black to serve on the nation's highest court.
The legacy of Justice Marshall who was replaced on the court with conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, an African American is one that has far reaching implications given the weight of history and the legendary work of Marshall on civil rights at the height of Jim Crow.
But first that would mean an opening on the court which many observers expect to come soon in the Obama era with the possible retirement of one of the current justices.
"I think President Obama should appoint either Attorney General Holder or Governor Patrick. Either of them would serve with the same type of professionalism, understanding of the law and the sensitivity of what's happening to people of color in the world at large," said Jeff Wardford, a business and political analyst attending the inauguration. " I would probably lean toward Holder because he is probably more aware on the real challenges out there and particularly with the law in his current role as Attorney General."
Wardford believes that if Obama doesn't appoint an African American male of the caliber of Holder and Patrick in this era "It would never happen. There is a shift in the country to a more conservative viewpoint and I think that type of momentum will continue."
"Over the course of history conservative presidents have never had the problem of selecting people to the court that reflect their views and in most cases they were extreme," Wardford said. "We need another Thurgood Marshall. Now is the time to do so more than ever. And probably the reason being is right now we have a definitive division of class warfare going on in America between rich and poor. The wealthy have their advocates in government and on the Supreme Court which is why we've seen laws like eminent domain."
He said, "There's never been a problem with conservatives appointing people and it was never challenged. I believe that the Holders and Patricks of the world represent everyday people. We must never be afraid of people who represent everyday people."
Reggie Turner, former president of the National Bar Association, the organization of more than 40,000 African American lawyers said both Holder and Patrick would be great choices for the Supreme Court.
"They both have long and distinguished careers in the law and Integrity beyond reproach," Turner said. " Their contributions to public service and their private sector contributions give them perspective that will be invaluable to the deliberations of the court."
Turner said if the opportunity presents itself for either Holder or Patrick to sit on the highest court in the land in the Obama era, "I think the court will benefit from additional diversity both in terms of representing all the talents and skills drawn from the backgrounds of great intellectuals like Holder and Patrick, and from the intellectual force that they will bring to the court."
If President Obama nominates an African American male with the legal brilliance of Justice Marshall to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court, it will be a major coup for the continued battle for civil and human rights.
Because Marshall stands out as one of the greatest legal minds of the 20th century who helped to end legal segregation in America during his victory in the Brown v. Board of Education case.
Justice Marshall, who served on the Supreme Court from 1967-1991 after he was nominated by President Lyndon Johnson, championed the rights for every individual including minorities and the disenfranchised.
Bankole Thompson is a Senior Author-in-Residence at Global Mark Makers Publishing House in Iowa where he is writing a groundbreaking six-part book series on the Obama presidency. His book "Obama and Black Loyalty" published in 2010 follows his recent book "Obama and Christian Loyalty" with a foreword by Bob Weiner former White House spokesman. His forthcoming books in 2012 are "Obama and Jewish Loyalty" and "Obama and Business Loyalty." He is the first editor of a major African American newspaper to have a series of sit-down interviews with Barack Obama. Thompson is also a Senior Political News Analyst at WDET-101.9FM Detroit (NPR Affiliate) and a member of the weekly "Obama Watch" Sunday evening round table on WLIB-1190AM New York and simulcast in New Jersey and Connecticut. | <urn:uuid:6448e79e-07fb-4f1d-af88-681f39ac9751> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atlantadailyworld.com/201301223307/Viewpoints/obama-era-needs-a-thurgood-marshall-inaugural-attendees-beckon-on-president | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965445 | 981 | 1.664063 | 2 |
File-sharing: A Form of Christian Charity
I just want to remind all of my Christian brothers and sisters out there that file-sharing is the Christian thing to do. It is what Jesus, our Lord and saviour, would do.
Then the King will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, `I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Every time you share or ‘seed’ a file to a 1:1 ratio, you are not just seeding to anybody; you are seeding to Him.
Let us remember the words of Paul the Apostle regarding charity and agapē.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Lastly, I appeal to you to heed the message of Pope Benedict XVI.
22. …On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property…
23. …The mere fact of emerging from economic backwardness, though positive in itself, does not resolve the complex issues of human advancement, neither for the countries that are spearheading such progress, nor for those that are already economically developed, nor even for those that are still poor, which can suffer not just through old forms of exploitation, but also from the negative consequences of a growth that is marked by irregularities and imbalances.
Although the above quote pertains to only part of his message, I recommend reading, or better yet, seeking to understand his message.
caritas in veritate
Those who wish to join millions in the caritas and agapē that is file-sharing can start with this simple guide. | <urn:uuid:4b29cf1d-df17-4e98-b9ed-293c361dcdca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.greenpirate.org/file-sharing-a-form-of-christian-charity/ | 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 | 0.967364 | 866 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Your company has a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and you have made your LinkedIn page. Since starting, you have gained a pretty good following of your close friends and clients on all three networks. Now what?
For the last few years there has been an ongoing debate about whether social media websites should be allowed to be accessed at work. A lot of places ban websites like Facebook and Twitter, in fear that their employees will spend too much time using social media instead of doing their work. In reality, companies should be embracing social media, and their employees time on it. By allowing your employees to spend a small amount of time on social media each week, your business can benefit tremendously. Here are five reasons why:
1. No one knows your company better than your own employees.
Each employee should have the industry knowledge to speak intelligently about your company from the perspective of their respective trades. Your marketing manager more than likely has an extensive marketing background but may not be fully in the know on every single one of the services you offer. While they can provide the basic information about those services, they may not always be able to go into the details that perspective leads may look for. Letting your employees spend a few minutes a week on Facebook and Twitter, talking more indepth about those specialties will allow those possible leads to get a little more information and turn into a new client.
2. The purpose of social media is to allow people to engage and interact with one another.
Your employees can also learn a lot about their own speciality by getting involved in social media. There are plenty of niche social media websites out there, but even on the major social media websites you can find groups of people who share the same specialities by doing a simple search. They will come across others who work in the same field, and now have the ability to ask questions to someone they might not have been able to contact any other way. This person could offer an entirely new perspecive on the way things are done. Your employees are now able to learn about the way other people do it. Who knows? There may be a new technology out there that hadn’t made it to your desk yet.
3. Most of your employees have friends, and their friends have friends…
It is great that you have started to build a following with some of your clients and close firends, but it is time to expand people’s knowledge of your brand. Your clients already know who you are and how you work. Having just your clients following you on social media is not going to help you generate new leads, just continue with the current ones.
By encouraging your employees to talk about your brand through social media, you are encouraging them to tell their friends who might not know too much about each of the company’s specialites. These friends or other followers could potentially produce new leads as they learn more.
4. You never know who might be watching.
If you run a company that relies on donations (whether it be food, money, or something else) it cannot hurt to have your employees mention your company on social media. Their friends and family who follow them may be able to share the information with their own friends and family. Larger donations tend to result from “knowing the right people”, you never know who may get word of your company.
5. New opportunities for your employees and the company.
Getting individual employees involved in social media can lead to other opportunities for your company as well. As Lisa Barone mentions in her post How to Build a Brand Working for Someone Else she mentions that allowing individuals to build their brand under a company’s name “will allow you [in our case, the employee] to bring more value through increased brand awareness, speaking opportunities, press mentions, and a larger network that the whole company will be able to utilize.” People inside and outside of the industry will start to not only reconize your employees name but they will relate them back to your company.
In getting your company on social media you have begun to take charge of what is being said about your brand. Encourage your employees to continue the conversation you started.
Do you allow your employees to use social media? How has it benefited your company?
About the Author
Tags: Guest Blogger, Kristy Page, personal branding, Social Media Marketing
This entry was posted
on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under Social Media.
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You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. | <urn:uuid:666af729-a9b7-400b-b1c7-e48e4f52b3fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.verticalmeasures.com/social-media/social-media-is-not-just-for-your-marketing-manager/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962903 | 956 | 1.5 | 2 |
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