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Local manufacturer, INDEECO, of Aspeq Holdings, Inc., marked and celebrated six years without a lost-time accident on Monday. As of June 29, the designer and manufacturer of heating control systems had logged 767,673 man-hours without having any work-related accidents or illnesses which prevented employees from attending work.
"We've got 6 years without a lost-time accident – an accident that would prevent an employee from being able to perform their duties and come to work every day," said plant manager, Faron Morris.
INDEECO manufactures electric duct heaters, commercial and industrial heating components, tubular and finned tubular heating elements, electric immersion heaters, explosion-proof heaters, circulation heaters and process air heaters. Boonville's plant employs 42.
"This event is a big deal. In our industry, it's very hard to achieve this milestone," said Morris.
According to the United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 3.1 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses occurred amongst private industry employers in 2010. An incidence rate of 3.5 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers was reported. Specifically, the manufacturing industry saw an incidence rate of 4.4 cases per 100 full-time workers.
The Bureau's 2010 Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries lists a total of 4,690 workplace deaths in the U.S. Of those near 4,700 deaths, manufacturers accounted for 329, or just over seven percent of the total.
Headquartered in St. Louis, INDEECO was founded in 1929 and employs engineers, welders and assemblers. The company is an in-house operation and functions in a vertically-integrated fashion. In addition to making heating elements, it fabricates sheet metal, builds electronic controls and welds ASME pressure vessels. | <urn:uuid:996087d6-7a57-434d-b4ef-31a6c9647956> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boonvilledailynews.com/article/20120710/NEWS/307109997/0/pink | 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 | 0.952116 | 382 | 1.5 | 2 |
Today is the first ever International Day for Street Children and LAFF is joining the Consortium for Street Children in celebrating the day to give a voice to the millions of children worldwide who are invisible, ignored and do not have a voice. This is an exciting year for this important cause as, additionally, last month the UN Human Rights Council met with other key players to discuss the rights of street children globally and how to tackle this burning issue. Rights for children in general are highlighted in the human rights agenda, but street children are swept under the carpet – an issue that no government seems to want to own up to, or deal with.
Having the day being celebrated internationally brought me to think about why this is the issue that I have chosen to work on and why LAFF has chosen to focus on this issue in their work.
I am a bit of an idealist and, for me, it simply is not fair that the world is not a more equal place – how can there be such riches and such poverty and, more importantly, how can 10% of the world’s population own 85% of the world’s riches, and how can 50% of the world’s population only have access to 1%?! For me this is absurd. Poverty is a huge contributing factor to the issue of street children – parents can’t afford to feed their children or send them to school; children run away to give their brothers and sisters a better chance in life; children are the main breadwinners in their families who can’t afford not to make them work; children are abused at home as parents turn to alcohol to dull their disappointment in life… These are just some of the causes that lead to children living and working on the streets. I worked for a year as a volunteer with a police-run centre for niños trabajadores de la calle (child street workers) and during that time I could see these issues very clearly – this is what spurred me on to want to try and make a difference for these children who have to become adults all too soon and why I am so proud to work for Latin American Foundation for the Future (LAFF) – a charity that holds the same values as me.Why LAFF? LAFF was set up by Sarah Oakes, who I met while volunteering in Peru six years ago. She worked on community development projects and also felt this sense of injustice so decided to do something about it. When she returned to the UK she set up LAFF to tackle needs expressed through talking to many children and children’s homes. As a small charity, LAFF can’t do everything so decided to focus on two key areas:
- Helping children’s homes to become self-sustaining through generating income, lowering costs and capacity building, so as not to need to depend on external support which can be fickle and unreliable
- To help provide vocational support for children in care to enable them to access dignified employment once they leave the homes, trying to break the stigma associated with former street children In 2006 UNICEF published a report on ‘The State of the World’s Children’ which stated that there were over 100 million street children worldwide – 40% of those children live in Latin America which is a significant proportion of the world’s street children. The International Day for Street Children provides an exciting opportunity for LAFF to promote our work as for the last two months we have been working on Schools Resources in order to try and get this issue into the classroom in a fun and inspiring way for children in the UK – if you are a teacher and would be interested in using this material to raise awareness about this important cause please get in touch by emailing LAFF! Equally, although this year International Day for Street Children falls in the Easter holidays, why not hold a day to celebrate once schools starts again so as not to forget the plight of such children? LAFF hopes to celebrate the day more prominently next year when we are more established, but in the meantime, in order to celebrate the day here in Peru I’m off to visit a couple of potential partner projects in Peru’s second biggest city, Arequipa. Find out more by reading informative articles from The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. | <urn:uuid:e38be043-0e7a-4f08-9735-070815cce146> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.laffcharity.org.uk/2011/04/12/celebrating-international-day-for-street-children-12th-april/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962552 | 880 | 1.757813 | 2 |
News In Depth
Games security 'leaving UK at risk'
Preparations for the London Olympics have placed the intelligence and security agencies under "unprecedented pressure", MPs warned.
The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) - which oversees the work of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ - expressed concern that risks were been taken with other aspects of security because of the demands of the Olympics.
"We recognise that the Security Service (MI5) has taken all possible measures to make available the necessary resources during the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but remain concerned at the risk that is being taken in some areas and the vulnerability of the UK at this critical period," the committee said in its annual report.
"The Olympic and Paralympic Games have placed all three agencies (particularly the Security Service) under unprecedented pressure this year."
In its annual report, the ISC said MI5 had identified three potential sources of terrorist threat to the Games:
:: An attack by al Qaida and its affiliates - particularly on US or Israeli nationals;
:: An attack or a hoax by Irish republican terrorist groups aimed at causing disruption rather than mass casualties;
:: Clashes between rival groups or ethnicities present in London during the Games who would not normally be considered a security threat to the UK.
In the run-up to the Olympics, the report said, staff had been taken off lower priority areas of work so that they could concentrate on the potential threat to the Games.
The ISC said that MI5 had planned on the basis that it would have to deal with double the normal volume of new intelligence leads - possibly rising to peaks of four times greater than usual.
A further burden had been imposed by the need to check the 540,000 applications for accreditation to the Games received from athletes, officials and volunteers against the relevant databases in order to identify any individual posing a threat to national security.
In addition MI5 had had to undertake extensive briefings of foreign intelligence agencies representing more 200 nations participating in the Games who were expected to send representatives to London with their teams for co-ordination and security purposes.
All three intelligence agencies had had to change their working patterns in order to deal with the demands - including imposing restrictions on leave and extended operating hours.
The changes were said to have been very difficult for some staff "particularly in terms of arranging childcare over the summer period".
In evidence to the committee, the then National Security Adviser Sir Peter Ricketts confirmed that the focus on the Olympics would have implications for other aspects of security work.
"Of course there will be greater risk," he said.
"But with finite resources and a major national priority requiring greater effort over a defined period of time, it is inevitable that there will have to be a greater risk-taking in some parts of the Security Service business."
A Home Office spokesman said: "The Security Service prioritises its resources to meet the highest threats day in and day out and has made lengthy and thorough preparations to meet this summer's security challenges.
"The focus of the Government is to deliver a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games that London, the UK and the world can enjoy."
what do you think?
I only hope the 540,000 expected to visit all go home again afterwards.
Hmmm! I wouldn't want to be there, David, it's got a really bad feel to it all.......
Not sure what you mean David. Are you hoping that everyone goes home safe and well? Or are you hoping that no one stays when the games are over and becomes an illegal alien? Could you clarify that for me? Thanks.
This comment has been removed for violations of our Terms and Conditions.
This must have been the easiest way so called asylum seekers could have got into the UK.
quote "In its annual report, the ISC said MI5 had identified three potential sources of terrorist threat to the Games" They have forgotten the one that former Chief intelligence analyst Tony Farrell highlighted and got sacked for, when he refused to go along with the Govt narrative. i.e. internal tyrrany and he didnt mean internal to the country but internal to the secret services
glad me and my family don't live in London. Olympic games in London, was the most ridiculous idea ever. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. I enjoy the games, but our Country is now at even more risk from terrorism. Enjoy. | <urn:uuid:2fafef75-b370-4221-93a5-62f104e02e0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web.orange.co.uk/article/news/games_security_leaving_uk_at_risk | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97086 | 913 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Good evening everyone, I'm in a little bit of a pickle.
My son's daycare teacher recently found out that I know how to quilt, and me being a little full of myself, told her I could teach her almost anything she'd want to know to get started.
She threw a wrench into my ego when she asked if I had seen anything in Coraline (the movie) fabric or bedding. She wants to make a twin sized quilt for her daughter who loves the movie Coraline, about a little girl who gets lonely and visits a make believe world where people have buttons for eyes. I haven't seen the movie myself so might not be describing it the best.
Any Ideas, I think if we could find a nice easy pattern I could help her do some applique to get the characters on, but I'm stuck as to a good background layout/ pattern, that would work well for this type of application! | <urn:uuid:2ae0711f-0bc0-4e17-9ae8-fb3af46472b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1/coraline-movie-t102556.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981727 | 193 | 1.5 | 2 |
Sunrooms are now a standard feature in many top selling homes. The most popular home improvement project most homeowners are undertaking is to add all season sunrooms.
Besides opening up your home and adding more airy space to your home, sunrooms also add a great deal of value to your home.
The basic material in construction of sunrooms is glass, which can often be much cheaper than the cost of adding an ordinary room to a home. The energy-efficient glass windows are designed to harness the heat from the sun rays to give your sunroom warm temperatures.
Having said this, most people looking to put up sunrooms are hard pressed to decide on which sunroom is suitable for their needs. Others simply do not know that a properly constructed sunroom can be used all year round.
4 Season vs. 3 Season Sunrooms
If you like the idea of being able to sit or entertain in your sunroom during the winter months, then you want to get the four season sunroom. Four seasons sunrooms gives you a permanent solution to your space problems because you can use it any time of the year.
On the other hand, if you prefer to stay away from the sunroom during the winter months or simply cannot afford the extra cost of a four season sunroom then a 3 season sunroom is ideal for you.
4 and 3 Season Sunrooms Differences
a) Glass Type Used
Sunrooms utilize glass as a major component in their construction. The type of glass used in three season sunrooms is typically single pane tempered glass. This has lower energy efficiency levels.
With four season sunrooms, the glass used is insulated to reduce heat loss during the cold season. This feature makes them more energy efficient allowing your sunroom to stay warm during the winter months. It also prevents ultraviolet rays from entering in to your sunroom.
b) Amount and Quality of Insulation
Both the four season and three season sunrooms require insulation. However the amount and quality of insulation differs a great deal due to functionality. You will find that four season sunrooms contain additional insulation in their floors and roofs. This makes it possible for them to stay warm and usable during winter months without any adverse effects to the temperatures within.
c) HVAC Unit
The use of HVAC in 3 season and 4 season sunrooms differs considerably. The HVAC unit in a 3 season sunroom is designed to keep off any minor chills on slightly cold days. However, it lacks the necessary insulation needed to retain the heat in your sunroom during the winter. You will need to bear this in mind when deciding which sunroom is suitable for you.
The HVAC unit in four season sunrooms is designed to be used for either heating or cooling purposes. This will obviously provide you with the comfort you need, since the temperature in your sunroom can be easily controlled.
New technology has made it possible for homeowners to install their own sunrooms with a bit of hard work involved. The other alternative is to hire the services of a professional contractor to install your three or four season sunrooms. | <urn:uuid:c211a4ae-dc0e-4e45-a08d-9d9ce6858010> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.my-backyard-projects.com/4-seasons-vs-3-seasons-sunrooms.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96324 | 630 | 1.84375 | 2 |
PHOENIX -- Fry's Food Stores of Arizona, headquartered here, and Lucky Stores' southern and northern California divisions, hope to ignite their nonfood sales with a gas grill propane tank-exchange program merchandised on the supermarket parking lot.
With outdoor barbecue cooking popular in the West, and sales of gas grills expanding 10% to 15% annually, supermarkets can capitalize on this growing market, noted Charlie Ory, operations director at AmeriGas Partners, a subsidiary of UGI Corp., Valley, Forge, Pa., the bulk fuel-refilling source.
"Supermarkets have always serviced the charcoal grill market, and now they're providing the same kind of service for the propane grill," Ory added.
The chains display filled propane tanks in metal cages large enough to hold 18 20-pound gas cylinders. They are positioned close to the store's front door.
The popularity of cooking outdoors has created the need for easy and convenient refilling of empty propane gas tanks, pointed out Frank Bussemeier, Fry's grocery director.
Besides customer convenience, Fry's decision to start a propane tank-exchange program was also based on Arizona's climate. "Cooking outside is pretty much year-round," said Bussemeier.
The amount of time consumers spend driving around in search of a refueling source to fill an empty grill cylinder also sparked Fry's interest in the program, Bussemeier added.
Fry's tested the propane tank-exchange program March 15 at seven stores, with plans for a chainwide rollout targeted for completion at all 56 stores this month.
The four-week pilot generated 15 turns per-store, which the chain is predicting should grow to 30 to 40 turns per-store per-week during the height of the summer months.
Store clerks accept all grill cylinders for trade despite their condition, rust level or parts needed. "Customers bringing us their empty tank in any condition can exchange it for a full one, even if it has a hole," added the retailer.
"In the Phoenix area filling a propane tank runs between $8 and $10, compared with stopping at a Fry's and picking up one already filled for $14.99," said Bussemeier.
Although refilling a grill tank at a grocery store is about $5 higher than at other propane-refilling stations, the convenience factor outweighs the higher expense for some customers.
A front-end head clerk or higher management staffer accompanies all propane-refueling customers to unlock the outside tank display. Payment is first made in the store.
Fry's sells new, empty grill tanks for about $26 in its stores. Customers without tanks to exchange can also buy a filled one from the outdoor display for about $32.
Lucky's Southern division, Buena Park, Calif., started testing the propane display units in May at 43 Los Angeles and 12 Las Vegas stores. Plans call for possibly expanding the program to other Southern area stores, according to the supplier.
While Lucky's has the program under consideration, plans haven't yet been completed, a company spokesman said.
The retailers plan to unleash a promotion campaign in June with television ads and $1 discount coupons, said Ory.
Store personnel are trained to test in-coming tanks for any leaking by squirting soapy water on the cylinder's exterior and watching for bubbles of escaping propane.
The two chains make 26.5% profit on an exchanged tank, and 27% on an outright sale of a used, filled tank, according to the supplier.
AmeriGas inspects traded cylinders and those that cannot be brought up to Department of Transportation standards are scrapped, added the supplier. The tanks are refilled at the AmeriGas facilities in Glendale, Ariz., Los Angeles or Gardena, Calif., and tested before they're sent back to the retailers in a direct-store-delivery program.
All refilled tanks are fitted with a new, quick spring-loaded coupler that doesn't release gas until the valve is fully connected. They are secured with a chain in the 30-inch-deep by 54-inch-tall by 41-inch-wide display cage. | <urn:uuid:f66408af-90de-43ee-abae-a4fabd3f23d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supermarketnews.com/archive/lucky-frys-fuel-volume-propane-tank-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942477 | 870 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Bus operator Francisco Sigala displays the engine and cooling system on… (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles…)
After riding L.A.'s Commuter Express for more than 20 years, Janis Risch said the 423 bus from Agoura Hills to downtown is showing its age: In heavy downpours, the roof leaks. In sweltering heat, the air conditioner sometimes dies.
So it was with a smile Wednesday that Risch climbed aboard one of the city's new commuter buses for its inaugural run.
"These feel much better," Risch, 60, said as she leaned back into her adjustable seat.
Over the next three months, transit officials plan to roll out 95 new buses.
Risch, a financial recruiter, said she spotted a number of welcome improvements: overhead storage areas, a smoother ride and reading lights and air vents over each seat. She also liked the video screens up front that alerted passengers to the next stop.
The majority of city buses are well past their 12-year life spans, officials said, and at least one bus has traveled 1.2 million miles since 1985.
The new $67-million fleet of buses will run on compressed natural gas, as opposed to diesel, and offer 49 seats instead of 43. They will also provide easier wheelchair access and more space for bicycles, officials said.
"By phasing out older diesel buses for new CNG buses, Los Angeles is once again demonstrating its commitment to greening and strengthening our public transit system for the benefit of the entire region," said City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who is running for mayor.
More than 70% of the funding for the buses came from federal grants, and officials said the rest would be paid through local transportation funds.
The majority of Commuter Express riders, like Risch, have been riding for more than two years, officials said.
Risch said that even though riding the bus to work takes 15 to 30 minutes longer than driving, she enjoys using that time to read novels, crochet or just doze. Now, however, she doesn't need to be worried about leaking roofs, broken air conditioners or the odor of diesel fumes.
"Looking forward to the climate-controlled, comfortable, smooth ride," Risch said. "And the clean-burning engines." | <urn:uuid:cf8cba5f-e563-4c22-b0bd-97dbfde8798d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/01/local/la-me-new-buses-20111201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956471 | 474 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Summer will be here before you know it! The last day of school for Kalamazoo Public Schools is June 15th, and that's also the first day of Summer Reading Games here at KPL. This year's game is easier than ever, so stop in at the Teen desk or any branch library, pick up a game board, and then start reading! The more you read, the more prizes you'll earn. Don't forget to come down to the library for Summer programming, too- we've got all sorts of activities to keep you entertained. Here's just a few program highlights for teens:
There's literally tons more stuff to do this summer, so be sure to check our calendar regularly to make sure you don't miss out. Even better, certain programs are special prize drawing programs where you can nab all sorts of cool stuff- but you've got to show up to win! Signup begins June 15th... don't miss out!
Teen Summer Reading
Hey, J-Pop fans! We need more ideas about what kinds of things you like to read and watch. Take a few minutes with this short survey and let us know what you want to see at the library!
UPDATED: Based on the number of votes, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood narrowly beat Akira for the next J-Pop viewing! But fear not- we have tons of anime to watch so we'll definitely get to your favorites.
UPDATE: Space is totally full for the hands-on portion of the program on both days! We'll still have some room for people to watch the artists work, so if you're interested come on down!
Attention all manga and anime fans! Ever wondered how to draw your own manga like the pros? Come to Central on Friday, March 11th at 3:30 PM, or the Kalamazoo Institute of Art on Saturday, March 12 at 1 PM to see a hands-on demonstration with award-winning Japanese manga artists Kohei Nishino and Tsugumi Nishino!
The duo, who create work under the collective name Konohana Sakuya, have been making manga and anime together for many years and have collaborated on some of the most popular titles in Japan. Since August 2004, they've had their latest work, "The Lights", serialized in the monthly version of Shonen Jump Magazine. Learn how to do brush and ink illustration at Central, and screentone shading at the KIA.
Hands-On Manga Workshop
Have you been to the library lately? If not, summer is a good time to reacquaint yourself with all the activities available to teens…all for F R E E.
First, there’s the summer reading game, designed to keep kids reading during the summer months by enticing them with prizes and opportunities to win raffle drawings for big ticket items like a digital camera or an iPod Touch. If you haven’t signed up yet, come to any branch and let us know you want to play along. It’s painless, it doesn’t require a library card, and all you have to do is keep track of how many pages you read throughout the summer. We even provide you with a gameboard.
Second, there are all kinds of special programs planned for teens this summer. Whether you like crafts, movies, or gaming, there’s bound to be something you’ll enjoy. There’s even a Japanese Swordplay demonstration. Check our calendar for all the options. Some require advance registration…others you can just show up if the spirit moves you. We’d love to see you!
Lastly, there are three recurring groups that meet on a monthly basis throughout the year: Teen Advisory Board (T. A. B), Galley Review Group, and J-Pop Club. Each of these groups always welcomes new members, so bring a friend and come join us!
Summer at the library – it’s not just for little kids any more.
Fellow graphic novel fans, let us all rejoice in the latest news of Scott Pilgrim! What's that? You don't know about Scott Pilgrim? Why, it's only the single most awesome graphic novel series of the past whatever years! At once hilarious and touching, the award-winning Scott Pilgrim series combines comedy, romance, science fiction, martial arts, manga, video games, skateboarding and rock music into a graphic novel so amazing, mere description simply does not do it justice- but I'll do my best:
Scott Pilgrim (20-something slacker and bass player for the band Sex Bob-omb) is unemployed and living in Toronto when he quite literally meets the girl of his dreams. Scott's been dreaming about rollerblade-wearing Amazon delivery girl Ramona Flowers ever since she started using his head as a trans-dimensional gateway to make her deliveries on time, and when they finally meet at a party it seems everything's looking up for ol' Scott. But not so fast! Ramona has seven evil ex-boyfriends and they're all coming to kill Scott, so in order to keep himself and his relationship with Ramona he'll have to defeat all of them in hand-to-hand combat. In short, just your average Canadian-slacker-bass-playing-boy-meets-rollerblading-girl-of-his-dreams-and-must-then-defeat-her-seven-evil-ex-boyfriends-who-are-coming-to-kill-him kind of story.
Two days ago, series creator Brian Lee O'Malley released the completely astounding cover art to the long-awaited sixth (and final) volume in the series, Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour! I've posted a small version of the cover here, but you can download a bigger version for your computer or phone at Brian's official site. Now, as if that wasn't enough, some marketing genius saw fit to post the trailer to the upcoming film adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. The World this morning! The movie, directed by Edgar Wright(who also directed Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz so you know it'll be great), will be released here in the US on August 13. If you've read the series, you'll recognize just how awesomely awesome this trailer is. Check it out!
Here in the Teen Services department, we are constantly striving to provide the kinds of programs that Kalamazoo's teenagers want. We know that gaming, crafts, and Japanese pop culture are popular. And Galley Group attracts new enthusiastic teen readers almost every month. Besides those, however, are there other programs we could offer that would bring you and your friends to the library? If so, we want to hear from you! Among the ideas that we have recently scheduled that either had to be cancelled due to lack of registrants or had few, if any, attendees include reader's theatre and workshops in the library's computer lab.
If you are a teenager and you have some good ideas about how the library can better serve its teen patrons, please leave your comments below. Better yet, consider joining the Teen Advisory Board (T.A.B.), which meets once a month. The next meeting is Wednesday, December 2, from 3:30 to 5 in the Van Deusen Room. We look forward to your feedback!
OK, J-Pop fans... if you've been coming to the last few meetings, you know we've finally finished off the last of the Outlaw Star series and we're moving on to something new! Now's your chance to let us know what we should watch next. On the right-hand side of this page, there's the new, handy poll feature where you can choose from a list of the more recent anime titles to come through KPL's doors. Here's the list:
Make your choice soon... this poll will only be up until next week!
Update: It was very close, but Vampire Hunter D squeaked out just ahead of Bleach and Cowboy Bebop to win! So, starting on December 22nd we'll begin the first disc of Vampire Hunter D. Thanks to everyone who voted!
Anime, manga, and graphic novels continue to be crazy-popular, and this popularity has led tons of people to learn to draw in these styles. Of course, every artist has their downfall, and for many people, this means hands. Let's face it, hands are just hard to draw! Check out this video of Mark Crilley giving pointers.
We found this video on Drawn: The Illustrating and Cartooning Blog, which is a great resource for anyone who likes to draw. | <urn:uuid:df203a11-17ae-40a0-b1c4-bdef7dbefa0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpl.gov/teens/blog/default.aspx?category=Anime | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95721 | 1,773 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Numbers recently released by Statistics Canada show the Saskatoon central market area being the nation’s population growth leader for the third consecutive year. Read more here.
Archive for the ‘Sideblog’ Category
With Saskatoon now being the most tax-competitive city in Canada, local business leaders are optimistic about the city’s potential for future growth. Read more here.
The Saskatchewan population is experiencing its greatest growth since 1921, increasing by more than 22,000 people in the past year to nearly 1,080,000 people. Read more here.
Canada’s largest bank is forecasting Saskatchewan to post 3.6 per cent economic growth this year – second best in the country behind Alberta – then take the lead position among the provinces next year with four per cent growth. Read more here.
The value of building permits issued in Saskatoon so far in 2012 has increased forty percent from last year’s strong numbers according to this story in today’s Star Phoenix.
Saskatchewan job numbers continued on their record roll in June, with 548,900 people working in the province — the highest on record for the second straight month — and 11,700 more than a year ago, Statistics Canada said Friday. Read more.
The population of our province grew by 20,000 (April to April), the most growth in any one-year period since 1930. As of April 1, Saskatchewan’s population was estimated to be 1,073,083. Read more.
Saskatoon will lead the nation in GDP growth in 2012, according to a new report by the Conference Board of Canada. The local economy is expected to expand by 3.6 percent, down from an impressive 4.8 percent in 2011. More here.
Saskatchewan is poised for a long period of economic prosperity and the mood in the province is exceptional ~ Mike Darling, V.P of BMO’s Saskatchewan Region. Read more here.
Tom McClocklin, president of Colliers McClocklin Real Estate predicts a strong commercial market for Saskatoon in 2012. “For the first time in decades we are entering a major expansion of the office market.” More here.
MacLean’s recently ran a story titled, “In a cooling housing market should you wait to buy and hurry up and sell?” They sought the advice of a few prominent agents who provided interesting feedback. Check it out here. | <urn:uuid:181609a8-cc54-4356-a5d5-480ea17fc638> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teamfisher.com/category/sideblog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943218 | 504 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The main season of productions, as well as dance concerts, are presented on the proscenium stage of Blair Hall Theatre. This state-of-the-art facility contains a large main stage comparable to many regional theatres with offstage wings, a single-purchase counterweight system, and a mechanically adjusted orchestra pit. Theatre Technology students have hands-on learning by using state-of-the-art stage equipment, memory lighting technology and the very latest in sound reproduction/recording.
Blair Hall Theatre seats 459 on the main floor and balcony and is wheelchair accessible. This facility has been praised for its comfort and unobstructed sight lines, while preserving the feeling of intimacy appropriate for educational performances. Technical facilities includes a costume shop, scene shop, paint frame, dressing rooms and storage facilities, most are located in building 2.
The Little Theatre (2L12) is a large rehearsal hall located below Blair Hall Theatre. This theatre is also used as a classroom and has mirrored covered walls to facilitate acting, dance or movement courses.
The Theatre Department offices are located on the second floor of Blair Hall (building 2), as is the interactive classroom to facilitate the growing technological demands of the curriculum. | <urn:uuid:d2f43d6e-ee94-4ec5-aa8a-58caa354e3f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sinclair.edu/academics/lcs/departments/the/information/labs/index.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970132 | 245 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Duquesne Physician Assistant Students Combine with Foundation to Provide Services, Supplies
A constant around the world is that women have babies—whether in the U.S. or in Liberia.
But in Liberia, only 51 percent of all births are attended by skilled health care providers, reports the World Health Organization (WHO).
Michael Lynn of Scott Township, four other Duquesne University physician assistant students and a faculty advisor are walking into this scenario, offering their expertise and assistance in the obstetrics/gynecology ward of ELWA Hospital in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
From July 1 to July 17, the fifth-year Duquesne students will serve in the maternity ward of the West African hospital, providing pre- and post-natal care as well as inpatient care; treating tropical diseases; and volunteering in an ambulatory clinic set in the rural countryside, which offers a lower level of care than is available in Monrovia.
“We’re going from Pittsburgh, one of the best places in the world for health care, to one of the poorest countries,” said Mark Freeman of Bethel Park, the trip’s faculty mentor and assistant professor in Duquesne’s physician assistant program. “Hopefully, it will give us a new perspective on our own health care in the U.S. We’re going to see illnesses we just read about—malaria, typhoid and other diseases that we think are under control.”
The trip is a combination of service and completion of one of eight required clinical rotations. Department Chair Dr. Bridget Calhoun, along with Dr. Eileen Zungolo, dean of the School of Nursing, and Dr. Gregory Frazer, dean of the Rangos School of Health Sciences, visited Liberia in February to explore the learning possibilities for students and clinicians, as well as opportunities to help provide care during this upcoming trip.
“Students have gone abroad in the past on clinical locations, but it’s new for us to couple with Brother’s Brother Foundation, and it’s the first time our students are working in Liberia,” Freeman said.
Brother’s Brother, a Pittsburgh-based foundation, promotes international health and education, sending donated medical, pharmaceutical, agricultural and other supplies abroad.
A shipment from Brother’s Brother is heading to Liberia with financial support for the shipping donated by attorney Robert Peirce Jr., a 1962 Duquesne law school graduate. Peirce, who has visited Liberia twice and is planning a third trip this August, brought the foundation’s efforts to the attention of Duquesne and provided financial support for the DU contingent.
The Duquesne group has helped to collect supplies, some of which they will carry with them. Supplies that exceed the allowed 300 pound weight limit—likely 600-plus pounds of goods—will be donated to Brother’s Brother to be shipped at a later date, Freeman said.
Among the supplies are a microscope that Freeman said will “totally change how one of the clinicians does his work” and a laptop that will connect a physician assistant working in the bush to the rest of the world.
Freeman anticipates a huge impact on all involved: students, their Liberian counterparts and the patients. | <urn:uuid:2625340d-dfef-4398-8dc8-bb6514c6f5c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsroom.duq.edu/2010/07/12/scott-township-resident-maternity-care-in-africa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952508 | 688 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The 112th Congress’s failure to bring emergency disaster aid for New York and New Jersey to a vote before adjourning has left scores of synagogues and other places of worship — not to mention thousands of businesses and homeowners — in limbo following Hurricane Sandy.
“The word ‘unconscionable’ comes to mind,” said Rabbi Scott Hoffman of South Merrick on Long Island. “It was put aside, delayed and placed on the back burner.” Days before the Senate approved $60.4 billion in Sandy supplemental aid — only to see the House of Representatives stall the legislation until it closed — departing Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman prepared an amendment specifying that houses of worship were eligible to receive aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the same basis as other not-for-profit institutions. But the proposal failed to advance when the Senate invoked cloture rules that barred amendments to the bill.
Meanwhile, houses of worship remain ineligible for aid under FEMA’s current rules because of concern that funding their reconstruction would violate the Constitution’s ban on direct government support of religion. Jewish organizations, such as the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, have taken the lead in pushing the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider this prohibition.
The Forward has determined that 72 synagogues were significantly damaged by Sandy. On January 4, the new Congress passed a stopgap $9.7 billion supplemental aid bill for Sandy victims and is expected to approve another $50 billion by January 15 for homes and businesses damaged by last year’s October 29 hurricane. In 2005, it took Congress just 10 days to approve federal aid for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
Local religious leaders feel disillusioned by the lack of a decision on FEMA eligibility aid for their buildings, but also by Congress’s snail’s pace in acting to help their communities rebuild.
“Imagine those people whose houses are gone, who need the money to fix other things within the house and are waiting for federal monies — and now you push them off for another month?” said Steven Frohlich, president of Young Israel of Brighton Beach. “It’s terribly disappointing.”
Frohlich said his congregation was paying “an arm and a leg” for repairs to the synagogue building, but he was even more concerned about community members in need.
There are congregations that have estimated damages of more than $1 million, like West End Temple in Neponsit, N.Y.
“These are people that pay taxes and Congress’s salary, and now all these constituents are in need and they’re not coming through,” said Chabad of Oceanside’s Rabbi Levi Gurkov. “It’s heartbreaking. It boggles the mind.”
Hoffman said his synagogue, Temple Israel of South Merrick, sustained about $100,000 in damage.
Gurkov said he hasn’t yet received money from his insurance company for the estimated $500,000 of damage to his synagogue, because the company is waiting to see how much the government pays out.
Many Democrats agreed. They blamed the GOP-controlled House, which closed out the final days of its last session mired in a standoff with the White House on President Obama’s push for tax increases on the wealthy.
New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg called the House’s failure to act on the aid bill passed by the Senate “a new low for House Republicans.”
Business owners are also growing increasingly upset at Congress’s indecision on the matter.
“I am so furious, they’re absolutely clueless,” said Howie Brecher, a businessman from New Jersey.
For 26 years, Brecher has made his living on the Jersey Shore. He owns four souvenir and clothing shops on Long Beach Island, an 18-mile strip of six municipalities that are a favorite summer destination for tourists. After the storm, Brecher had to lay off his winter staff of about eight workers. He invited each employee to his house and helped him or her apply for unemployment, but he found even that process cumbersome.
“Half got turned down,” Brecher said. “They all applied at the same time. The bureaucracy is so inept.”
Brecher said he planned to open one of his four stores by mid-March and the last by mid-May. But, he said, the upcoming summer could be disastrous for businesses if the island is not cleaned up and fully operating.
On Long Beach Island, municipalities are temporarily working from trailers. Major cleanup efforts remain unfinished, with five months to go before the summer vacation season.
Officials in Ship Bottom, a borough on Long Beach Island with more than 1,000 residents where one of Brecher’s shops is located, estimate that debris cleanup alone would cost $1.5 million. Additional work, including creating new dunes, retrofitting flooded generators and clearing storm drains, could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
Richard Bethea, Ship Bottom’s administrator and finance officer, took exception to “pork” that he said was being tacked on to the aid bill — a charge also made by some GOP opponents of the bill. “There are things being spent that don’t belong there,” Bethea said. “It has to happen quickly. It’s important to everybody at all levels. If businesses are up and running, the government collects taxes.”
Brecher, who founded the Long Beach Island Business Alliance, said his discussions with mayors, city council members and other local businesses indicated “a real, real concern” that costs were becoming too large for the townships. Businesses, he said, were “spending with the assumption that FEMA’s going to reimburse them.” “All types of things haven’t occurred yet, and if they don’t have money for things like fixing storm sewers, if beaches aren’t cleaned up, people aren’t going to come down. They’ll think it’s unsafe, ugly, that utilities are not working right.”
The threat of new storms further complicates the cleanup efforts. Before the New Year, a winter storm hit Long Beach Island, causing areas that had just been cleaned to flood again. “Storm sewers were filled with debris and sand and are not draining right,” Brecher said. “We had 14 inches of water under our house.”
Instead of waiting months for the possibility of federal aid, local leaders elsewhere have taken a proactive approach to helping community businesses. Thirty-five miles north, in Lakewood, N.J., the Lakewood Development Corporation set aside $1.5 million for an emergency disaster recovery program for the downtown area’s mostly Jewish- and Latino-owned stores. Volunteers went door to door to survey the damage to local businesses and encouraged storeowners to apply.
“From our perspective, the point was to get the funds to those who were affected most so that they can get back on their feet quickly,” Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, the development corporation’s chairman, wrote in an email to the Forward. “The small businesses we assisted were our friend[s] and neighbors, as well as our partners in a healthy local economy.”
Contact Seth Berkman at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:85021be4-4938-4a10-863c-8074b08ac77c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/169226/jews-fume-at-inaction-on-sandy-aid/?p=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971899 | 1,566 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Annan Pleads For More Help Resolving Syrian Crisis
Originally published on Mon June 11, 2012 3:03 pm
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne. The U.N.'s envoy to Syria has not given up on his peace plan - even after another gruesome massacre of villagers; even after U.N. monitors were fired upon at a government checkpoint when they tried to investigate the latest killing. Instead, U.N. envoy Kofi Annan is asking for more help to stop the violence in Syria, from the West and from Syria's neighbors.
Yesterday, he addressed both the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council. Today, Annan meets with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. NPR's diplomatic correspondent, Michele Kelemen, has the story.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Kofi Annan, who's the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, came out of a Security Council session with a warning.
KOFI ANNAN: I shared with the council something that a foreign minister in the Middle East told me. Said Syria is not Libya; it will not implode. It will explode - and explode beyond his borders; and cause real problems in the region, that nobody wants.
KELEMEN: So he thinks world powers and regional players need to come together and look at the problems in - as Annan puts it - a coldly realistic way. He's calling for a contact group that would include anyone with influence with the Syrian government, and with the opposition, to make his peace plan actually work.
ANNAN: What do we do, to get this plan implemented? And if it's not this plan, what we do to bring about political peace and political settlement, to ensure that the region doesn't blow up.
KELEMEN: Adding to the sense of urgency was news of another massacre. Syria denies responsibility for the atrocities reported in a village near the central Syrian city of Hama. But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the violence underscores, as he puts it, the horrifying realities on the ground.
SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON: How many more times have we to condemn them, and how many ways must we say that we are outraged? The Syrian people are bleeding. They are angry, but they want peace and dignity. Above all, they all want action.
KELEMEN: Both Ban and Kofi Annan say there must be consequences for the Syrian government, for not implementing the peace plan. Other diplomats agreed. But Russia's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, dismissed his colleague's talk about the need for sanctions.
AMBASSADOR VITALY CHURKIN: There is one missing link in what they are saying. They are not proposing anything which would resolve the problem of how to deal with the opposition.
KELEMEN: He'd like to see more pressure on the opposition, to begin a dialogue with the government; and on the armed opposition, to abide by the peace plan.
CHURKIN: This is an extremely dangerous situation. So simply sort of saying, now let's lean on the government, when we don't know what we're going to do about the opposition - to me, is something which is not going to lead to any progress.
KELEMEN: Russia is proposing an international conference on Syria and wants to invite Iran, another of Syria's allies. Kofi Annan says he thinks Iran has a role to play.
ANNAN: All these issues are at fairly early stage yet, and is under consultation. But I think Iran, as an important country in the region - I hope will be part of the solution.
KELEMEN: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on the eve of her meeting with Annan, poured cold water on that idea.
SECRETARY HILLARY CLITNON: You know, regarding Iran, it is hard - for the United States, certainly - to imagine that a country putting so much effort into keeping Assad in power and in effect, helping to stage-manage the repression on the people of Syria, would be a constructive actor. And we think that would not be an appropriate participant, at this point, to include.
KELEMEN: She says she's disgusted by the latest violence in Syria, and thinks the only way to resolve the crisis is for President Assad to go. But she says she has more work to do to persuade countries like Russia to agree on the need for a political transition, and to help facilitate it.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:7bef4ec4-d555-4f5d-8e4d-7a5404a04cad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wcbe.org/post/annan-pleads-more-help-resolving-syrian-crisis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956591 | 1,002 | 1.546875 | 2 |
CHENNAI: France has no plans to send troops to Iraq under the present circumstances, the French ambassador Dominique Girard said here on Wednesday.
"We still maintain that the US military intervention in Iraq was a mistake" he told reporters here adding that legitimacy in Iraq would happen only when there is UN authorisation for what is taking place in that country.
Maintaining that backing of the international community as represented by UN was most necessary to restore legitimacy and democracy in Iraq, Girard said that UN was best equipped to handle the situation and the best instrument to be in charge of the transition in Iraq.
Pointing out that the stand of both France and India continued to be the same on the Iraq issue, he said that his country had explicitly expressed its view that the war was a mistake.
"France and US are strong allies, but there is no meaning of friendship unless you tell your friend what the truth is", he said adding that even the most benevolent super power was vulnerable to mistakes unless there was a proper understanding of the ground realities.
The need of the hour in Iraq was to restore confidence of the people of Iraq, alleviate their sufferings and give back the sovereignty to the people. This could be possible only when UN was in charge of the affairs. | <urn:uuid:10e1ffb8-fd8d-4874-a648-58c971d65c90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2003-07-22/india/27208262_1_iraq-issue-france-present-circumstances | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981096 | 260 | 1.570313 | 2 |
There’s no shortage of impressive photos of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy, as we showed you earlier. Of course, a steady supply of real photos isn’t going to stop some people from passing along faked ones, whether to get their jollies or just because they don’t know any better. Here are some of the most famous fakes of Hurricane Sandy so far — some of which may even seem familiar.
No. 1 | Seriously, Are We Still Falling For This One?
This digitally merged photo has been making the rounds for about a year now, combining a pretty awesome storm photo with a shot of the Statue of Liberty. The next time you see this, please remember it's fake. If we're going to fall for faked pictures, we may as well demand the fakers at least make new ones.
No. 2 | The Day After Tomorrow
This is just a screenshot from the
No. 3 | Blast From The Past: 2011 Tornado
This isn't to say the weather in New York doesn't get crazy sometimes. While this shot isn't of Hurricane Sandy, it is real. It's a photo of a tornado that touched down in the city last year.
No. 4 | Flooded McDonald's
Supposedly a scene from a Virginia Beach McDonald's, this one is actually a still from an installation art piece of the same name in 2009.
No. 5 | Street Sharks
Digitally merging pictures just gets easier and easier, but come on, that's not even Ocean City, New Jersey, where the photo was supposedly snapped. Don't we all feel cheated by the Internet now. Especially considering people have proven these street shark pictures fake before.
No. 6 | Street Sharks, Part Deux
There are many, many things that make New York City's subways a hassle to travail. For the moment, though, sharks are not one of them, so thank god for small mercies.
- If you need something to occupy your time, try these awesome Etch a Sketch Nintendo illustrations
- Or consider investing in a pair of Star Wars spectacles
- Maybe get out the LEGOs instead of hopping on Photoshop | <urn:uuid:6f8d2da7-977e-42c5-929d-69492049abca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geekosystem.com/fake-hurricane-sandy-photos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944605 | 450 | 1.585938 | 2 |
During the course of a year, I field a lot of phone calls from various news organizations. Journalists working on stories about Jeep, AMC or other independents, or simply the old car hobby in general, call me for help. Occasionally they ask me to appear on TV, but mostly they're just looking for information and some good quotable comments for their article. I'm usually happy to oblige-after all, we're in the same business.
Recently, though, a call from a magazine editor really got me thinking. In the middle of a conversation about the Studebaker Avanti and its descendants, he remarked that he couldn't understand why that car had been rescued from extinction so many times. "What's so important about Avanti?" he asked rhetorically, "that people have this idea that it has to be built forever and never go out of business?" His words have been echoing off the walls of my brain ever since. It's a haunting question.
Let me back up a minute here and give some background to help explain what he meant. See, Avanti has had a history of business troubles. It's an automobile that has been involved in more rescues than Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties. Seems every time events had Avanti tied down to the railroad tracks like little Nell, some hero has come along to save it in the nick of time, leaving various bankers and financial types to stalk away muttering, "Curses! Foiled Again!" Studebaker introduced its new Avanti sport coupe for the 1963 model year, but built them only through 1964, when Studebaker ceased manufacturing cars in the U.S. Although Studebaker continued to build cars in Canada clear into 1966, Avanti production ceased when the U.S. plant was closed. Then Studebaker dealer Nate Altman bought the rights and tooling for the Avanti and began building them as a limited-production specialty car. The first of these "Avanti II" models went on sale in 1965 (That's according to the Avanti website. Other sources claim Avanti II debuted in 1966). Avanti Motor Corporation, as the company was then called, survived the ups and downs of the car business for many years, though production was always minuscule. Then, in 1982, Avanti Motor Corporation was bought by Steven Blake, a capable businessman and Avanti enthusiast. The new owner had some good ideas, including updating the Avanti inside and out, and establishing a broader dealer network. Blake signed up many new dealers and raised Avanti production to its highest level since 1964. Design work was begun on convertible and GT coupe models to expand the Avanti lineup. But the company ran into financial problems, and in 1986, Avanti was purchased by Michael Kelly, who soon moved the company to Youngstown, Ohio. In 1988, Kelly sold his interest in Avanti to partner John J. Cafaro. That operation continued to build cars through 1991. From 1992 to 2000, there were several changes of ownership while Avanti production remained dormant. A new Avanti appeared in late 2000, built on a GM F-body chassis but with a fair resemblance to the old Avanti. The company, now operating out of a facility in Villa Rica, Georgia, changed hands again in 2003 when it was sold to an investor group. Some months ago, a news report surfaced that Avanti was up for sale again.
It's had a troubled history. But it also has established a brilliant reputation, and I'll tell you why.
Stated as simply as possible, Avanti is special because it is special. It's different, unique. In modern times, there have been precious few American-made sports cars and even fewer grand touring cars. And that's how I view Avanti. Because it's a true four-passenger car, it shouldn't be included on the list of America's sports cars. On the other hand, it's a giant step above similar-sized cars like Camaro and Firebird. Avanti is not a pony car like a Mustang. It's not a Cadillac-like luxo-coupe either. No, Avanti is a true high-performance gran turismo. And that goes whether we're talking about the original Studebaker Avanti, the Nate Altman-produced Avanti II, Steve Blake's modernized yet still classic Avanti or the latest redesigned versions.
With Avanti, American automobile enthusiasts have something we otherwise might not have-a tight, four-place American car that combines breathtaking beauty with blistering performance. Call it an American Jaguar. No other U.S. car built since 1963 offers so close a comparison to the legendary Jag, with the possible exception of Studebaker's own Gran Turismo Hawk. Do you recall the first time you spotted a Jaguar XKE? Remember how the lines seemed impossibly low, sleek and sensuous? You knew you were looking at one of the purest examples of automotive beauty. It's the same way with Avanti. I recall the first Avanti I ever saw. The sight literally stopped me in my tracks. It seemed impossible that any car could look that great. Avanti's styling is achingly beautiful-to see one is to desire one. I even like the four-door sedan offered for a few years in the early 1990s, though sales-wise it was a complete failure. The Avanti four-door, to these eyes, was similar in concept to a Jaguar sedan-functional, yet stylish and sporty.
But why do businessmen who, in every other matter, are hard-nosed and flinty-eyed succumb to the Avanti magic? Why do they spend years of their lives and buckets of money to keep an obscure, limited-production sportster in business?
To noted hobbyist and Avanti authority Bill Tilden, Avanti is the ultimate comeback kid, a car and a company that refuse to die. It's gutsy. No matter how many times it's been knocked out of the ring, Avanti has always managed to pick itself up and get back into the fight.
So, in a very real sense, Avanti has become an icon, a symbol, emblematic of the American spirit of never giving up. Avanti is a thing of eternal beauty. Its soul is the essence of America.
What's so important about Avanti?
This article originally appeared in the February, 2005 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.
Order Backissues of Hemmings Classic Car
Subscribe to Hemmings Classic Car | <urn:uuid:241561da-5299-426a-8d7f-d5a544f05154> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2005/02/01/hmn_feature10.html | 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 | 0.967175 | 1,389 | 1.773438 | 2 |
CODE OF ETHICS
The following text of the “Ethical Code of Judicial Conduct” was adopted by the Main Steering Committee of the “Associazione Nazionale Magistrati” (ANM), after an ample consultation among the members, according to the section 58 bis of the decree law n. 29/93 (introduced by the decree law n. 546/93).
The ANM, even though it considers this Code of doubtful constitutionality - both in the sense of the misuse of the power of attorney and in that of the breach of the absolute reserve of law in relation to the Judiciary - has considered to enact such code. Indeed, the ANM deems it necessary, on the base of the common feeling of judges, to individuate those ethic rules intended to govern their judicial and personal conduct.
They are indications of principles without a juridical effect, that are to be considered at a different level respect to the juridical regulations of the disciplinary torts.
The acted individuation of rules of conduct, inspired to the realisation of the basic moral values, peculiar to the organisation of the category itself, is unavoidably conditioned by the rules in force and by the acknowledgement of those present prominent questions: for any possible amendment and revision of the adopted rules, it shall be followed the procedure consistent with the submission of a project to the debate in the local divisions of the ANM, and its following approval by the Main Steering Committee.
I. General rules
Section 1 - Basic values and principles
A judge shall behave with dignity, correctitude and sensitiveness towards the public interest, in his social life.
Section 2 - Relationships with citizens and with users of justice
A judge, in the relationship with citizens and with users of justice, shall hold a conduct open and respectful of the others’ personality and dignity and reject any pressure, recommendation or solicitation aimed to influence wrongfully the time and system of administration of justice.
A judge shall not lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance his private interests both in the social and institutional relationships.
Section 3 - Duties about the activity and professional revision
A judge shall carry out his functions with diligence and industriousness.
He shall maintain and increase his own professional heritage, engaging himself to revise and master his knowledge in the field of his activity.
Section 4 - Procedure of use of the resources of the administration
A judge should take care that means, endowments and resources of the office are employed according to their institutional appropriation. He is expected to act avoiding any form of waste or maladministration, in the pursuit of those objectives of efficiency peculiar to the judicial service.
Section 5 - Information of office. Prohibition to use them for non-institutional objectives
A judge shall not wrongfully use the information at his disposal for reasons of office. Moreover he shall not provide or require confidential information regarding pending proceedings, nor shall he provide recommendations aimed to influence the course or the result of the proceedings themselves.
Section 6 - Relationships with the press and other mass-media
A judge shall not solicit publicity of news connected to his own office in the contacts with the press and with other mass-media.
When he is not obliged to maintain secret or reserve about information of which he has knowledge for reasons of his office, and he considers he should provide informations regarding the judicial activity, he shall then avoid to create or use personal reserved or privileged channels of information. He shall do so as to warrant a fair information of citizens and the assertion of the right to report, and also to protect the honour and the reputation of citizens.
Being firm the principle of full freedom of thought, a judge shall inspire himself to standards of balance and moderation in releasing declarations and interviews to newspapers and other mass-media.
Section 7 - Membership to associations
A judge shall not hold membership in associations that require a promise of allegiance or that do not grant the full clearness about the participation of members.
II. Independence, impartiality, correctitude
Section 8 - The independence of the judge
A judge shall grant and defend the independent fulfilment of his duties and maintain an image of impartiality and independence.
He shall avoid any kind of involvement with centres of power related to parties or business activities that may influence the performance of his office, or in any case impair his image.
He shall not accept any office, nor fulfil activities, that may hinder the full and fair course of his own duties, or that may in any case condition his independence because of its nature, source and ways of conferring.
Section 9 - The impartiality of the judge
A judge shall respect the dignity of every individual, without any discrimination and prejudice on the basis of sex, culture, ideology, race and religion.
In the fulfilment of his functions he shall act to render effective the value of impartiality, engaging to overcome those cultural prejudices that may affect the comprehension and the evaluation of facts together with the interpretation and enforcement of laws.
A judge shall assure that his image of impartiality is fully granted at any time in the fulfilment of his office. To this aim, he shall value with the utmost rigour the occurrence of circumstances to eventually disqualify himself for serious reasons of opportunity.
Section 10 - Duties of correctitude of the judge
A judge shall not use the prestige of his office to obtain benefits or privileges.
A judge that aspires to promotions, removals, assignments of seat and to any kind of appointments, shall not act to improperly influence the concerned decision, nor shall accept others to act in his favour.
A judge shall abstain from any interference not corresponding to institutional requirements regarding promotions, removals, assignments of seat and conferment of offices.
A judge shall behave with politeness and correctitude; shall maintain formal relationships in the respect of the office performed by each one; shall respect and recognize the role of the administrative employees and that of all the others assistants.
III. The conduct in the performance of the office
Section 11 - The conduct in the proceedings
In performing his office, the judge, aware of the service to render to the society, shall observe the timetable of hearings and of the activity of office, as to avoid unnecessary inconveniences to citizens and to lawyers and providing them with all the necessary explanations.
He shall fulfil his office with full respect of the others’ office, and act recognising the equal dignity of the role played by the others actors of the proceedings, granting them the best condition to exercise them.
A judge shall take care to attain, complying with the law, results of justice for all the parties; he shall act with the highest scruple, especially when the question regards the freedom and the reputation of people.
Section 12 - The conduct of the Judge
A judge shall guarantee to the parties the opportunity to fully perform their role, also taking into consideration their practical requirements.
He shall always behave with reserve and assure the secretness of the Court Chambers, and an orderly and unbiassed development of the proceedings. In the fulfilment of his office he shall hear others’ opinions as to subject them to a continuative verification of his own convicements, and to draw occasion for a professional and personal enrichment by the dialectic. When drawing the grounds of a joint judgement he shall accurately explain the reasons for the decision elaborated in Court Chamber, and examine adequately fact and arguments stated by parties. He shall not solicit or receive any informal news concerning the proceedings he is carrying on.
When drawings the grounds of his actions or hearing a case, he shall avoid to express his opinion about facts or people external to the subject of the hearing, nor shall he express any judgement or evaluation concerning the professional ability of other judges, lawyers or the parties subject to the proceeding, when it is not necessary to reach a decision.
Section 13 - The conduct of the Public Prosecutor
A Public Prosecutor shall behave with impartiality in the fulfilment of his office.
He shall direct his inquiry researching the truth, and acquiring all those evidence for the defence of the person subject to the inquiry. Moreover, he shall not omit to the judge the existence of evidence for the defence of the person subject to the inquiry or of the accused.
A Public Prosecutor shall avoid to express evaluations concerning parties and witness in contrast with the decision of the judge, and shall refrain from any criticism or opinion regarding the professionalism of the judge and of lawyers.
He shall not inquire the judge to anticipate information about his decisions, nor shall he informally communicate to the judge acknowledgements about the current proceedings.
Section 14 - The duties of the supervisor
The judge that supervises a judicial office shall take care of the organization and of the use of both the available personal and material resources as to obtain the best result, according to the public service that his office must assure. He shall also guarantee the best cooperation with the other public offices in the respect of the authority of each institution. He shall assure the independence of judges and the unbiased fulfilment of the duties of all those assigned to the office, guaranteeing the clearness and impartiality in the supervision of the office and rejecting any external interference.
He shall take care to acknowledge what occurs within his office so that he may assume responsibility and explain the reasons for it.
He shall examine complaints by citizens, lawyers and by other judicial or administrative offices sifting their evidence and adopting all the necessary measures to avoid inefficiencies. To this aim he shall be available in his office.
The Judge supervisor of an office shall supervise the conduct of judges and of the administrative employees intervening, in the exercise of his powers, to prevent incorrect behaviours.
He shall draw unbiassed, complete and impartial judgement and reports about the judges of his office. In this way he shall fairly cooperate with those to whom is referred the supervision of judges, with the judiciary Council and the High Council of the Judiciary.
He shall solicit advice from the judges, the administrative employees and, if it is the case, the lawyers about the questions of the office. He shall care for the enforcement of the principle of the natural judge. | <urn:uuid:790b5229-a006-4df6-90b4-024c1538c8cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/cooperation/ccpe/profiles/italyCodeEthics_en.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952891 | 2,075 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The AMT's Growth Was Not "Unintended"
How the Administration and Congressional Leaders Anticipated the AMT Problem and Knowingly Made it Worse
November 30, 2007
Various Administration officials, senators, and House members are urging Congress to waive its Pay-As-You-Go rules and deficit-finance the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) “patch.” The AMT’s explosive growth, they argue, was unanticipated and unintended, and so measures to prevent that growth should not have to be paid for. Even if the AMT’s growth were unanticipated, this would not justify waiving PAYGO for AMT relief. But the claim is also false.
To the contrary, lawmakers not only anticipated the AMT’s explosive growth, they counted on it to mask the cost of the 2001 tax cuts. The Administration and congressional tax writers were well aware that the legislation they pushed in 2001 would force millions more taxpayers to pay the AMT, which would take back part or all of their tax cuts and thereby reduce the 2001 tax bill’s apparent cost. More than two thirds of the cost of this year’s AMT patch is due to actions taken by Congress and the Administration in designing the 2001 (and 2003) tax cuts (see Figure 1).
As Charles Grassley, then Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in 2001, “President Bush’s plan [will] bring millions more Americans into the AMT process; the Joint Tax Committee estimates that the Bush tax plan will nearly double the number of American taxpayers affected by the AMT.”
(For more such comments from 2001, as well as some quite different recent comments by Senator Grassley and the Administration, see the box below.)
Were Congress to waive the Pay-As-You-Go rules now and deficit-finance the AMT patch, lawmakers would merely be rewarding the budget gimmickry of 2001.
Was the AMT’s Growth Unanticipated?
Treasury Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Eric Solomon, November 1, 2007:
“The Administration’s position is that the AMT is going to affect another 21 million taxpayers, and this was an unanticipated tax.”
Senator Charles Grassley, January 4, 2007:
“It’s ridiculous to rely on revenue that was never supposed to be collected in the first place… It’s unfair to raise taxes to repeal something with serious unintended consequences like the AMT.”
Senator Charles Grassley, March 8, 2001:
“Roughly one in seven taxpayers will come under the shadow of the Alternative Minimum Tax by the end of the decade… That figure will significantly be higher if President Bush’s tax plan is adopted, and that is according to the Joint Tax Committee of the Congress.”
Senator Charles Grassley, February 28, 2001:
“In addition, President Bush’s plan [will] bring millions more Americans into the AMT process; the Joint Tax Committee estimates that the Bush tax plan will nearly double the number of American taxpayers affected by the AMT.”
Then-Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, February 13, 2001:
“The Treasury Department estimates that the Administration’s tax cut proposals would (1) increase tax receipts from the AMT by $262 billion over the 2002-2011 period, and (2) increase the number of taxpayers in 2011 who have additional tax liability because of the AMT from 20.4 million to 34.7 million.”
Treasury Department economist Jerry Tempalski, November 10, 2001:
“Before EGTRRA, the number of AMT taxpayers was expected to grow from 1.4 million in 2000 to 18.0 million in 2010… It is projected that EGTRRA will increase that number to 35.1 million in 2010…. EGTRRA will similarly increase AMT liability significantly… Before EGTRRA, AMT liability was expected to grow from $9 billion in 2000 to $45 billion in 2010… EGTRRA will increase AMT liability in 2010 to an estimated $133 billion…”
“Mark-Up of H.R. 3996, The Temporary Tax Relief Act of 2007 and H.R. 3997, The Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Act of 2007,” Hearing Before the Committee on Ways and Means, United States House of Representatives, November 1, 2007; “Baucus, Grassley Tackle Alternative Minimum Tax Relief on First Day of 110th Congress,” Press Release, January 4, 2007; “Easing the Family Tax Burden,” Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, March 8, 2001; “Revenue Proposals and Tax Cuts in the President’s Budget,” Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, February 28, 2001; “President’s Tax Relief Proposals: Individual Income Tax Rates,” Hearing Before the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, February 13, 2001; Jerry Tempalski, “The Impact of the 2001 Tax Bill on the Individual AMT,” National Tax Association Proceedings: 94th Annual Conference on Taxation, November 10, 2001.
The AMT – A Gimmick Used to Help Enact the 2001 Tax Cut
If Congress had not enacted the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, 10 million taxpayers would owe the AMT in 2007, according to estimates by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center; reducing the number of affected taxpayers to several million, as the House-passed AMT “patch” bill would do, would have cost less than $15 billion. But, with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in place, an estimated 23 million taxpayers will owe AMT in 2007, and reducing that figure to 2-3 million will cost $51 billion —more than three times as much.
That should not surprise congressional supporters of the 2001 tax cut, who knowingly used the AMT to mask the tax cut’s true cost. In the spring of 2001, when congressional leaders were formulating their tax cut package, they faced an obstacle. Congress’ budget resolution of that year allowed for tax cuts of up to $1.35 trillion over 10 years. But the combined cost of all the tax cuts that the Administration and the congressional leadership sought was much higher. Former Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas described the “problem” as getting “a pound and a half of sugar into a one-pound bag.”
To do so, Congressional tax writers resorted to various gimmicks. Among the largest was using the AMT to dramatically reduce the tax cut’s official cost.
Taxpayers owe the AMT when their tax liability is higher as calculated under the AMT than under the regular income tax. Therefore, substantially reducing households’ tax liability under the regular income tax without changing what they owe under the AMT subjects more households to the AMT — and increases the amount of revenue the AMT collects.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) explicitly brought this issue to Congress’s attention in the spring of 2001:
JCT provided lawmakers with various estimates of how the proposed tax cuts would dramatically increase the number of taxpayers hit by the AMT. One such estimate showed that the tax cuts would nearly double the number of AMT taxpayers by 2010. As the box above illustrates, the Administration and congressional leaders were well aware of these estimates.
In addition, then-JCT Chief of Staff Lindy Paull testified before the Senate Finance Committee in April 2001, explaining, “Any of these proposals that reduce tax rates, without any adjustment to the Alternative Minimum Tax, are going to cause people to be subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax.”
Congressional leaders could have acted on the information and used some of the $1.35 trillion available for the tax bill to modify the AMT so that it did not affect rapidly increasing numbers of households and so that taxpayers would receive the full value of whatever new tax cuts were enacted. But then they would have had fewer dollars to enact other tax cuts. So congressional leaders took advantage of the fact that, without a permanent AMT fix, the Joint Tax Committee would have to assume that the AMT would cancel a substantial portion of the new tax cuts of 2001. This assumption made the bill look much cheaper, allowing many more tax cuts to be squeezed in.
Waiving PAYGO Would Reward This Budget Gimmickry
Designers of the 2001 tax cuts used this maneuver with full confidence that Congress would come back in future years and enact AMT relief without paying for it. That is, they anticipated that they would ultimately get tax cuts costing far more than $1.35 trillion, while masking the true dimensions of the tax cut’s drain on the Treasury.
As noted above, more than two thirds of the cost of the 2007 AMT patch simply reflects the deferred cost of the 2001 (and 2003) tax cuts. Waiving PAYGO now on the grounds that the AMT’s growth was “unanticipated” would accept a false claim — that the growth of the AMT was not expected or intended — and would reward the budget gimmickry used in designing the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.
This estimate reflects what it would have cost to index the 2001 AMT exemption for inflation before the 2001 tax cut. Doing so would have reduced the number of AMT taxpayers in 2007 to 2-3 million, which is actually below the level the House-passed AMT patch bill would achieve.
“News conference with Representative Bill Thomas, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,” Federal News Service Transcript, March 15, 2001.
Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimated Revenue Effects of a Chairman’s Mark of the ‘Restoring Earnings to Lift Individuals and Empower Families (Relief) Act of 2001,’” JCX-41-01, May 11, 2001, http://www.house.gov/jct/x-41-01.pdf, page 8.
“Tax Code Complexity: New Hope for Fresh Solutions,” Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, April 26, 2001. | <urn:uuid:1a81280f-672b-420a-8c90-0e69c6342219> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=857 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949787 | 2,134 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This press release was sent to me over the weekend –
To celebrate our brave ancestors who came to our home and native land, the Quebec Family History Society will host Celebrating Our Canadian Roots Day on Wednesday, February 20, from 1:30 to 4:00 pm, at the QFHS Heritage Centre and Library.
This is part of the Society's monthly "Roots Days" program, created to bring together fellow genealogists in a friendly setting. You may drop in anytime for coffee, tea, Canadian sweets, and informal conversation to talk about your ancestors who came to Canada and browse books from the QFHS Canadian collection.
Bring in your books and resources about Canadian cities, towns and
communities, no matter how small the location, to share with others.
Whether your ancestors were Lower Canadians, pure laine, western farmers, Upper Canadians, Acadians, First Nations, Métis, voyageurs, gold rush seekers, British, Irish, French, Italian, or from anywhere else, join us.
Open to our members and the public. Admission is free. | <urn:uuid:b3f09024-4e31-4030-8784-0a8171da1687> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2013/02/join-qfhs-at-celebrating-our-canadian.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946347 | 223 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Ownership of Adena tablet in dispute
Historical Society, finder fighting over artifact
- To watch a video of Edward Low discussing his find, go to Dispatch.com/multimedia.
National News from AP
World News from AP
Edward Low displays a replica of the tablet he found as a child near his Parkersburg, W.Va., home. He later took the original to the Ohio Historical Society to be identified; he is suing because he can't get it back.
Edward Low knew he wasn't supposed to play there, high up on a sandy hill in Parkersburg, W.Va., overlooking the silver ribbon of the Ohio River.
But the 12-year-old and two friends, armed with boyish curiosity and a World War II trench shovel, had sneaked away from home to explore.
While digging a foxhole to play soldier, Low hit something hard about 15 inches deep in the soil. The thin piece of sandstone, about 5 inches by 3 inches, was engraved with Indian markings of human faces and birds.
Low didn't know then that he'd found a valuable piece of pre-history: an Early Woodland Adena cultural artifact created 400 years or more before the birth of Jesus. Its value at auction has been estimated at up to $200,000.
To Low, it was simply his "Indian rock." For years, he kept it wrapped in a newspaper in his sock drawer at home, bringing it out occasionally for show-and-tell at school or to show colleagues at work.
Now 76 and in poor health, the longtime Reynoldsburg resident finds himself in a bitter legal fight with the Ohio Historical Society. Earlier this year, he filed suit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court.
In an interview, Low said he lent the artifact to the historical society in 1971 for research and display; the society contends he gave it to the state, and so refuses to return it.
"I feel like I have done nothing wrong and they're flat-out stealing," Low said.
Historical society officials would not comment on the dispute. They deferred to a statement by attorneys that said, in part, that Low donated the tablet in 1971, a fact noted in two issues of Echoes, a society publication.
"Although Mr. Low has known since 1971 that the Society considered the tablet to be a gift, he did not inform the Society that he considered the transfer of the tablet a loan rather than a gift until December 2007," the statement said.
"The Society has protected and preserved this valuable artifact since 1971. It is vigorously defending the suit filed by Mr. Low so that the people from Ohio, other states and other nations may continue to enjoy and appreciate the tablet."
The saga began in May 1971 when Low, who had moved to Ohio, read a story in The Dispatch about Raymond Baby, then curator of archaeology at the society. Low subsequently took the tablet and went to see Baby. At Baby's request, Low left the tablet with him for what was supposed to be a week to 10 days to research its origin.
Low didn't hear from Baby for three months. When Baby finally called in September, he offered to buy the tablet. Low refused, but agreed to allow the society to keep it for public display for an indefinite period. In return, Low said, he was offered and accepted a lifetime membership in the society.
At no point, Low says, did he sign an agreement to sell or give the tablet to the historical society. He always considered it a loan.
"I never intended for them to keep it," he said. "I told them it's not for sale."
Low said the artifact has great sentimental value for him, not only because he found it as a child, but also because he has American Indian ancestors who could be related to the ancient Adena people who made the carving.
Two years ago, Low decided he wanted to get the tablet back so he could donate it permanently it to the Blennerhassett Museum of Regional History in Parkersburg, W.Va.
To his surprise, the society refused.
"We treat donations as permanent and not subject to changes in attitude on the part of the individual donors," the late William K. Laidlaw Jr., executive director, said in an Oct. 6, 2008, letter to Low. "We have applied this principle in consideration of your request, and we are prepared to defend our title to the Adena tablet."
More than a dozen similar tablets have been found in Ohio and contiguous states where the Woodland people lived. Historians don't know exactly what they were used for, but it's suspected they had ceremonial use. Low's tablet is unique because it includes human faces interpreted to be shamans wearing costumes of raptorial birds.
In documents released as part of the court case, the society acknowledged that it has no records proving transfer of ownership. However, officials said at that time, many museums did not require written documentation of gifts.
Two letters turned up, dated Sept. 2, 1971, and Oct. 18, 1971, in which director Daniel R. Porter thanked Low for his "gift to the Society of the two Adena tablets which you so generously presented." Neither letter was on society letterhead, and the September letter was not signed.
Low said he didn't receive either letter. | <urn:uuid:8e0e7cf3-8074-49f3-97d2-62af88d6fee4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2009/12/07/LOW_TABLET.ART0_ART_12-07-09_B3_6FFTSFC.html | 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 | 0.978648 | 1,103 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Map by Bob AulSan Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation just issued its fourth annual State of the Beach report. Conclusion: privatization is the No. 1 threat to beach access nationwide. That got us looking at the OC coastline, where privatization has gone on for years, especially in Laguna Beach—where some ostensibly public coves are behind private gates. Residential growth along the coastline also makes taxpayer-funded beaches essentially private since there's no parking for anyone other than residents. We'll even speculate that privatization will eventually swallow up Huntington Beach's sun-splashed strand across Pacific Coast Highway from the imperial resorts—envision a day when those hotels erect cabanas on the city-owned beach, followed by cabana boys and the shooing away of riff-raff. This map shows where erosion, pollution and privatization make our beaches increasingly off limits. | <urn:uuid:26fe5b32-8757-4cc5-8e8d-a11a050a9832> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocweekly.com/2003-07-03/news/where-d-my-beach-go/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950084 | 174 | 1.75 | 2 |
Thu January 10, 2013
WNY delegation responds to governor's State of the State
Governor Andrew Cuomo was credited for laying out an ambitious agenda by several members of the region's state delegation. Cuomo called for boosting the Upstate economy, expanding casino gaming, and increasing the minimum wage from $7.25-an-hour to $8.75 an hour.
Assemblymember Sean Ryan, a Buffalo Democrat, said the best way to spur growth is pay workers more.
"Western New York and minimum wage employers or national employers like Walgreens, Walmart, Rite Aid and CVS you know they're not mom and pop, they're main street. They're huge companies who have a business model based on a low wage model and that's not model that's good for our economy," said Ryan.
The governor also called on lawmakers to pass a "Women's Equality Act." The idea has a lot of merit according to Assemblymember Jane Corwin. A Clarence Republican, Corwin says statistics show women get paid less than men do for the same work.
"The important thing is we want to make sure that any kind of changes we make, any kind of new laws, don't make it more bureaucratic and more difficult for women to be hired," said Corwin.
Gun control, increasing time in the classroom, and paying teachers based on performance were among some of the other noteworthy items from Cuomo's 2013 state of the state address.
Some members of the region's state delegation don't appear ready to support gun control.
Senator Patrick Gallivan, the former Erie County Sheriff, says most weapons used for crimes in New York come from out of state. Gallivan, an Elma Republican, says he's disappointed Governor Cuomo didn't mention funding gun interdiction, local law enforcement and prosecutions.
"For too long we haven't, we've neglected and haven't talked about people dying one by one on the street," said Gallivan. "So my focus, coming from law enforcement, is tough enforcement and working on getting illegal weapons and criminals off the streets."
Assemblymember Michael Kearns says he's apprehensive about changing the state's gun laws. Kearns, a Buffalo Democrat, says its a federal issue.
"I think we are going to need some comprehensive federal legislation," said Kearns. "I can drive across the state lines and pick up a gun. Mostly what happens is it's the criminal that have the guns, and the law abiding citizens....do what they are suppose to do." | <urn:uuid:cba2dd1c-47a7-4e46-92c8-4ffb55010415> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.wbfo.org/post/wny-delegation-responds-governors-state-state | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973245 | 515 | 1.65625 | 2 |
[This is the third in The Tyee's Love on the Edge series.]
"I have a right to be happy, don't I?" Brady* says.
Across the table, I nod. "Of course."
I haven't seen him in years, and just hours ago on my way to the bank I caught a glimpse of something familiar -- the 6'1", 190-pound, dark and handsome Brady, a friend of mine from out of province. While in Victoria visiting family, he decided to spend a day in Nanaimo.
"I forgot you lived here," he said. "It's been so long."
At the table, we drink coffee and share a salad. "You're not wearing your wedding ring."
He looks down at his hand, then back at me. "Well, you know, marriage is tough."
And for Brady, it probably is. Very tough -- after all, he is married to a woman.
Brady and I met when I was still in high school. He frequented the restaurant I worked at and was friends with my friend David.* In October 2000, David, who is "very gay," invited me to a party at his apartment.
"Is it going to be a bunch of fags and me?" I asked.
David laughed. "A bunch of fags, Brady and you."
"He's not a fag, if you ask him," David replied.
Until this point, I had known Brady for a year and had no idea he was gay. "Are you sure? Or do you just have a thing for him and hope he's gay?"
David shook his head. "I shouldn't have told you. No one knows. Hush hush."
'One of them'
Months later, Brady confided in me. He told me he didn't want anyone to know, he didn't want to be treated like "one of them."
In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau decriminalized homosexuality. Since then, homosexuals have been fighting to be treated as equals: they want to get married.
In 2005, the same-sex marriage controversy climaxed when the House of Commons made Canada the third country to legalize same-sex marriage, passing Bill C-38 by a vote of 158 to 133.
Then–prime minister Paul Martin, under attack by opposition and religious groups for initiating legalization of same-sex marriage in all Canadian provinces and territories, said the "vote is about the Charter of Rights. We're a nation of minorities and in a nation of minorities it is important that you don't cherry-pick rights. A right is a right and that is what this vote is all about."
"I was relieved," Brady tells me. "It gives people the chance to love who they want to love and marry who they want to marry. That doesn't mean it will be easy, though."
The legalization of gay marriage provides options that Brady didn't have when he got married two years ago. Brady met his wife, Laura*, at a church barbecue and they immediately became friends. Brady's parents weren't shy -- at 27 he should be thinking about settling down and starting a family -- and they really liked Laura.
"My family is Christian, my wife's family is Christian. They have strong beliefs," Brady says. He lowers his voice and leans towards me. "I rejoined the church a few years ago because I too have strong beliefs. I believe in being a good person and that God loves all his people. Even gays."
In the know
"Do they know?" I ask.
Brady laughs, sips his coffee, then shakes his head. "Of course not. And they wouldn't accept it either."
I'm not so sure -- Brady's parents, whom I met several years ago at a birthday barbecue for him, are warm, friendly, and love their son.
"I heard them talk [about Bill C-38]. I know how they feel about [homosexuality]: 'It's abnormal. It's perverted, a sin.'" Brady tells me that his entire family strongly opposes same-sex marriage because it threatens the "traditional definition of marriage" and goes against everything that is 'natural.' He recalls a family event where the topic came up. "They're not rude or vulgar about it. They don't say 'fag' or 'queer' – but they don't think homosexuals can or should have families. If you can't procreate, you can't marry."
Brady reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. He opens it on the table. "My father thinks [homosexuals] can't parent because [homosexuals] don't know their [gender] roles, they don't fit into a family."
He smiles and pulls a picture out of his wallet. "If only he knew," he says and shows me a picture of his 19-month-old child. "He thinks I'm a great father."
At this point, Brady gets uncomfortable. He looks out the window, checks his watch, fidgets with the silverware, looks out the window again. "Hey," I say as I hold the picture. "[Your child] is gorgeous. Congratulations." I hand the picture back to him and he tucks it back into his wallet.
"When I heard you got married, I was surprised." I look at him across the table, bite back a smile, and whisper, "I was like 'That silly homo, what's he doing with a girl?'"
Thankfully, my attempt to get a laugh out of him is successful. Brady doesn't fit the stereotype of a gay male. Rather, he fits the stereotype of what is male -- he likes cars, sports, beer, and working out. He started questioning his sexuality in high school. He played sports, was popular, and "always had girls hanging around." He had a few girlfriends, but they never worked out. "I thought it was that our personalities just didn't mesh," he says. "Now I know it was because they had the wrong body parts."
No one has ever questioned his "maleness" or his sexuality – except for himself. "I've always been a man, but I've always been [gay]. It's nice to talk to someone who knows."
"Your wife? I ask, thinking the obvious. "How can she not know?"
He shakes his head. "Our marriage is a fraud." He stares into his coffee and turns the cup with his fingertips. "She really loves me. I can feel it. It makes it worse. Reminds me everyday that while I love her, I don't love her the way I should. The way she thinks I do."
We don't talk for a few minutes. The waitress refills our coffee and we order cheesecake. "Do you think it looks like we're on a date?" Brady asks. He tells me about his child, who is "growing amazingly fast", and how incredible fatherhood is. "It changes everything. [My child] matters more to me than anything ever could. We're actually expecting another."
I don't react.
"I know," he says. "It's the right thing to do."
"What's the right thing to do?"
I know what he means. He means the right thing to do is to preserve the "traditional definition of marriage" even if it means denying himself. I beg to differ. But, as he reminds me, I am not in his shoes and I don't know what it's like. I tell him I do know – I like men just as much as he does. "And let me tell you," I say. "It's not easy." Baptized and raised Christian, Brady struggled for most of his life with his feelings and desires. Preserving the "traditional definition of marriage" is key to the argument against same-sex marriage.
Homosexual relationships and marriages are a threat to the culturally constructed notion of marriage -- that marriage is intended for procreation, is a life-long commitment, and is "one man, one woman."
"Divorce, adultery, and infertility threaten the traditional definition more than gays getting married," I say. "Maybe divorce should be illegal."
"I suppose," Brady says. He shifts in his seat, frustrated. "But I can't change the way people feel -- the way people would react if they knew -- I don't want to lose my family."
"I wish I didn't know," I say. Other than myself, there are only three people Brady has confided in. "You should be crazy in love and married to a man."
"I have a right to be happy, don't I?" he says.
"If I go, I'm going to be that man that abandoned his wife and child. Children. I know that if I stay, I'm abandoning a part of myself. I love [my child] and my wife is wonderful. I know I'm lying to her and to my family … "
We don't discuss it any further. Brady and I finish our visit, hug, and promise to keep in touch, thankful that we stumbled into each other. He heads back to Victoria. In a few days, he'll fly home to his wife and child, where his public life presides, his inner life remains a secret.
* Names have been changed.
Jodi A. Shaw is the associate editor of The Navigator at Malaspina University College in Nanaimo. | <urn:uuid:025f639f-b480-4e86-9507-02100014ec43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thetyee.ca/Life/2006/02/14/MarriedWrong/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989594 | 1,976 | 1.53125 | 2 |
My question involves a speeding ticket from the State of: Washington.
I am trying to find out what the governmental regulations are regarding signs, camera's and flashing lights in a schoolzone.
In my case there is first a sign (school zone, 20mph when light at crosswalk is flashing), followed by a camera at 60ft , then a crosswalk, then the flashing light (at 240 ft from the sign). Yes, the light is past the crosswalk.
Somehow I thought that the light had to coincide with the sign and marked the beginning of the speedzone.
In my case I saw the sign, wondered for a few seconds what flashing light the sign is talking about and got my picture taken. Had the light been on top of the sign it would have drawn attention to it. It takes (at the 30 mph speed limit) 2 seconds from the moment you can read the sign until you pass the camera, then another 4+ seconds to pass the light. If there are larger vehicles around the light will be invisible from the moment you see the sign until well beyond the camera.
I went back there and watched from a parking lot how many people had problems there. 1 out of 10 is a conservative number.
This set-up here is a classic example of a speed trap and a cash cow for the city. And I wonder it's legality. | <urn:uuid:b54d5c45-007f-4fdd-b3a9-e61ec229b37a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94993&p=395154 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962992 | 280 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Sorry to keep you wondering about Nakamura
On this day, after finishing lunch, when Nakamura returned to his seat, he found a memo left there telling him to come to the site director’s office. Separating the factory and two paths, the director and others had their offices in the business department on the opposite side, but Eiji TOYODA and Shoichi SAITO [not sure on his first name, it may be different], the two executive directors who controlled the engineering department, were in a little wooden building a small distance away, where there were many site directors' offices. The positively-acting Nakamura, who had much contact with the director’s colleagues, came and went often to the engineering director’s desk in the site director’s office. Because of that, he was thinking that this time also would just be a small business meeting, probably a talk about the status of the body factory this year, as he opened the door. Eiji and Saito were waiting with sullen faces.
Toyota, as you know, is the Toyoda family’s company. The original president was Rizaburo TOYODA, the adopted son-in-law of Sakichi TOYODA, called Japan’s king of invention, who built his fortune with automatic looms. But, the one who essentially made Toyota was the 2nd president, Sakichi’s oldest son Kiichiro TOYODA. Eiji was his cousin. Eiji, born in 1913 (Taisho
2), was 38 at this time, 18 years younger than Kiichiro. Kiichiro’s oldest boy, who later succeeded Eiji as president, Shoichiro, also entered into the company. With this kind of relationship between everyone, Toyota family members were just called Eiji-san and Shoichiro-san. After Eiji graduated form Tokyo University’s [called Todai for short] Mechanical Engineering department, he soon entered Toyota Motors; in 1945 (Showa 20), at the young age of 32, he succeeded Kiichiro as company director and became the one essentially in charge of the engineering section.
Saito, who helped Eiji, graduated from Tohoku University after studying metallurgy and continued research, but he also entered Toyota, pulled in by Kiichiro. Following Kiichiro Toyoda’s retirement in 1950 (Showa 25), Ishida Taizou, who assumed the title of president, left everything from the engineering department, from automotive design/development to manufacturing, completely to the discretion of Eiji and Saito.
Inside the site director’s office, are the desks of Eiji and Saito. Also inside, there is a long table with benches facing each other placed on either side. Far from a sofa you’d find in the reception rooms of today’s businesses and director’s offices where you receive guests, it’s a plain wooden bench. Nakamura sat down on this seat facing Eiji and Saito. What Eiji said next wasn’t what Nakamura expected. | <urn:uuid:904bd23f-3004-4bb8-aba8-a24b2f20ed38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36821 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975881 | 653 | 1.75 | 2 |
To the Editor:
I write this letter with a heavy heart, as we have lost yet another community member to a senseless act of violence. While listening to Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler’s press conference, during which he described how Craig Owens allegedly beat Latisha Haynes to death two days before Christmas, it became clear to me that there is still much work to be done.
We must work to inform our community members of how important it is for each of us to take ownership for our neighbors and communities. Residents of the house where Owens and Haynes lived told police that they heard a disturbance — pounding, banging and crying — coming from a room in the house around 9 p.m. on Dec. 23. Haynes was then seen around midnight, at which time she appeared to have been beaten. Yet, police were not called until 11 a.m. the next day.
As the director of the Engaging Men Program at Vera House, I am constantly talking to men about the importance of us getting involved in ending domestic and sexual violence. We have to move from the place of just being “good men” who do not abuse our partners to men who will speak up and speak out to say that all abuse and violence is wrong. Whether it is a friend or a co-worker telling a sexist joke, or a stranger verbally or physically harming someone, we must begin to hold others accountable for their actions.
Please do not think that I am asking everyone to put on a Superman cape and go save the world. What I am asking is that when we find ourselves witnessing an incident of violence or disrespectful behavior, we simply consider what we would want someone to do if it were our loved ones being abused or harassed.
In closing, I would like to quote the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody’s business among the power wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! But they refuse to do the things that make for peace.”
Chauncey D. Brown
Director of Engaging Men Program
Vera House Inc.
If you see abuse, say something
on December 30, 2011 at 3:00 AM
To the Editor: | <urn:uuid:a4f53f6d-8cd6-42e7-b11b-ac7d58e94536> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/12/if_you_see_abuse_say_something.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974598 | 498 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Federal Judge Rosenbaum ('69) Announces He's Stepping Down
APRIL 23, 2010—James M. Rosenbaum, a U.S. District Court Judge for Minnesota since 1985, has announced his resignation from the federal bench effective August 2010. He had taken senior status in October 2009, the month he turned 65, but had continued to work a full case load.
A St. Paul native, Rosenbaum received his B.A. in 1966 from the University of Minnesota and his J.D. from the Law School in 1969. His first job as an attorney took him to Chicago, where he was as a legal aid attorney trying federal civil rights cases for VISTA. He also was staff attorney with the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities.
He returned to Minneapolis in 1972 and worked in private practice, specializing in trial work, until 1981, when he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota.
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed Rosenbaum to the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. He served as Chief Judge for the Minnesota district from 2001 until he stepped down from the position in 2008. From 1997-2005, he was the Eighth Circuit’s elected representative to the Judicial Conference of the United States, the Judiciary's governing authority.
Rosenbaum has long been an active force outside the courtroom as well as on the bench. He is on the Advisory Board of the Sedona Conference, a legal community think tank that examines forward-looking principles, best practices, and guidelines in specific areas of the law. He is an advisor for The Green Bag, a quarterly journal of short, useful legal articles, in which he has published several pieces analyzing the intersection of law, privacy, and technology. He continues to lecture widely on legal technology, electronic discovery, and intellectual property issues.
He and his wife, Fourth District Court Judge Marilyn B. Rosenbaum, also have a long history of service and support at the Law School, including volunteer work and annual fund gifts. They are members of the Law School’s Heritage Society, and Rosenbaum is a member of the Law School’s newly created Board of Advisors.
In 2009, four of Rosenbaum’s former law clerks decided to honor and thank him for his years of service and mentorship by establishing the endowed Judge James M. Rosenbaum Scholarship Fund at the Law School. "I’m hopeful that this fund will offer an opportunity to people who wouldn’t have the opportunities I have had," he said when he learned about the scholarship.
Rosenbaum has no plans to end his legal pursuits after his departure from the bench. In an April 13 letter announcing his resignation to his colleagues, he wrote that he plans to "embark on a new career, primarily doing alternative dispute resolution and working on complex legal and discovery matters."
President Obama has nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Richard Nelson to replace Rosenbaum. | <urn:uuid:c3a71ec3-9384-4cd8-af42-64eddf53daa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.umn.edu/news/rosenbaum-notice-4-23-2010.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983193 | 607 | 1.570313 | 2 |
“Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom.” Mitt Romney, defending banks and kicking people out of their homes.
“Corporations are people, my friends. Of course they are.” Mitt Romney, declaring that corporations are people in front of a crowd of real people in Iowa.
“I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.” Romney’s campaign later admitted that they didn’t march on the same day, or in the same city.
“I’m happy to learn that after I speak you’re going to hear from Ann Coulter. That’s a good thing. I think it’s important to get the views of moderates.” Romney right before Ann Coulter called John Edwards a “
“I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks.” Mitt Romney to a group of NASCAR fans wearing plastic ponchos at the Daytona 500 in February 2012.
“I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.” Mitt Romney, after being asked whether he follows NASCAR racing in February 2012.
“I’m running for office for Pete’s sake, we can’t have illegals.” Mitt Romney, recalling his reaction when he learned that there were illegal aliens working the ground on his property, employed by a firm that he subsequently fired in October 2011.
“We have a president, who I think is is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps.” said Mitt Romney in April 2012, who has two Harvard degrees.
“I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” Mitt Romney, using a shocking choice of words while advocating for consumer choice in health insurance plans in January 2012.
“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there.” Mitt Romney on compassion in January 2012.
“[Obama] says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” Mitt Romney advocating for cuts in public service and education at a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, June 8, 2012.
“[My wife] drives a couple of Cadillacs.” Mitt Romney, campaigning for president in Michigan in February 2012.
“I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.” Mitt Romney, who earned $374,000 in speaking fees in one year according to according to his own personal financial disclosure in January 2012.
“It’s not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.” Mitt Romney, speaking in 2007 about the hope of killing Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the largest attack on American soil in modern history.
“I’m not familiar precisely with what I said, but I’ll stand by what I said, whatever it was.” Mitt Romney on his many, constantly-changing views, on May 17, 2012. | <urn:uuid:dc944ca0-3505-4022-8550-04110ab29790> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.landthieves.com/board/showthread.php?47812-Tagg-Ann-Harper-Reed-Axe-and-how-the-election-broke-the-way-it-did&p=1010956 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96908 | 688 | 1.617188 | 2 |
TO BE A LIBERAL
To be a bona-fide card-carrying liberal, there are certain beliefs you must
You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding.
You have to believe that the same overpaid public school idiot who
can't teach 4th graders how to read is qualified to teach those same kids about
You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans
are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese.
You have to believe there was no art before federal funding.
You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by
cyclical, documented changes in the brilliance of the sun, and more affected by yuppies
You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being gay is
You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments
You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but pasty,
loony activists who've never been outside Seattle do.
You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually
doing something to earn it.
You have to believe the military, not corrupt politicians, start
You have to believe the free market that gives us 500+ channels can't
deliver the quality that PBS does.
You have to believe the NRA is bad, because they stand up for certain
parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because they stand up for
certain parts of the Constitution.
You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too
You have to believe that Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Gloria
Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General
Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.
You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial
quotas and set-asides aren't.
You have to believe conservatives are racists, but black people
couldn't make it without your help.
You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked
anywhere it's been tried, is because the right people haven't been in charge.
SUBMITTED BY BRAD ALLEN - AUTHOR UNKNOWN | <urn:uuid:d8a51620-1154-4bab-9338-186aae522e48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rock103.com/pages/twisted/emailcrap/?crewAsHeardPage=tobealiberal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965793 | 452 | 1.59375 | 2 |
After you’ve visited us a few times, we ask that all children are registered for our Sunday morning children’s classes. This will help us to get to know your child and keep in touch with your family about important events.
Although we do have paid staff, our program is a cooperative, and our success depends on your participation. Your participation also demonstrates to your children that the CSA is important and valued by your family. Participating families agree to:
- Review our “Keeping Safe” guidelines
- Pay tuition – payment plans / tuition assistance can be arranged through our Clergy Leader
- Volunteer as a closing circle co-leader, a guide or workshop leader or any other volunteer position that directly supports the Sunday School
- Attend monthly parent circles (one hour long)
Parents are an important part of each child’s Sunday School experience. We strive to make the Sunday School experience as relevant to our children’s lives as possible. There is no sense in ethics that the children cannot directly relate to in some way. At our monthly Parent Circles, parents are invited to share ethical dilemmas that their children are facing (e.g. bullying, questions about family styles or gender identity, racism, discrimination, etc).
Our dedicated teaching staff will then work to integrate these questions into a segment of classroom time called “Ethical Questions.” The questions will be presented anonymously so that children can hear and reflect on the questions and the answers of their peers without identifying themselves. We find that once a question is opened, children are able to teach each other without adding stigma or shame.
Our Parent Circles are also a time to check in with each other, to get to know one another and to deepen our own sense of community as parents. These discussions are helpful for identifying needs in the community of parents; everyone is welcome.
Registration fee of $100 for each family plus an additional program fee of $200 for each child. | <urn:uuid:5d052029-2cb3-4a1c-bf43-171cb28de351> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bsec.org/ethical-education-2/registration/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954198 | 404 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I find this code in Django:
# Try to import PIL in either of the two ways it can end up installed. try: from PIL import ImageFile as PILImageFile except ImportError: import ImageFile as PILImageFile
and up until recently, I just blew it off as unimportant. However I built PIL under my virtualenv in windows and all of a sudden
from PIL import Image
doesn't work anymore, I have to use
So, now I want to understand why and what is going on.
Initially I was using PIL installed with the windows installer. But I needed read support for Group4 Faxes so I did the mods and then got PIL to build and install under virtualenv on windows (something that is trivial on linux and a PITA on windows). But, now I have to use the second form of import, even though
pip freeze shows that
PIL==1.1.7 in installed.
How is it that first import form doesn't work even though PIL appears to be installed, and the second form works (and the PIL code is functioning), indicating it is installed, but doesn't show up under PIL. | <urn:uuid:e3bda465-2615-49b3-a9e8-48cd62f0d749> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7133193/what-is-going-on-with-pil-and-the-import-statement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954803 | 251 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The Scary Religious Ideology Behind Michele Bachmann's Anti-Gay Crusade
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People who don't like LGBT people often cite a range of reasons for their disdain. Take GOP presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and her husband, Marcus. Gay people are "barbarians," Marcus Bachmann told a radio interviewer for a Christian program last year. LGBT people practice "sexual anarchy," Michele Bachmann told a conference of Minnesota educators in 2004, and could wind up recruiting 8-year-old boys to their way of life if openly gay teachers are permitted in the classroom.
And then there's the Bible, which calls for the death penalty for men who have sex with each other. While Bachmann has never made that call herself, her religious views appear to be heavily influenced by a theological strain known as Christian Reconstructionism, which in matters of sexuality and gender relations places great emphasis on the draconian law of the Old Testament Book of Leviticus.
Writing for Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner this week exposed the Reconstructionist roots of the law school Bachmann attended at Oral Roberts University. The language and theory of Christian Reconstructionism turns up frequently in Bachmann's speeches.
In the 1970s, as Posner tells it, Oral Roberts University, founded by the famous Pentecostal faith healer, wanted to launch a law school, but at that time, no real model existed for such a school of jurisprudence designed to serve an evangelical student body. Roberts brought in Harvard Law School graduate Herb Titus, a student of the work of John Rousas Rushdoony, the father of Christian Reconstructionism, to build the law school's program.
Titus would go on to become the 1996 presidential candidate for Howard Phillips’ Constitution Party (then called the U.S. Taxpayers Party). Despite its secular-sounding name, the party's mission was, according to Posner, “restor[ing] American jurisprudence to its biblical foundations and limit[ing] the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.”
That merging of ideas and sensibilities -- the expressive Pentacostal with the stern and austere Reconstructionist -- was truly radical at the time. To the liberal mind, all Christian evangelism tends to look the same. But it wasn’t until politics mandated a union of convenience that one would find the likes of Herb Titus, or, for that matter, the fundamentalist Baptist Jerry Falwell and the charismatic dominionist Pat Robertson, playing on the same team.
The logic in bringing Titus to ORU was likely this: Pentacostalism, though rooted in Christian theology, has more emphasis on the spiritual expression of the divine through the human body than on codification. Yes, the mores are conservative and gender-bound, but Pentacostalism is about the visceral experience of the power of that conservative, male God as a transformative force. Christian Reconstructionism is based on a text, the Institutes of Biblical Law, that reads like one long legal and philosophical argument for the law of the ancient Hebrew Bible.
If you listen closely to the rhetoric of both Michele and Marcus Bachmann, particularly on the subject of “homosexuality,” you find the Reconstructionist worldview in their word choices. Marcus Bachmann’s use of the term “barbaric” to describe gay people comes from the Reconstructionist notion that societies that permit practices -- especially sexual practices -- that are proscribed by the Bible are inherently pagan. John Rushdoony did not allow for the absence of religion or a secular society: whatever law governed a society, he writes in Institutes of Biblical Law, constituted its “religion.” Because homosexuality was practiced in pre-Christian, non-Jewish societies, those who practice it today are inherently “pagan.” For images of such pagan societies, Rushdoony turns to those cultures that truly had barbaric practices, such as the Romans.
Michele Bachmann’s assertion that LGBT people have fallen into “sexual anarchy” also echoes Rushdoony, who writes of homosexuality as an act of “sexual chaos,” included in a list that includes bestiality, incest and “general depradation.” Worse than that, Rushdoony asserts, homosexuality is a corrupt “theology,” because, he writes, it promotes “war against God.” When Michele Bachmann told attendees of the 2004 National Education Conference that to use the the word “gay” to describe homosexuality is “part of Satan,” she’s invoking the story of that ultimate war against God -- that waged by Lucifer, the fallen angel.
Her sense of urgency about pushing gay culture to the margins, as evidenced in her comments about the dangers of allowing gay teachers near children, is expressed in sterner terms by Rushdoony, who writes, “Because of the extensive control by homosexuals over fashions and publications, the mind and appearance of Western countries have been radically infected by the parasitic homosexual culture.” That culture, in Rushdoony’s terms -- and the minds of many evangelicals who have been influenced by his writings -- is waging and actual spiritual war on God -- just as Lucifer did.
As the week unfolded for Bachmann, scrutiny turned to the Christian counseling business of her husband, Marcus, who holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Union Graduate Institute, and a master’s degree in education and counseling from Rev. Pat Robertson’s Regent University, and his practice of “ex-gay” or so-called “reparative” therapy: a discredited practice whereby counselors work with clients to turn them from gay to straight. (Pat Robertson’s dominionist theology is also informed by Christian Reconstructionism.) Marcus Bachmann at first denied that his counseling practice employed such therapy, but then admitted to it when John Becker of the LGBT-rights group Truth Wins Out proved as much with his undercover investigation. At the same time, the Nation published an expose by Mariah Blake based on the story of a young man who says that, when he was a teenager, his parents took him to Bachmann’s clinic for just such “therapy.”
Marcus Bachmann obviously knew that exposure of his practice’s use of “ex-gay” therapy would play badly for him, and it does not seem to form the bulk of his practice. So, why take the risk? Well, if you live to please a stern and unforgiving God, and believe that war is being made against that God by gay people as they practice their gayness, you might think yourself a hero for taking the chance.
A long section of Bachmann’s remarks to that conference are devoted to detailing the many ways in which gay culture has become mainstreamed, evincing strong echoes of Rushdoony’s complaint against the “infection” of Western culture with “homosexual” ways.
In her talk to the National Education Conference, Michele Bachmann, who has long been a critic of public schools, complained of the attention given the murder of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming in 1998, for being gay. She compared Shepard's murder to that of a 13-year-old boy, Jesse Dirkhising, who was sexually abused and murdered in 1999 by two adult male pedophiles -- friends of his parents -- who were also lovers. Bachmann complained that the Dirkhising case had not received the same level of attention as the Shepard lynching “because Jesse did not serve the purpose of those sympathetic to homosexuality.”
In Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law, he asserts that other anti-gay psychological theories are mistaken in their assumption that homosexuality is a form of immaturity and arrested development. No way, he claims, “deliberate and mature warfare against God marks the homosexual.”
“God’s penalty is death,” he continues, “and a godly order will enforce it.” | <urn:uuid:8bf48f74-9087-468b-86ed-e0a80d132e76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/story/151663/the_scary_religious_ideology_behind_michele_bachmann's_anti-gay_crusade/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960799 | 1,693 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Egypt in chaos after parliament ruled illegitimate
Egypt's highest court has ruled last year's parliamentary election was unconstitutional, throwing the country into further turmoil.
TranscriptEMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Egypt's highest court has overturned the results of last year's parliamentary elections in what some are describing are as a military coup in all but name. It has thrown Egyptian politics into chaos, just two days before the country votes for a new president. The decision paves the way for a return of the old guard, with the former prime minister from the Mubarak regime tipped to win. He's up against a candidate from the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, who are threatening a new revolution.
John Stewart reports.
JOHN STEWART, REPORTER: With just two days remaining before the second round of Egypt's presidential elections, crowds once again gathered at Tahrir Square to vent their anger at the country's political leaders. A ruling by Egypt's supreme court that last year's parliamentary election was unconstitutional is a major blow to the Muslim Brotherhood - the Islamist group which held just under half of the seats in the new parliament. The court's decision has reinforced a view that Hosni Mubarak's old guard wants to block Islamist groups from coming to power.
VOX POP (translated): Since January last year we have said that the military council is worse than Mubarak's regime, and now it becomes clear 15 months after the revolution there are clear signs of bad intentions of the military council.
JOHN STEWART: This weekend's presidential election is between the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi and the ousted Mubarak regime prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. The court ruling to overturn last year's parliamentary elections is a victory for Shafiq who, along with other Mubarak regime figures, had been blocked from running for office.
AHMED SHAFIQ, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (translated): I promise you a nation for all Egyptians; a new, just and modern nation for all Egyptians.
JOHN STEWART: The decision effectively puts legislative power into the hands of the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces, who are given the task of overseeing Egypt's transition after the toppling of president Hosni Mubarak in February last year. Some have described the decision as "the end of the revolution". The Muslim Brotherhood has vowed to fight on.
MOHAMED MORSI, MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CANDIDATE (translated): We will continue with our journey and observe closely, and if there's any fraud we already know what the consequences will be. A revolution against the criminals; a revolution against those who protect the criminals.
JOHN STEWART: Earlier this week, Egypt's justice ministry announced a highly controversial decision allowing army personnel to arrest civilians. The US secretary of state Hilary Clinton has urged Egypt's council of armed forces to respect the democratic process.
HILLARY CLINTON, US SECRETARY OF STATE: In keeping with the commitments that the supreme council of the armed forces made to the Egyptian people, we expect to see a full transfer of power to a democratically elected civilian government.
JOHN STEWART: Ahmed Shafiq is tipped to win.
MONA MAKRA EBEID, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: He's looking forward, he's looking to the future, he's giving hope to the young people, no matter how suspicious they are of him.
JOHN STEWART: But Egypt almost certainly now faces a period of political instability.
VOX POP II: When I'm thinking about the people who died at Tahrir Square, I think it will be so hard to choose Shafiq. So, I think I will not choose anyone. Mostly Shafiq. I think that I will stop voting at this horrible time.
JOHN STEWART: The Muslim Brotherhood has warned that Egypt's fragile democratic gains are under threat. Instability is harming Egypt's economy. Tourist numbers are down; and whoever wins this weekend's election, Egyptians face an uncertain future.
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Overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homesRegister Today!
This is a discussion on Overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homes in Geriatric Nurses / LTC Nursing, part of Nursing Specialties ... This story was big news in the Boston Globe this weekend. I hope never to encounter the overuse of...by hotflashion Apr 30, '12This story was big news in the Boston Globe this weekend. I hope never to encounter the overuse of antipsychotic medications in the patients I care for. It is one of the big fears when I think of what kind of patient-care horror show I hope never to be exposed to.
Unfortunately, the two part story is not easily available online; you have to register or be a member of the Boston Globe. Part 1 is provided on the Boston.com website; not sure when Part 2 will be available there.
Through the Boston Globe website you can check a nationwide listing of nursing homes to see how heavy their use of antipsychotics is:
For each nursing home listed, the table indicates:
- Percentage of residents without psychosis or related condition who received antipsychotics
- Residents with Medicaid coverage
- Residents with behavioral problems
- Nurse minutes per resident per day
Here's a little article that explains How the Data Were Analyzed.
Print and share with friends and family.
Compliments of allnurses.com.
http://allnurses.com/showthread.php?t=704368©2013 allnurses.com INC. All Rights Reserved.
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- Apr 30, '12 by JZ_RNIf anything at my job I think they're underused. I have some patients who could really use a depakote, seroquel, ativan, and haldol smoothie quite often. I do agree that drugging people rather than dealing with their issues is not the way to go, but with dementia patients with extreme behaviors and no other interventions that help at all, I thank the inventors of the antipsychotics.
- Apr 30, '12 by hotflashionJZ_RN, do you work at a nursing home? If so, does your facility appear on the nationwide listing? If so, what are the numbers?
I think the "other interventions" are skilled-personnel intensive. That frequently means that the care is more expensive, though spending more money doesn't automatically mean the actual care delivered will be better.
In what way do you think your patients "could really use" a cocktail such as you describe?
- Apr 30, '12 by ClearBlueOctoberSkyI work on a secured unit, and we have a lot of patients that are on Depakote, Seroquel or Zyprexa. Those three are our big ones.
In our case, I don't think it is a overuse issue, though, as our docs are good about decreasing or d/cing the medications when they think the behaviors are under control or when they or staff thinks that the medication is no longer needed. I do have one patient that I told the PA that we could probably use a prn Zanax or Ativan for due to her particular behavior, and was told that the State doesn't really like to see that, so they are trialing her on Seroquel.
For us, it is a no-win situation. Most of our patients have some form of violent behavior. Some may think that it is just a staffing issue, but it isn't. We have to keep our residents safe, and sometimes that amounts to trying to control the majority of behavior with medication and using non-pharm interventions for the outbursts.
- Apr 30, '12 by brandy1017I believe that antipsychotics need to be given to some patients, particularly those who are violent whether it is because of dementia or because they were that way their whole life is irrelevant. For the safety of fellow patients and caregivers I think patients should be given medication so they are not attacking others. This is necessary if they are a danger to themselves or to others!
- Apr 30, '12 by WhiteScrubsIt is entirely unrealistic to expect antipsychotics to only be prescribed for a diagnosis of psychosis. I see antipsychotics frequently used for patients/residents with dementia with agitation. It is not a first line treatment, but can be very effective, and can improve the quality of life of the resident. Certainly, any medication can be overused or used improperly, but I don't think there is any need to fear their usage. The real horror show would be not medicating these residents properly and safely.
I hope never to encounter the overuse of antipsychotic medications in the patients I care for. It is one of the big fears when I think of what kind of patient-care horror show I hope never to be exposed to.
If they were to just look at the percentage for my floor, our percentage would be much higher. Not 100%, but well over 50%, and I don't think any of those cases are unnecessary. I see a lot of scheduled Seroquel, Risperdal, and Zyprexa, along with scheduled and PRN Ativan. Our psych docs are very involved in the care of our residents. If we observe significant agitation/agression, we can request an evaluation, but the docs aren't likely to change meds/add antipsychotics unless we have a well documented pattern in the nurses notes.
Granted, I only looked at the listing and not the accompanying article, but I don't believe those percentages provide much info without additional data about the type of patient population that the facility serves. Just my thoughts...
- Apr 30, '12 by CapeCodMermaidThe Globe??? Really??? It's better to read a scholarly article than something in a non-medically oriented newspaper.
We use antipsychotics appropriately. Many of these people are tormented with psychotic thoughts and the meds are the only things that give them any chance of good quality of life.
- Apr 30, '12 by JZ_RNI can't find the numbers, but I have 50 patients to myself and only about 5 are on antipsychotics, though there are a few with PRN ativan, but it's mostly for seizures. Mind you that this is an alzheimer's/dementia unit. Many more of them than 5 have what I would consider "psychiatric" problems. (hallucinations, delusions, etc.)
I have many patients who are abusive, physically and verbally, and who have very disruptive behaviors, screaming, hitting, spitting, crying, etc. They have dementia and are nonverbal or barely verbal and you can't really reason with them. And forget about having more staff so someone can sit with them, they don't even want to pay another nurse so I don't have 50 residents alone. 3 aides, sometimes 2. It's ridiculous.
- May 1, '12 by CompleteUnknownSometimes it really is a staffing issue (either not enough staff or staff who simply don't know (and don't care to learn) how to work with residents with severe behavioural issues), but sometimes no amount of increased staffing or non pharmaceutical interventions would do any good at all.
Some of these people are living in absolute misery every single hour of every single day and are so very distressed that the risks of medication are less than the risks of no medication.
Of course these medications shouldn't be overused but sometimes there is no other choice. Numbers and percentages don't always tell the story, some facilities may have low numbers but are actually overusing these drugs, and others may relatively have high numbers but are using them appropriately.
- May 1, '12 by JZ_RNI have patients with morbid and horribly distressing hallucinations and delusions. But god forbid I give them some antipsychotics?
I have never medicated someone for convenience. Only for their comfort and safety or for the safety of others. (residents who strike out at everyone) | <urn:uuid:fdcf2956-f17f-4d26-a0a9-27cb5c2bcefe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allnurses.com/geriatric-nurses-ltc/overuse-antipsychotics-nursing-704368.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958124 | 1,660 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Many businesses, community organizations, and foundations also award scholarships to qualifying students. These scholarships may be awarded based on need, merit or for some other quality. While many scholarships are awarded for high academic performance or for some other talent, other scholarships are available to students that are children of employees at a particular company, part of a religious group, or are financially needy. There is a scholarship out there for just about every type of student. You never know what you will be eligible for unless you look. To find scholarships, visit your high school guidance office, local library, or go to RIScholarships.com to search through our comprehensive database.
During your search, beware of scholarship scams. You shouldn’t ever have to pay anyone to find you scholarships. There are plenty of free resources available. | <urn:uuid:ac7fd3f4-1d12-417d-b8e8-65c43967fad1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpcri.org/PayforCollege/FinancialAid101/TypesofAid/Scholarships/tabid/130/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959777 | 163 | 1.75 | 2 |
Lessons in faith
Jimmy Carter's latest book offers words of wisdom
Published: Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, January 6, 2012 at 4:43 p.m.
Jimmy Carter may never have been president if he didn't go square dancing.
The Georgia Democrat credits a rural square dance club he joined in 1953 with helping him win a state Senate seat by a scant 66 votes.
“If I hadn't received support from our square-dancing friends, I would have lost and never become a state senator,” he wrote in his latest book, “Through the Years with Jimmy Carter.” “And if that had occurred, I never would have run for office again.”
Carter has penned 26 different books, including childhood memoirs, treatises on the Middle East and accounts of his presidency. But none are like his latest, which offers 366 devotionals, each with a biblical passage, a personal story and an original prayer.
The one-page items are sprinkled with lessons Carter gleaned from more than 30 years of teaching Sunday school classes and anecdotes from his country upbringing to his ascent to the White House and beyond.
“The totality of my teaching presents a view of a lay person. I'm not a theologian,” he said in an interview. “I'm extracting real messages from the Bible or from Christian faith that apply to daily existence and that's applicable whether you're a farmer, a journalist, a lawyer, a teacher or a political office holder.”
In the book, Carter is open about struggles over his own faith. He writes that he felt “despondent and alienated from God” after losing his first bid for Georgia's governor in 1966, and said his wife Rosalynn went through a rough patch when he lost to Ronald Reagan in 1980. But he said he retrenched during those dark times and worked to remind himself of the role religion has played in his life.
“If there is no basis for our faith ... then how do we account for the presence of Jesus Christ in hundreds of millions of lives across the globe?” he wrote in the book. “How could Jesus still be alive to me? How could so many hearts be touched and minds stimulated by Jesus to seek ultimate truths about life and the world around us?”
His book casts some political debates with religious overtones. He condemns the Patriot Act and waterboarding, writing that Christians “cannot keep silent just because the injustice doesn't affect our own families or friends.” And he said it would be “foolish” for the devout to deny global warming.
“While we may disagree on the causes or rate of global warming, shouldn't we all agree that we have a responsibility to take care of the Earth?”
Carter is also candid about some of his shortcomings, such as his lack of patience, his penchant for jealousy and his fights with his wife over trivial issues. One year, when he forgot her birthday, he hastily scrawled out a note to give to her, and it turned out to be one of her favorite gifts. It read: “I promise that I will never make another unfavorable comment about tardiness.”
Spread throughout the book are history lessons, with insights over the ancient tensions between Jews and Christians, the roles of politicians and prophets in Biblical times, and the impact of martyrs and apostles on Christianity's spread across the globe. He tells those stories with a healthy dose of jokes he's heard from the pulpit and the White House.
In one passage, he said his brother Billy was on his death bed when he told a friend he had carried out a long affair with the friend's wife.
“His friend's face dropped. The man gulped a couple of times — and then Billy laughed and said, ‘No, I'm just joking.' That was Billy.'”
In another passage, Carter mentions a USA Today poll question that probes readers on what they would ask if they came face-to-face with God. Carter didn't say what his answer would be in the book, but in an interview he said he would ask about Christ's role in the creation of the universe. He said he would not, however, waste a question asking about life after death.
“I'm supposed to have complete faith in life after death as a Christian who has, I would guess, as strong faith in Christ as possible,” he said, adding: “I'd rather be surprised.”
Carter said he hopes the book will help send the message that “God calls us to live out our faith.” He urges readers to keep their religion in mind, reach out to new people and enjoy an expansive life. After all, he writes, he never would have guessed that square dancing would have helped him win an election.
“Rosalynn and I enjoyed the square dancing — but we've probably enjoyed a lot more what's happened since,” he wrote. “You just never know.”
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:65834112-16f5-4304-bef8-4831e3f6afd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gatorsports.com/article/20120107/WIRE/120109700?Title=Lessons-in-faith | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982838 | 1,100 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Deuteronomy 31:1-32:9 / Luke 12:8-34 / Psalm 78:26-45 / Proverbs 12:21-23
“ When I have brought them to the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and filled themselves and grown fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them; and they will provoke Me and break My covenant.”
We must not forget or become complacent when the Lord brings us to a place of financial blessing. Many times financial abundance can bring about an “ease” in which a person can fall into a false sense of spiritual security. While enjoying the fruits of our labor, feeling good about what we have accomplished, it can be easy to forget that it has been God all along that has provided. It is easy to get “lazy” in our walk with the Lord; our needs seem to be taken care of and the desperation that once drove us to our knees seeking the Lord has been satisfied.
God uses this passage in Deuteronomy to illuminate this tendency and warn us against it. Continually remember the Lord’s mighty hand of provision – never allow the credit - especially in the area of financial success - to shift from the Lord onto ourselves. Staying connected to the Lord daily through time in the Word, prayer and journaling is super necessary and will help us to guard against this kind of complacency. We must strive to protect and nurture our relationship with the Lord IN EVERY SEASON, not just in times of desperation and need.
Luke 12:22, 29, 31
“Therefore I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. (v. 29) And do not seek what you should eat or drink, nor have an anxious mind. (v. 31) But seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”
How do we “seek first the kingdom”? Let’s break it down. We need take it one step at a time and say, “Lord, here I am. What do You want for me today, I want to know You more, what do You want to show me?” This kind of question, if it is asked from a pure heart that is truly seeking the Lord, cannot be rushed. It requires TIME; time to stop and listen to what our Father is saying to us. We can’t truly “seek FIRST the kingdom” once a month, every other week or even a couple times a week. We can’t seek the kingdom in a hurry like we’re popping into the drive through at McDonalds hoping to get a few tasty tidbits thrown at us.
Seeking first the kingdom means we are daily in a two-way relationship with the Lord. It is the top priority in our lives. It is from this place of relationship and intimacy with our Father that everything will flow – His vision and strategies for our marriages, our parenting, our relationships our jobs, etc… When God is in His proper place in our lives, we truly do not need to worry or be anxious but rest in the FACT that His hand will provide! | <urn:uuid:47ae560b-1b01-4e17-8b40-0bd774167520> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://deliberatepeople.com/daily-reading/2012/4/7/april-7th-deliberatepeople-post-by-phil-and-heather-joel-tod.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945883 | 690 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Sadly, I missed the column when it came out, but Chosun Ilbo columnist Kim Dae-jung—considered one of Korea’s top conservative ideologues—wants Seoul to go nuclear:
Any map of Northeast Asia shows that three countries surrounding South Korea — North Korea, China and Russia — have nuclear weapons, and now there are signs that even Japan is inching toward arming itself with the bomb. A look at the countries involved in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program shows that five of them, except South Korea, are either nuclear armed or potentially armed. The nuclear map of Northeast Asia is changing now that Japan has revised laws in late June that suggest it wants to develop nuclear weapons too. South Korea alone in the region has no prospect of acquiring them.
Why does Seoul continue to adhere to what looks like an increasingly outdated peace and denuclearization policy? The goal of denuclearization in Northeast Asia has become unattainable. North Korea is not going to abandon its nuclear weapons even at the cost of its own collapse, since the regime saw clearly what happened to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi when he gave them up.
So sayeth The Shepherd, So sayeth The Flock!
How can we possibly consider ourselves an independent and sovereign state if we cannot acquire our own weapons within reasonable limits due to fears of foreign opposition? The nuclear map of Northeast Asia is being re-drawn, yet there is no place on that map for South Korea.
Read the rest on your own. | <urn:uuid:6e01ad56-8b96-4517-bc92-1d2f72beb6bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rjkoehler.com/2012/08/08/yes-yes-yes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962053 | 319 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Beverly: A little town in the city to put down roots
The huge homes on Prospect Avenue near 105th Street could just as easily be part of a tranquil suburban streetscape rather than the 60643 ZIP code. Beverly's side streets are lined with houses ranging from modest to magnificent. More photos (Warren Skalski/for the Tribune)
Outside, Beverly has changed. A little. Down the street from Top Notch are a new Borders, Panera Bread and Potbelly Sandwich Works. Beverly has a new fire station and a new branch of the Chicago Public Library. A coffee shop, art gallery and deli are among the commercial offerings on 103rd Street by the railroad tracks.
But a block off the main streets, the neighborhoods are frozen in time, with modest bungalows and brick Tudors snuggled between oversized Spanish-style and sweeping Prairie Style houses. Beverly is a study in residential architecture from the 1860s to the 1940s. Few new houses have been built since then, save for the occasional 1950s or '60s ranch that grabbed a portion of a former double lot, and a few coach houses that became residences themselves.
"Our home tours are very popular," says Matt Walsh, executive director of the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA), which hosts one annually. "They draw about 1,000 people and help promote the neighborhood."
Beverly's grandest houses line "the ridge," as it is known here, along Longwood Drive. Left behind by a glacier, it was a lofty overview for wealthy Chicagoans to build their post- Great Chicago Fire houses in a rural area.
Century-old churches anchor the neighborhood and add to its architectural diversity. They include the iconic Givens Castle (now a Unitarian church), built in 1886 to mimic an Irish castle.
Now, Beverly boasts three locally designated landmark districts: Longwood Drive District, Walter Burley Griffin Place District and the Beverly/Morgan Railroad District. The Ridge Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places. And five houses are Chicago landmarks, including two of Frank Lloyd Wright's American System-Built houses.
Beverly's houses were designed by architects including Wright, Edward Dart, Howard Van Doren Shaw, George Maher and Walter Burley Griffin.
"Many people come here for our historic homes," says real estate agent Bernadette Molloy of Molloy & Associates Inc. in Chicago. "But most just want a quiet residential community that's close to downtown." Recent sales range from a 1923 three-bedroom, fixer-upper bungalow that sold for $140,000 to a 1930 five-bedroom Tudor that went for $955,000, says Molloy.
Beverly's lifeline is the Metra Rock Island, which has five stations here. Thousands of residents head into the Loop by train daily, including many city workers.
Beverly doesn't have the housing turnover that some other Chicago neighborhoods have because families put down roots here. When BAPA asked residents why they bought houses in Beverly, 57 percent responded, "family and friends." Homeowners tend to renovate the old houses, though the area is not without its teardowns.
"We moved here in 1958 and raised our three kids here," says Sue Delves. "My husband was from the city but I was from a small town in southern Illinois, so I wanted that kind of area for my kids." She and her husband, Gene, recently moved into the Smith Village retirement center in Beverly and have put their 1916 Prairie Style house up for sale. They've been active community volunteers, she says, from serving as "kindergarten mom" to president (each of them) of the BAPA.
Unlike some Chicago communities, Beverly is truly integrated, says Delves, with African-Americans and Caucasians living side by side, not at opposite sides of the neighborhood.
"But I like to joke that we've had two integrations—race and religion," says Delves. Although the neighborhood founders were primarily German and Swedish Protestants, it is now home to three Catholic parishes. "Now people tell you which parish they are from instead of which part of town," explains Delves.
Indeed, the opposition to the arrival of African-Americans paled in comparison to the earlier arrival of Catholics. Even the Ku Klux Klan got involved, burning crosses in front of Beverly's first Catholic church in 1924.
You cannot dig too deeply into Beverly's history without encountering a quandary: Is it "Beverly" or " Beverly Hills"? The neighborhood's name is an ongoing debate. Some say it was named "Beverly" by Alice French in the 1800s for her childhood home in Massachusetts. But, somewhere along the line, many residents and organizations, including Metra, adopted "Beverly Hills" perhaps because of its hilly terrain.
Crime in Beverly is lower than in many other Chicago neighborhoods. The police blotter from a local newspaper includes a store robbery and "discharged firearm" along with scratched cars, deflated tires and stolen wallets.
Beverly's public school scores reflect the high level of education of its families. Morgan Park High School, which serves Beverly, ranks 102 in ACT scores among Chicago-area high schools , which is higher than most Chicago public high schools. Beverly has three Catholic schools and is near several other private schools including Morgan Park Academy (preschool-12) and P.L.A.I.D. Academy (K-8).
Home of the South Side Irish Parade, Beverly brings a touch of Ireland to its community with numerous Irish-style pubs. While Beverly lacks the nightlife many North Side neighborhoods have, that suits folks like Tom and Beth Dobry, who bought a 1940s Georgian here recently. "Lots of the young families here are like us; they had condos after college, then bought houses here after they had kids. Many are second- or third-generation," says Tom. "It's the kind of place where you can come home from work and have a beer with your neighbors." | <urn:uuid:4e92df22-65ba-4bf9-a72c-4e45ccc72ccd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/Chicago_IL/chi-beverly-profile_chomes_0109jan09,0,7274433.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977311 | 1,258 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Geist Atlas of Canada: Meat Maps and Other Strange Cartographies
by Melissa Edwards
Arsenal Pulp Press, 2006. Softcover, 128 pp. ISBN 1-55152-216-0
Early on in The Map Room’s existence, we learned about a quirky feature emanating from Geist, a quarterly Vancouver-based literary magazine. Called Caught Mapping, it presented a map of Canada based on a whimsical theme that pointed to placenames that fit that theme — for example, “The Meat Map of Canada” has pointers to Lac Steak, Rump Cove and Mignon Corner. There were many others: maps of board games, house pets, automotive terms. There was a map for Margaret Atwood and a map for Stan Rogers. The feature proved very popular and went on to attract quite a bit of media attention, putting Geist on the map, so to speak. But I like to think that you heard about it here first.
Now those maps have been assembled in a book, The Geist Atlas of Canada: Meat Maps and Other Strange Cartographies, which offers a few advantages over the individual maps, at least as they’re found in Caught Mapping’s online archives. For one thing, they’re in colour. For another, facing each map is a bit of an explanation of some of the names on the map, changes since it was first published, and feedback from readers wondering why their favourite place names were left out. And, most usefully, all the place names are listed in an index at the back of the book.
Caught Mapping is essentially a work of toponymy: the modus operandi behind each map seems to be to choose a theme (for example, kitchen implements) and then searching a reference like the Geographical Names of Canada to find toponyms that fit that theme (for example, Spoon Lake). In some cases, the results turn up some very unusual placenames; in others, the association between the theme and the placename is not immediately obvious (for example, “Glenn” on the celestial map), and requires a little free association, if not a footnote. And some maps reveal placenames that sound like they’re named after someone famous, but in fact are named after someone local and otherwise forgotten.
To be honest, a collection like this can get a little repetitive. Some of the map themes are a little too precious, and each map (save two) is the same map of Canada (a “modified Geistonic projection” that is just laterally compressed) with an off-kilter compass rose. But there’s plenty here that’s entertaining and amusing. If you’re curious about unusual place names, and a bit of the history behind them, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in this book.
I received a review copy of this book. More about my book review policy.
Previously: Geist Gallery Details; Geist Exhibition, Media Coverage; Geist Mapper; Caught Mapping Archives; Caught Mapping. | <urn:uuid:be392d01-f328-4933-9d9f-1ab7ab2e2ae4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maproomblog.com/2006/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935476 | 645 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Confit de Canard (Duck Confit) is a classic French dish and is a speciality of the Aquitaine. It’s amazingly tender and succulent as well as being packed with flavour. Confit takes its name from the French word confir meaning “to preserve” and Duck Confit is made with duck legs that have been cured (partly or fully) in salt, then marinated and poached in duck fat, garlic and herbs. Centuries ago Confit was made by the French peasantry to preserve meat but nowadays it has been elevated to gourmet fare and is much sought after.
Duck Confit is superb as a dish in itself but is often used as an ingredient in traditional French cooking such as Pommes Sarladaises, Pot au Feu and the famous French Cassoulet.
The Good Food Network have a wonderful range of award winning Duck Confits and Confit de Canard Pommes Sarladaises is amongst them. This is a delicious and highly recommended Confit from Sarlat in South West France consisting of Duck Confit cooked with potatoes in Sarladaises bacon, parsley, garlic and herb sauce. It makes a complete meal for two to three people and simply needs to be warmed up. It is very easy to prepare and very tasty.
Cassoulet is an important part of regional French cuisine and is a treat worth tasting. Cassoulet contains meat (pork sausages, pork, goose, duck, lamb or and sometimes mutton), white haricot beans and often topped with a gratin of crunchy breadcrumbs. There are a thousand versions of Cassoulet and it can be as simple or as complicated as the cook prefers but either way it is a melt in the mouth experience and once tasted, never forgotten.
One legend places the birth of Cassoulet during the siege of Castelnaudary by the Black Prince, Edward the Prince of Wales, in 1355. The Provost sought to prepare a dish with all the victuals from the town would give his besieged troops courage for a coming offensive. Finding plenty of beans, fresh and salted pork, geese, and sausages, the chef prepared a huge stewed dish and served it at a banquet along with barrels of the local wine. After the banquet the soldiers set off all their artillery and then rushed straight at their British enemies. The explosions were so loud and the soldiers so rowdy that the British fled in panic and didn’t stop running until they reached the shores of the English Channel.
The Good Food Network’s Confit de Canard aux Lentilles also hails from Castelnaudary and is a Duck Confit cooked in a flavoursome lentil sauce. You can also use it as an ingredient in Duck, Lentil and Red Wine Cassoulet if you prefer lentils to white haricot beans.
The award winning Confit de Canard by La Belle Chaurienne in Castelnaudary has won a tasting competition six times and is exceptionally good. Each tin contains 4/5 duck legs and is so easy to prepare you can not really go wrong. Simply remove the Duck Confit from the tin (it may be worth placing the tin in a tepid oven for 10 minutes to soften the duck fat), place either on a grill or oven tray and heat at approx 180c until crisp and golden, turn over once and crisp again. In terms of what to enjoy Confit with, the lentilles du Puy or haricots lingots are the traditional accompaniments.
You can also use Duck Confit in Pot au Feu (literally translated as pot on the fire) – which is a classic French stew that has been eaten all over France for centuries. In fact it’s so deeply French that 19th century folklorist Ernst Auricoste de Lazarque declared, “All people have their soups. France alone possesses le pot au feu.” There are many variations – in the Perigord veal is often the base whilst in Quercy the principal meat is beef – sometimes even a stuffed chicken is used. Usually a typical Pot au Feu contains cheaper cuts of beef that need long cooking; oxtail or marrowbone, carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, onions, spices, seasoning and cloves. In the past the Pot au Feu was always left on the fire with new ingredients added as some are used; nowadays houses do not have a permanent fire in cold weather, and the dish is cooked for a specific meal.
Le Pot Au Feu A L’Albigeoise
1 ¾ lb chuck steak
1 ¾ lb shin of veal
4 oz shin of pork
½ lb saucisson sec
½ lb carrots
4 oz turnips
2 sticks celery
5 cloves garlic, quartered
2 onions stuck with 2 cloves, roasted and halved
salt and pepper
6 oz white haricot beans
1 small cabbage, cut into 6 pieces
Place the meat whole into the pot, cover with water and bring gently to the boil, then skim. Roughly chop the vegetables – except the haricots and cabbage – and add them to the pot along with the seasonings. Cover and cook slowly for 3 hours. Then add the confit, beans and cabbage and cook all together for another hour.
There are a few Bordeaux clarets I can recommend to pair with Duck Confit, these being Chateaux Grand Rousseau 2009, Roc de Levraut Bordeaux Supérieur 2009, La Tour du Pin 2006 and Sansonnet 2005. They are all classic food wines with well integrated tannins and great structure. | <urn:uuid:6ca79f24-72a2-4b3c-b1f4-ec415a59fa71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/09/confit-de-canard-%E2%80%93-duck-confit-recipes-and-wine-pairing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944418 | 1,194 | 1.789063 | 2 |
I first wrote about the MakoPlasty FDA approved robot back in 2008 you can use the link below to find out more. Patients are regaining quality of life without the pain with the procedure. An implant replaces lost cartilage and stops the bone on bone grinding that causes pain. The accuracy versus free hand surgery seems to be the real advantage here, again with a focus on higher success rates with precision targeting. The video below is a patient talking about his procedure with the Makoplasty robot and how quick he was up and around. You can find additional videos at the Stone Clinic website here.
In addition at the Stone Clinic they have some regenerative medicine going on with using stem cells to where knee tissue is grown back. This does not replace an entire knee but rather the cartilage area of the knee. In addition stem cells are used for Meniscus transplantation procedures for arthritis.
Future of Joint Replacements – Regenerative Medicine - Dr. Kevin Stone Regrows the Knee Instead of an Artificial Replacement (Video)
Pig tissue is being used in other areas as well and last year I had an opportunity to talk with Cook Medical and how they are using pig tissue and building scaffolds for hernia repair and other reconstructive areas with their Biodesign products. Dr. Stone talks about what he is exploring and uses the example of what he did for his wife with a “human” meniscus transplant. Arthritis is becoming a huge area where many of us are suffering, as we are living longer and the knees need to go the extra miles.
Here’s the link to the Stone Clinic and you can read more about their orthopedic procedures to include both Makoplasty and stem cell use. They also have some other interesting solutions for rotator cuffs and more. In 2009 there were more than 20 hospitals and out patient facilities using the Makoplasty robot and there maybe be more by now. BD
John is a 64-year-old ski instructor, outdoor educator, and writer living in Alaska. In July 2008, he underwent a right total knee replacement and was hitting the slopes by December that same year. Most recently, in April 2010 he was having trouble going up stairs and visited The Stone Clinic for a robot-assisted partial knee replacement for his left knee.
He was able to walk out of the surgery center the day of his procedure and just two weeks later is back doing what he loves fishing and studying invertebrates in the river near his home. | <urn:uuid:8cd829af-baf9-44cf-9545-d63e79c93690> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011_05_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976204 | 510 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Three Supersized Egos
The top three American egos of the twentieth century belong to a trio of Wisconsin boys. Their names are (and always will be) synonymous with their respective crafts. Frank Lloyd Wright is architecture, Orson Welles is film directing, and Douglas MacArthur is the American General. Of the three, Orson was the most genial. He could laugh at himself. The other two belong in the Horses Ass Hall of Fame. Their egos certainly drove them to great heights. MacArthur, the grandson of the richest man in Wisconsin and son of the Milwaukee born Civil War hero who first cried out, "On Wisconsin!" (while leading the 24th Wisconsin regiment up missionary ridge), was born an Army Brat on a military base in Little Rock. He eventually returned to native soil and completed his school years at home in Milwaukee. His up and down career would, incredibly, lead him to the role of Shogun - absolute ruler of Japan from 1945 to 1949. Welles, a Kenosha native, was the century's official genius. And Wright, born in Richland Center, was it's reigning architect. Speaking of Mr. Wright, I can't let him get away for stiffing my great uncle, a small town grocer, for a couple of melons. "I'm on my way to Madison, put it on my tab," the great man supposedly said as he walked out of the Mickelson store in Deerfield, Wisconsin unpaid melons tucked under his arm. We're still looking for that tab. | <urn:uuid:3bffc65c-009d-4c71-8c31-66e98c56c862> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wisconsinology.blogspot.com/2007/10/three-supersized-egos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977976 | 319 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Hagglunds Goes ROVing with Subsea 7
For a number of years Hagglunds have provided the motor/brake assemblies used by subsea engineering and construction company Subsea 7 on ROV deployment winches together with the power units and controls designed specifically o the working environment and the duty required. This includes the auxiliary systems to operate the 'A' frames and other equipment.
Both vessels were built at the Merwede Shipyard near Rotterdam. Each is very well equipped, with a host of specialised equipment. Both have two permanently installed side launching workclass ROV systems rated to 3,000m.
The Lebus winches utilise 84 series direct drive Viking motors with band brake assemblies. The Viking motors have very high torque (mechanical) efficiency and so the tension control, which is important on the ROV umbilicals, is assured.
Lebus International has also been a longstanding user of Hagglunds motors, brakes, and valve blocks on their range of winches. Five other ROV systems, including the Viking 84 series motors and the PEC type power units, were supplied via Lebus and Soil Machine Dynamics Hydrovision for other Subsea 7 vessels.
The power units, starters and controls, all supplied by Hagglunds Drives UK, were housed in a soundproofed 20' purpose designed container. It included a stainless steel 1,200 litre reservoir with sea water cooling system and a full health monitoring system.
One container houses all the necessary systems to operate the two ROVs on each vessel. The containerised power unit can be set up and extensively factory tested before installation on the vessel.
Each power unit weighed some 15 tons and was supplied with a special four leg sling to take into account the uneven weight distribution inside the container, lifting the unit clean and within 5(DEGREES) of horizontal. To enable air paths for the electric motor cooling both in and out of the container and still maintain the strict noise levels, acoustic attenuators were designed and fitted on the roof of the container and anti-vibration type feet were used on the pump sets and to sit the container on the deck.
Each unit has two 290kW electric motors coupled to closed loop hydraulic transmission pumps for the winches using constant tension and wave riding with electronic proportional control for the pressure. This enables the winch to pull in and play out quickly at a et tension which is controlled to suit the ROV and the conditions. Constant power control is also included using current feedback from the electric motors to Hagglunds Spider control to gain maximum output from the winches for a given ROV load.
Links to related companies and recent articles ...
- Hagglunds' marine facility
- Direct Hydraulic Drives for Propulsion?
- Winch Drives Delivered to Tight Schedule
- Hagglunds Pulling Power On Board at seawork2003
- Hagglunds Drives High Powered Towing Winches | <urn:uuid:ae333df7-75ba-4d6b-a08d-61d5faeaaf6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maritimejournal.com/news101/onboard-systems/deck-equipment-and-lifting-gear/hagglunds_goes_roving_with_subsea_7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93112 | 619 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Home Asia Pacific North Asia Taiwan
Tzu Chi Foundation marks 40th anniversary in Taiwan, around globe
The China Post, May 15, 2006
Taipei, Taiwan -- The Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation -- Taiwan's largest charity organization -- yesterday celebrated its 40th anniversary with various activities in both Taiwan and more than 20 other countries.
Tzu Chi's anniversary coincides with Mother's Day each year, as its founder Master Cheng Yen set Mother's Day as the common Tzu Chi Day globally during its 30th anniversary. This year the foundation's anniversary came a week after Sakyamuni Buddha's Birthday May 7.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anna sent a congratulatory message to Tzu Chi's Dharma Master Cheng Yen, while 12 cities in six states of the United States proclaimed May 14 as "International Tzu Chi Day."
Tzu Chi's main shrine in Hualien County and the foundation's local chapters throughout Taiwan invited members of the public to join them at more than 60 locations in various forms of celebration, including Buddha-bathing ceremonies and exhibitions.
At Tzu Chi's main shrine, Master Cheng Yen, who established the foundation in 1966, led a long queue of Buddhist followers to worship the Buddha by paying homage to a giant Buddha statue, surrounded by 16 smaller Buddha statues. She also led them to pray for peace and prosperity for the people of Taiwan and elsewhere in the world.
Master Cheng Yen urged people seeking the Dharma not only to be respectful to the Buddha but also to keep a pure heart.
She cited 16 Chinese characters from "The Sutra of Innumerable Meanings" as the motto that all Tzu Chi members have followed in the past 40 years.
The passage, describing the state of mind of "Bodhisattvas" (enlightened Buddhists worthy of nirvana who postpone it to help others) says: "With tranquil minds and constantly in contemplation, they are peaceful, indifferent, non-active, and free from desires. They are immune from any kind of delusion or distraction. Their minds are calm and clear, profound and infinite. They remain in this state for hundreds of thousands of kotis of kalpas."
Tzu Chi Foundation, which began its charitable operations in an impoverished community in eastern Taiwan, has become an international organization with more than 5 million supporters and 30,000 certified volunteer coordinators all over the world. It has a total of over 200 liaison offices around the world. At least 61 countries in five continents, including Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, have received relief aid from Tzu Chi.
Tzu Chi Foundation started to extend its relief abroad in 1985 through its overseas Chinese supporters.
The foundation was certified by the United Nations as a NGO (non-government organization) on Dec. 22, 2003. | <urn:uuid:029e8ff5-246b-4d7a-91c4-326fa0b9eff5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=48,2718,0,0,1,0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95095 | 582 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Stockholm Subway by Alexander Dragunov
Swedish photographer Alexander Dragunov has an eye for architecture and masterwork for a muse, the Stockholm Metro. These stations may comprise the most beautiful subway system in the world, one considered to be the longest art gallery in the world. The stations of the Stockholm Metro feature exposed rock forming the ceiling and walls of these man-made tunnels. These rock caverns are then painted bright, varied colors that create a wondrous underworld environment for Stockholm’s commuters. Dragunov studies these rock contours carefully, setting up his camera and waiting for a brief moment of silence where he and the station are alone for only a moment. The resulting exposures are breathtaking, awe-inspiring and artful, the kind of thing which would make the perfect coffee table book. As if he read our minds, Dragunov has done just that. His collection of Stockholm Metro photography is available in his book Tunnelbana, available on Blurb.com for $39.99 USD. | <urn:uuid:fee85389-f6ad-49cc-8284-765860f84799> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecoolist.com/stockholm-subway-by-alexander-dragunov/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932153 | 208 | 1.515625 | 2 |
History & Anthropology
Raymond W. Leonard, 1959-2008
Raymond Leonard, 48, died at his home on April 15, 2008, of an apparent heart attack. An Assistant Professor of History, Leonard had worked at the university and lived in the community since 1998. He had recently been granted tenure and promotion to Associate Professor of History to commence in Fall 2008. Originally from Kansas, Leonard was born in Wichita in 1959 and attended Wichita State University, first earning his Bachelor of Arts in History in 1981, followed by a Master of Arts degree in History in 1985. Leonard came to UCM from the University of Kansas, where he earned a master’s degree in Soviet and East European Studies in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Modern Russia/Soviet Union history in 1997. At UCM, Leonard taught courses in European history, specializing in the history of Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, 20th Century Europe, and the military. A specialist on Soviet espionage after having done research in Moscow, Leonard published his first book on the subject in 1999, Secret Soldiers of the Revolution: Soviet Military Intelligence, 1918-1933, which received numerous accolades from other specialists in the field. Leonard also published in and reviewed books for the Journal of Military Studies, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Si vis pacem para bellum. A demanding professor and unrepentant Jayhawk, Leonard prided himself on pushing his students to excellence and not to settle for mediocrity. Those who knew him, friends and students alike, will miss deeply his sharp and universal intellect, his entertaining lectures with impersonations from Caesar to Churchill to Clinton, his great appreciation for film and the British musical invasion, and his marvelous sense of humor…Eric G. Tenbus, Associate Professor of History.
A memorial service for Dr. Leonard was held at the UCM Alumni Chapel on April 22, 2008. This was followed by a memorial service and internment in Lawrence, Kansas, in summer 2008.
Memorial contributions can be made to Disabled American Veterans.
For inquiries, please contact Dr. Dan Crews. | <urn:uuid:faa5ea3e-b13c-41b8-9b0e-2843d7a8fa32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucmo.edu/hist-anth/leonard.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965183 | 435 | 1.632813 | 2 |
- Who's driving? Your auto policy extends coverage to those driving your car with your permission. Would that coverage also extend to total strangers? If the P2P program doesn't offer coverage, has that driver's insurance and driving record been vetted? "If you don't know that person you allowed to drive your car, that's risky," says Mitch Wilson, spokesman at the Ohio Insurance Institute.
- Increased risk: Premiums for individual coverage are based on personal, not commercial, use of your vehicle. Submitting your car to ride sharing exposes your auto to greater risk from weather, traffic and drivers unfamiliar with the vehicle. "Some insurers view car-sharing services as a higher risk, so they may cancel or not renew a driver's car insurance policy or increase premiums if a policyholder's vehicle is involved in an accident while it's being rented," says Loretta Worters, vice president of communications at the Insurance Information Institute.
- Liability: "What if you don't maintain your car properly, and there is an accident caused by poor maintenance of the auto?" says Moraga. "Does that other person's policy then cover? Do you have any culpability?"
- Transition: "What if there's a dispute about exactly when a fender-bender occurred -- was it while the rental company's insurance covered the car or when your own policy did?" says Worters. Some P2P companies are experimenting with data recorders and phone apps to track time, mileage and who's behind the wheel, says Moraga.
- Depreciation: If a car-sharing driver wrecks your car, the P2P company's insurance may fix it. But are you then stuck with the depreciated value on your personal auto insurance?
This year, California and Oregon passed the nation's first car-sharing laws to attempt to address these concerns. California's law requires all ride-sharing companies to provide insurance equal to or greater than the car owner's coverage. Under California law, participating in a car-sharing program doesn't constitute commercial use of your vehicle as long as the service provides the insurance and you don't earn more revenue through the car-sharing service than the monthly costs of operating the vehicle.
"No matter how well the legislature tries to anticipate these issues, there may be some issue that the law doesn't address that the courts will have to," Moraga says. "There are going to be some interesting challenges to this. The minute that you have an accident, that's going to start to test that law."
What steps should ride-sharing enthusiasts in other states take to make sure they're covered until their state enacts similar statutes?
Worters suggests being on the safe side. "Consumers who participate in peer-to-peer ride sharing should increase their uninsured/underinsured limits and, if they don't already have one, purchase a million-dollar umbrella liability policy," she says.
Moraga suggests a less-expensive safeguard.
"It really would behoove people who are going to become involved in this to know exactly what their policy covers," he says. "One of the biggest challenges we have in this business is that most people don't even know what their policy covers." | <urn:uuid:d14a7935-a083-4fd9-8053-4c8ed5d7063e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/insurance/auto-insurance-risks-car-sharing-2.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972488 | 658 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Richard Aspinall, a convict from Wigan in Lancashire, arrived in Sydney from Sheerness on the Bengal Merchant in July 1838.
Richard and Mary had two daughters. Mary Jane, born in 1862 at Carrawa, was my great-grandmother, Margaret, her sister, was born in 1865. After Mary's death Richard reared his two young daughters. It appears that Richard had a second marriage in 1875 to Anna Maria Fell before he died in Carcoar Hospital in 1883.
It seems that Richard did not mend his ways after gaining his freedom. Richard, as Black Dick, is reputed to have done a bit of bushranging with John Vane. Mary Jane told a story about hiding under the kitchen table when the police came to round up some bushrangers. | <urn:uuid:cb6a2ab1-c6c5-42a4-a7a0-c5424dfdd913> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geniaus.blogspot.com/2010/07/married-today-10th-july.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991302 | 166 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Anomalies & Enigmas
Learning on the fly
Even though I have spent most of my life as an entrepreneur, I have had many encounters with the corporate world. I can deal with corporates in straight business negotiation, but, on any other level there seems to be a problem of communication. We just seem to talk past each other. This wasn't a serious problem until, as a consequence of my books and writings, corporations started to come to me for explanation and guidance on e-commerce and e-business issues. I found I couldn't help them because there appeared to be too much of a mismatch of our concepts. Any reasoned explanations I gave were being interpreted quite differently from the way intended. At first, I found this totally perplexing. If anyone should be able to explain complex ideas to anyone I should be able to it; after all, this is what I had been trained for. Let me explain.
During World War 2, the British government set up dozens of secret research establishments all over Britain. They were the places where the cream of British scientists were gathered to apply science and technology to create novel inventions which would help defeat the enemy. Many became well known; such as the Aldermaston Atomic Research Establishment, The Radar Research Establishment at Great Malvern, the code breaking team at Bletchly Park, the biological warfare center at Porton Down. There were many more, all exploring the myriad of new possibilities opened up by the explosion of technological advances coming out of the war effort.
When the war finally came to an end, there was still a need for these research centers. It had been become apparent that any future conflicts were going to be won through the application of technology. Britain couldn't afford to get behind in this ever increasing drive towards further technological advance.
As these research centres expanded into new and more complex areas of activity, an inherent weakness became acutely apparent - a problem of communication. Practical application of the scientific effort needed close co-operation between the theoretical scientists and the engineers who would construct the hardware. This was proving to be a weak link because the scientist and the engineers came from different worlds, they didn't speak the same technical languages and they thought with different conceptual models.
At the highest level, it was decided to build a special college in the grounds of one of the secret research establishments, to train a new breed of scientific engineers: communication specialists. They wouldn't be required to invent, design or make things but simply to provide the essential missing communication link between the theorists and the constructors.
It was as one of the first students selected for the five year course they came up with, that I found myself at the College of Electronics, situated in the middle of the top secret Radar Research Establishment at Great Malvern, Worcester, England.
Not surprisingly, we were not taught specifically how to play this role of intermediary between scientists and engineers. Nobody had ever done it before so nobody knew what lessons needed to be taught. Instead, we were given a mixture of experiences and exposures. Half our time was spent learning theory while the other half was divided up through working with different groups within the research establishment.
At least, this is how four of the five years were spent, the first year we were sent away from the research establishment to a giant ordinance factory where they were churning out munitions. There we joined craft apprentices and spent the time making a special set of workshop tools which involved using every type of machine used in metal working and tool making.
Returning to the research establishment after this year of exposure to the realities of industrial production, we spent the next six months in the special engineering workshops attached to the research labs helping make components for guided weaponry. Then we spent another six months in a large drawing office, working with the draughtsmen who were planning out the work for the craftsmen to make.
It was at the beginning of the third year that I had my first real experience of the difficulties involved in turning theory into practice. We were all excited at the prospects of entering this third year because from then on the practical side of our education would take us into the scientific research labs.
Being students, working beside famous scientist on advanced secret research projects was not the greatest of interest. Our main excitement was the prospect of being able to draw all kinds of 'free' electronic components from the stores. Many of the student were keen hi-fi fans and had already constructed their own sound systems.
I wasn't one of the hi-fi buffs. I was more interested in the social side of college, so, when I went along to draw a selection of 'free' components from the store I didn't know how to use them or connect them up. I randomly connected thermionic tubes, resistors and capacitors together, switched on the power and the whole thing dissolved into flames and smoke.
In itself, this incident isn't remarkable. What was significant however was that I'd spent the previous month of practical work, in the college lab, plotting dozens and dozens of graphs which showed the effects of varying voltages, resistances and capacitances in a circuit with a thermionic tube. As amazing as it seems in retrospect, I had made no conceptual connection between what I'd been doing in the college lab with the components I'd drawn from the stores. I simply hadn't made the necessary connection between the theory and practice.
It was soon after that experience that I met Doctor Utterly. He had been one of the main researchers involved in the original development of Radar. He was now the head of the most important section in the research establishment: that dealing with the then new field of electronic computing. It was to this section I had my first assignment in the research labs.
After a few days of helping a lab technician to physically build an amplifier unit for some obscure experiment to measure fighter pilot reaction times, I was told I was to report to Dr. Utterly's office.
I'd never met him before so I knocked at his door with some trepidation. When I entered, I saw a wizened old man in a white lab coat staring intently at a large sphere made out of what looked to me like fine straw. He didn't speak at first, he was too busy waving black and white cards at the sphere.
Looking closer, I noticed that the straw sphere was being gripped by a large black beetle which had been glued at its back to the bottom of a glass rod. The poor beetle wasn't aware that he was holding the straw sphere. It was under the impression that it was running across a straw landscape and away from the various shapes of black and white boards which threateningly kept appearing in its vision. The beetle was stationary and the straw sphere was revolving below, being suspended and propelled by the beetle's 'running' feet.
The eminent scientist then walked over to a blackboard on the wall and proceeded to draw a schematic of the beetles nervous system. He explained how the black and white boards were charging up certain areas in the beetle's brain causing it to make decisions as to the direction of its movements. At that moment, my life long interest in biological structures was born. (I heard later that Doctor Utterly was one of four scientists who had originally founded the Radar Research Establishment. All of them had been biologists).
Briefly explaining the connection between the beetle's nervous system and the computer his department was developing, he then asked me to get to work on designing some circuitry to improve the shape of the pulses which were driving the new computer they were building. I couldn't believe he was asking me to do this. Me! Who didn't even know how to connect a few components together.
Asking around the people who were working on various other projects in the lab I managed to get a rough idea as to what was required and the way to go about it. A trip to the library and I'd discovered how to connect things up and how to calculate the value of the components. Within a couple of weeks I'd constructed an electronic flip-flop circuit and was busy fine tuning the characteristics of the pulse to improve its shape. It quite astounded me that I could be doing real research work after such a short period of initiation.
Three months later came my next assignment. I had to assist a physicist who was working on a machine to measure the magnetic spin resonance of atoms. It happened that he had no knowledge of electronics at all and required a special kind of amplifier which selectively filtered a broad bandwidth of very low frequencies.
With the confidence I'd gained from creating the pulse shaping circuitry in the computer lab I went down to the library to dig out references to filtering circuits. This time I had no technicians around to give me a helping hand and I had to improvise with the circuits I'd found. Melding three frequency selective amplifying circuits into single design seemed like it would do the trick. Immediately there were problems. It didn't work as it should; the amplification was wildly out of control.
The physicist saw I was in difficulties and tried to help out. It was a case of the blind leading the blind. Running backwards and forwards to and from the library, we tried various solutions and the number of connections and components grew and grew, giving the amplifier the appearance of a large bird's nest. It was not until we'd discovered the principle of negative feedback that we started to get anywhere.
By the end of a week of frustrating effort, it finally worked. A few tweaks of the component values and the amplifier performed perfectly, filtering the exact range of frequencies required. In that week I'd not only managed to build the circuitry but managed to get a strong grasp of the concepts involved in frequency filtering and feedback circuitry. So also did the physicist.
These experiences taught me a valuable lesson. Learning isn't necessarily a direct result of teaching. It can also result through practical application. The significance of this, which I was to realise much later, was that you didn't have to have an immense range of knowledge to achieve sophisticated goals; by means of a bottom up approach you could cut straight through the complexity of surplus information get at just whatever was necessary to achieve effective results. A very valuable conclusion when applied to the gargantuan information base available through the Internet and very useful for deciding how to go about creating an e-commerce venture.
The implications of this is best explained by observing how young children approach the use of computers. Most adults are awe struck by the way in which young children can so easily pick up the use of complicated programs. With my own boys I was quite keen to get them started into computing early. Despite constant, encouragement, threats and bribes, neither took the slightest interest in anything other than using the computer for mindless games. Then at the age of twelve the oldest boy came in from school one day and told me he wanted to use the computer to do his school homework.
Eagerly, I showed him how to start Power Point and immediately he started playing around with the mouse and the keyboard. When I ventured to show him how to use the program he brushed my offer aside, telling me that my explanations would only confuse him. Within an hour or two he had completed a fairly passable presentation, complete with a 3-D graphics heading. I was quite staggered and more than a little humbled that I hadn't been of any help.
I learned later that the motivation for using the computer had not been instigated by the teacher. Some of the other boys had brought in computer generated homework submissions and his spidery handwriting and crude drawing were shaming him into action. It wasn't long before he was doing all of his homework on the computer, gradually progressing to various paint programs and a demand for a digital camera.
I was keen to encourage his use of the computer and made constant attempts to give him assistance but, every time, my teaching efforts were met with either indifference or an impatience to get on with what he was doing. Even when he suddenly decided he needed to use a spreadsheet program to create something or other for his French homework (yes, French homework) he would accept no offer of help at all.
Now from this description you'd think of my boy as some kind of school swot, a potential nerd. Nothing of the kind. He was a fairly average scholar and had only just discovered girls. He was using the computer more and more, simply because it enabled him to complete his homework assignments easier and more quickly.
Stepping back from this, it occurred to me that this was the modern child's natural approach to handling complexity. He hadn't read a single word from any of the computer books or manuals. He'd simply used a bottom up approach to go directly to the solution of his particular problem: which was to complete his homework with the least possible effort. It seemed that without being encumbered by any formal instruction to set up a rigid framework, he'd simply built up his own knowledge base from scratch. There is a clue there somewhere, Doctor Watson.
This trial and error, bottom up technique of learning, accords with the way many professional computer users approach complex applications. Invariable they pay scant heed to the manual when they first encounter a new program. Their first approach is always to play around and do something constructive. It seems their learning process starts by forming a small base of knowledge and then building outwards from it. Manuals and books are used only when specific problems are encountered during use. This makes sense in an information rich world where it is totally inefficient to take up time with information which might be redundant to actual needs.
In contrast, such an attitude is not common in most of the traditional academic world where emphasis is placed upon providing set courses which cover a broad range of information and mental constructs.
There are several possible reasons for this difference between the way professional people in the world of digital communication acquire knowledge and the way students acquire knowledge. Principally, students are given a broad range of knowledge because the teachers and most likely the students themselves have no idea what particular area of knowledge would be directly applicable to a student's post college life. Even if this were known, it would hardly be practical to have every student studying different course material.
Once out of college, and in any occupation connected with digital communication, the range and depth of all the information applicable to any specific employment is almost certain to be far beyond any human capability to comprehend. Thus, anyone needing knowledge is forced, by the practicalities of efficient use of time, to be selectively parsimonious about what they attempt to learn. General knowledge is a luxury, which is not a practical reality for any busy careerist..
Another reason for the difference in learning between the academic and professional worlds is that the world of academia is like the world of law: it is built upon a long history of precedence. Quite rightly, the educational system is not receptive to every new idea which comes along. Looking through the history of knowledge, time and again you find instances of the great breakthroughs in thought being totally rejected at the time of their introduction. New ideas and concepts are accepted into the mainstream of education only after a suitably period of trial and rigorous examination.
In contrast, the fast changing world of e-business and e-commerce is constantly looking for and experimenting with new concepts and strategies. The field of digital communication is moving too fast for the conventional educational system to properly absorb all the new ideas, techniques and methods which are constantly appearing.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many of the new ideas and concepts arising in the environment of digital communications turn out to be very short lived. Emergent effects caused by rapidly advancing technology and the changing strategies of competitive businesses give all knowledge a degree of fleeting impermanence. Wisdom and knowledge isn't absolute or necessarily lasting in the digital communication environment. It is often temporary, subject to change and sudden reversal.
Another factor that is creating differences between the way in which students and professional workers acquire knowledge is what can be called "the fractal effect". Fractals are those odd mathematical functions which create lines or surfaces which look the same at whatever scale you view them. Examining a small section of a fractal, shows variations seeming to look the same whether it is viewed with 10 times magnification, 100 times magnification, a thousand times magnification or indeed any magnification whatsoever.
This fractal effect readily becomes apparent when searching for information on the Internet: the more you look into any particular detail, the more detail you will find. Searching into any small area of speciality opens up a seemingly bottomless pit. The more you learn the more you find there is to know. Pursuing a line of thought on an Internet search is seldom a satisfying experience because invariably you end up feeling less informed than when you started: the search reveals so many gaps in your knowledge.
Students are seldom aware of this fractal effect; teachers usually filter and distil information before teaching it. This often leaves post graduate students totally at a loss when they have to build up their own knowledge base without the direction of a guide or a teacher.
There is yet another problem, even more formidable than the fractal effect. The conventional world has grown used to a stable knowledge base. Education is based upon a stable society steeped in tradition and proven concepts. There are conventional rules of thought, established procedures, recognised values. These are the end results of the settling down of civilisation after the industrial revolution. It is the way of the Industrial Age.
Suddenly, a new cultural, social and technological revolution is upon us. It is being called the Information Age. We find ourselves plunged into an unfamiliar world where all the rules are changed. It is an "Alice in Wonderland" world ruled by the Queen of Hearts. It is not just that there are new rules or that some of the rules have changed. The new rules which apply in the digital world of communication and e-commerce are sometimes the exact opposite of the proven and accepted dogmas which apply in the conventional world. This is what is so unnerving: applying any Industrial Age business approach to communication and commerce in the digital world is not only likely to be ineffective but actually destructive.
This is a very serious problem for any individual or company entering the world of e-commerce. Traditional business procedures are unsuitable, traditional management techniques are totally inappropriate. Conventional marketing strategies are no longer effective. There are no suitable courses to take, there are no reliable books to learn from. Worst of all, the search for solutions leads mostly into the confusing and disorientating labyrinth of digital information on the Internet. | <urn:uuid:ccf72b24-1d5d-4fa9-850f-ab7ac7ed8617> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stigmergicsystems.com/stig_v1/books/ew/EWsubsection4.html?356638 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979529 | 3,784 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Time to tear off the blindfold on child sex abuse
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced the appointment of six royal commissioners and the terms of reference for the inquiry into child sex abuse. See all the details here. Below, Cathy Kezelman gives us her analysis.
“Child sexual abuse is an evil crime. Anyone who has ever suffered child abuse deserves to have their voices heard and their claims investigated.
“The Royal Commission will inquire into how institutions with a responsibility for children have managed and responded to allegations and instances of child sexual abuse and related matters.” These were the words of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, on announcing the terms of reference for a national Royal Commission into institutional responses into allegations of child sexual abuse today.
In recent years, Australians have been shocked by the cumulative human cost of secrecy and silence around child sexual abuse. Child sexual abuse is a cruel and destructive crime, and it is perpetrated against our most vulnerable citizens, our children.
Child sexual abuse is an abuse of power and a betrayal of trust. Child sexual abuse is not new. What is new is the opportunity offered by the Royal Commission for an open and transparent inquiry which investigates child sexual abuse within institutions, previously closed to scrutiny.
The announcement of the establishment of an investigative unit within the Commission to work closely with State police prosecutors will enable a coordinated approach, which ideally would have the powers and expertise to investigate past and present organisational abuses as well as make recommendations based on the collective knowledge acquired needed for systemic change towards prevention.
Child sexual abuse flourishes within systems which are closed and these include religious and state-run institutions, sporting clubs, scouting groups as well as the family, arguably the most closed system of all, and one in which the vast majority of abuse is perpetrated.
While the family is not the subject of this Royal Commission the same factors are at play. We need to be aware of the power abusers have long wielded, their investment in maintaining secrecy and silence, and in discrediting testimony. For too long, many perpetrators have escaped justice and accountability, protected by institutions complicit in covering up their crimes. The same processes of denial and cover-up occur in families.
For this reason it is imperative that anyone, within the Terms of Reference, who wants to provide testimony to the Commission does so. The testimony of survivors however must be heard with awareness of the courage it takes to break their silence, and overcome the shame, fear and conditioning of their assaults. One hopes that the establishment of a well-resourced and trauma informed investigative unit will enable that process.
The voices of family members and ‘whistleblowers’ will also be pivotal, as will the representation of silent voices – those lost to suicide and who are unable to come forward, which can in some part be represented by others including GP’s, mental health practitioners, lawyers and the police.
For it is those stories, coupled with documents and other evidence which will finally allow us to understand the factors, formal and informal which have fuelled child sexual abuse, past and present.
These stories will reveal how disclosures have been discounted and not acted upon, and that people reporting alleged crimes have been silenced, discredited and ostracised. How victims’ experiences have been minimised and dismissed leaving perpetrators to continue their reign of terror.
Let’s hope that this Royal Commission and the investigative unit which is being established will create an atmosphere and system in which it is not only deemed acceptable to speak out, but in which doing so is actively encouraged and applauded.
Only when we, as a society learn to hear, listen and act will we see real change. Only then will children be protected and victims and survivors receive the justice, care and support they need.
Comments on this post will close at 8pm AEDST. | <urn:uuid:421b017d-96b2-466e-8e26-abc8e3df66f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/time-to-tear-off-the-blindfold-on-child-sex-abuse/?from=puff&pos=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967436 | 779 | 1.78125 | 2 |
On Monday, a packed room of Village residents received news and viewed renderings for the long-awaited downtown streetscape project. Landscape architecture firm Munz Associates delivered the presentation. The Village is aiming to begin the project in spring 2013 with an 18-month construction period when crews will replace sidewalks and road surfaces. The project focuses on Broadway to Broad Street, New Main Street to Clove Avenue, and Main Street to 2nd Street. Heritage streetlamps made of dark green concrete were chosen. The street tree of choice is the Honey Locust. Individual parking meters will be removed and replaced with a digital muni-meter system. Sidewalks will include a band of brick along the curb and feature “bulb-outs” at Broadway and New Main Street in order to shorten crosswalks for pedestrian safety and convenience. Benches and decorative planters will grace the sidewalks and serve as gathering places for shoppers, diners, and residents. Oversized and decorative cast iron tree grates will surround street trees. Utility poles, a source of controversy over past years, will stay in place but crews will replace them with taller fiberglass poles in order to raise electric and phone lines above building facades. Residents raised concerns that the streetscape plan did not fully address the growing bicycling movement in the region. Some called for bike parking provisions – utilizing old parking meter poles as bike racks. Overall, the project is a step in the right direction and a welcome improvement to the Village’s downtown. It sets a clear foundation for further improvement and increased pedestrianization in the future. Some images/renderings from the meeting:
Archive for the ‘New Construction’ Category
Tags: art, artists, bike parking, Broadway, bulb-outs, bulbout, bump outs, Creative Class, creativity, cycling, design, designer, downtown Haverstraw, downtown rebirth, grandeur, heritage, hipster, historic downtown, Hudson River, Hudson Valley, landscape architecture, Main Street, pedestrian, pedestrianization, plans, revitalization, sidewalks, street, street light, street tree, streetsblog, streetscape designs, village of haverstraw
There’s something about old fashioned communities that attracts so many of us. What is it exactly? Can you pinpoint that special something about Nyack, or Piermont, or Hoboken, or Brooklyn, or . . . Haverstraw Village that creates excitement, the platform for a thriving community? That thing is anti-sprawl, anti-suburbia. Do you know what I’m speaking of? These places, built before the advent of 30-minute-car-rides-to-the-mall, are walkable, community-oriented, and containing human scale, quality architecture. Watch the video below to get an idea of what I’m talking about, and also to realize that these very principals are alive and well in Haverstraw and in the Village’s future.
Ginsburg Development Companies has just updated its website for the Harbors at Haverstraw luxury waterfront community, currently under construction in Haverstraw. Phase I of the project is about 75% complete. Already, hundreds have moved into their new homes in Haverstraw. Most of the large condominium buildings & clubhouse building are also complete. The Harbors at Haverstraw is only the first of three waterfront communities that are planned to grace the banks of the Hudson River in the Village of Haverstraw.
The above was brought to you by www.HaverstrawLife.com
The Tappan Zee Bridge task force has whittled down the list of alternatives for replacement or maintenance of the Tappan Zee Bridge (I-287) corridor. They have settled on six alternatives: (1) No build – maintain the bridge “as is,” (2) Rehabilitate the existing bridge with seismic and structural upgrades, (3) a new bridge and full corridor Bus Rapid Transit , (4A) a new bridge and full corridor Commuter Rail Transit, (4B) Manhattan-bound commuter rail from Rockland with Light Rail across Westchester, and (4C) Manhattan-bound commuter rail from Rockland with bus rapid transit across Westchester. If Alternative 3 is not chosen (alternatives 1 and 2 are unlikely), then commuter rail from Rockland is a definite. HaverstrawLife would like to garner support for Alternative 4A, Full Corridor Commuter Rail Transit. HaverstrawLife feels that full corridor rail, with many new stations in Rockland and Westchester and connections to the Metro North Hudson and New Haven Lines, with transfers to all other NJ Transit and Metro North lines, would provide Rocklanders with the best chance at overcoming immobility in the region. We must learn that the deemphasis of the automobile in transportation is necessary to ensure a prosperous future. Please, HELP BUILD ALTERNATIVE 4A! For more information, please visit the Alternatives Analysis presented by Metro North Railroad, the New York State Department of Transportation, and the New York State Thruway Authority.
The Ossining Ferry dock and train station area is about to undergo a complete transformation into a beautifully appointed mixed-use neighborhood. Ginsburg Development Companies and Capelli Enterprises have teamed up to build One Harbor Square between the existing ferry pier and the Metro North train station. Easy access to New York City, the rest of Westchester, and Haverstraw make this location priceless. HaverstrawLife welcomes our neighbor’s development, as it will help spur commerce between the Haverstraw Pier and the Ossining Pier. New restaurants will surely emerge on both sides of the Hudson, within walking distance of the ferry piers to accommodate this new market of consumers. Read more about the project here.
The Village of Haverstraw recently applied for a Federal Community Block Grant that might supply the Village with $2 million needed to improve drainage and the quality of its streets. The money will be used for paving, work on crosswalks, and drainage systems for New Main Street, West, Lincoln, Broad, and Sharp Streets. The first phase of the project will continue through summer 2007 and end in the fall. The Village is hoping to receive $250,000 for its long-awaited streetscape enhancement work, which will supply Broadway, New Main, and Main Street with historical lighting, brick crosswalks, benches, and trash receptacles. Many local merchants are hoping that a plan to expand the width of sidewalks will allow them to offer outdoor dining. Read more about it here.
The Haverstraw – Ossining Ferry by New York Waterway and the future Haverstraw – Yonkers – Lower Manhattan Ferry by New York Water Taxi are soon to move to the end of Main Street in the Village of Haverstraw. The plans, refined during summer 2006, have been approved recently by local and state officials. M G McLaren Engineering Group is continuing to work out the details and technical plans of the ferries’ new docks and facilities. The NY Water Taxi service to Lower Manhattan, with service to Yonkers in between, is expected to begin in late spring at the existing Haverstraw Ferry Pier on Dr. Girling Drive in the Village of Haverstraw. There is no publicly known timeline for the Main Street ferry terminal project, although some guess that ferries will be mooring at the base of Main Street as early as 2008 or 2009.
Correction: The NY Water Taxi Ferry from Haverstraw to World Financial Center and Pier 11 Wall Street, with stopping service in Yonkers, is expected to begin on August 1, 2007. More information here.
The Federal Transportation Bill of 2005 allotted a significant amount of funds for the reconstruction of the Short Clove Road and Route 9W intersection, which includes construction of twin-bridge overpasses that will carry Short Clove Road over the West Shore Rail Line below. The current intersection is known to be one of the worst in New York State due to high train activity, steep grades, and heavy trucking from the Tilcon quarrying operation nearby. The following press release from the office of New York Senator Charles Schumer details funding and construction plans: (more…)
Recently, in the Rockland Journal News, a developer who owns several apartment buildings at the corner of Maple Avenue and West Street in the Village of Haverstraw released his plan to build four- and six-story apartment buildings after completion of demolition of his existing properties. The present apartment complex has been a source of blight along Maple Avenue for decades now. The proposal for midrise buildings came under scrutiny by some Village board members, who said “Haverstraw is not New York City” and “…six-stories is too tall for Haverstraw.” The proposal includes construction of 150 new rental and for sale units that range from studio apartments to two-bedroom lofts. The proposed project is in a crucial redevelopment area adjacent to the $500,000,000 Harbors at Haverstraw community. With proper design and implementation, the Maple Avenue/West Street area can become a vital entranceway to downtown Haverstraw and to the waterfront.
Governor George E. Pataki has continually supported the Haverstraw Revitalization effort. In his last round of grant distribution, Pataki released $3 million more toward the $150 million needed to continue Haverstraw’s rennaissance. This last funding happened in October of 2002. Since then, numerous projects in the Village have been earmarked by the state and federal government (like the Short Clove Road train overpass that has been funded and is in design stages). Rockland County government has also come through with millions of dollars for Haverstraw. Read about Governor Pataki’s thoughts on Haverstraw here.
Martin Ginsburg, who could quite possibly go down along with Mayor “Bud” Wassmer as men who “saved Haverstraw,” is the father of waterfront development in the Village of Haverstraw. The Harbors at Haverstraw, and subsequent communities that will follow it, are at any length children of Mr. Ginsburg. Thanks to him and his corporation,Ginsburg Development Corporation, the face of Haverstraw will be forever altered… for the better. Recently, in the Rockland Journal News, Mr. Ginsburg wrote a Community View in favor of ferry transport from Haverstraw and elsewhere in the Hudson River Valley: (more…)
There’s no overestimating the value of access to the Hudson River, and so there’s no way to put a price on the promenade being built in Haverstraw as part of builder Martin Ginsburg’s Harbors at Haverstraw development.
The promenade, which will run for 1.5 miles along the riverfront, will cost $14 million to build. Ginsburg will gradually line that part of the river with 850 units of mostly luxury housing.
Think of it like one of those credit card commercials.
New housing replacing mostly abandoned industrial sites: $400 million.
A 12-foot-wide walkway with benches, decorative lighting and historical markers: $14 million.
Public access to 1.5 miles of the Hudson River: Priceless.
For almost five years now New York Waterway has been operating the popular Haverstraw-Ossining ferry service between the Village of Haverstraw waterfront and the Ossining Metro-North train station. New studies have shown that more ferry service could be just as successful. Service from Haverstraw to the Yonkers Pier and then to the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan could be coming as soon as the spring! The Times Herald-Record and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have posted press releases detailing the plans of the new ferry service. Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey has also worked to secure $1.2 million for these new ferry updates. This project is almost certain to become a reality. Also, McLaren Engineering is in the final stretches of its Environmental Review of the construction of a large parking facility which will serve a new ferry terminal and pier at the end of Main Street in Haverstraw. The current ferry slip will move over to Main Street within the next three years, offering more ferry service and updated and high-tech passenger waiting facilities and accomodations. Here are a couple articles to read up on. The previous links included in the text bring you to the above mentioned articles and press releases. Also, check out the Rockland Journal News article on improving mass transit in the Rockland area. The ferry did extremely well with ridership during last August’s gas price-hike due to Hurricane Katrina. This is extremely exciting for the advancement of Haverstraw in that it will bring new patrons to Haverstraw’s Downtown and will spark new interest in travel on the Hudson. | <urn:uuid:2b576d8c-41b4-423c-955d-12bf033df001> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://haverstrawlife.com/category/new-construction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934691 | 2,687 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Today’s IRS is aggressive and unrelenting. After legislation passed in 1998, the IRS spends dramatically more money to assess and collect taxes. Along with more collection officers in the field, the IRS has increased its efficiency and effectiveness at enforcing collection through new technology and software.
Between 2000 and 2009, IRS seizures and levies grew from 219,000 to 3.4 million!
The IRS can take your paycheck, bank account, securities, accounts receivable, indeed, anything you own including inventory, automobiles, boats, and real estate. When seizing your property from another person, company, or bank, the IRS uses the term “levy.” When taking it from you directly, the IRS uses the term “seizure.”
When seizing directly, the IRS gives you a Notice of Intent to Levy and arranges to take the property, preserving your privacy. That’s not the case when the IRS levies on your paycheck or bank account. The IRS sends a notice of levy to your employer and your bank. Too often employers take a negative view of an employee because of his or her tax problems. Although it’s not permitted by law, the employer may send the employee looking for a new job.
A levy on your bank account or 401k takes everything you’ve saved. A levy on your paycheck leaves you with a minimum amount to pay your living expenses. Although each person’s situation is different, a single taxpayer could be left with less than $800 a month to live on. A family of four could be left with as little as $1,700 a month for expenses.
Levies on business property – inventory, cars, trucks, accounts receivable – cripple and destroy a company. When the IRS delivers a levy notice to a supplier or client, often that means the end of the taxpayer’s business. Suppliers are afraid to extend credit and cut off inventory. Clients lose faith that the business has a future and bolt to the competition.
The best strategy is to prevent seizures and levies before they occur rather than undo the damage later on.
If you have received a Notice of Intent to Levy, speak with the tax attorneys at STS Tax Law by calling 1-800-TAX(829)-6183 or fill out our simple Contact Form.
Learn more about solutions to back tax debt. | <urn:uuid:e9175c53-f577-417f-a9c5-526a2ac9e26e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ststaxlaw.com/tax-problems/paycheck-bank-account-property-seized/ | 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 | 0.93847 | 492 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Re: Warre - only ever add boxes to the bottom?
To answer your questions, the boxes are added underneath because they are foundationless. Put a foundationless box on top, and bees can have a major job moving into it, unless the hive is very strong and there is a good flow at the time. Yes, it does mean you'll be eating honey that has had brood in the combs.
You could use foundation, in which case boxes could easily be added on top and the hive run like a langstroth. But if you did that, you may as well HAVE a langstroth.
You could also move combs around and put one or two in the new box going on top, to give the bees a "ladder" to the top of the box from where they will start building new combs. But again, moving combs is going against Warre philosophy, and towards langstroth philosophy.
"We don't need no education" (Pink Floyd) - Yes you do, you just used a double negative. | <urn:uuid:649a15ed-caec-425c-8dfe-2acee36afef8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?268104-Warre-only-ever-add-boxes-to-the-bottom&p=791277 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973857 | 217 | 1.78125 | 2 |
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Party-goers urged to stay safe and know their limits this New Year season
PARTY-GOERS are encouraged to keep safe and have a good time as thousands head out to celebrate the New Year.
Police are urging revellers to know when to stop drinking as part of its festive 12 Days of Christmas Advice campaign.
"It’s the party season when many people’s alcohol consumption increases and their common sense is left at home," said deputy chief constable David Zinzan.
"Have fun but know your limits, know when to stop drinking and plan your evening. Traditionally, the number of incidents involving alcohol and violence, including assault, sexual offences and domestic abuse, increase over the festive period and this year is no exception.
“We want everyone to enjoy themselves when celebrating over New Year and whilst most people drink responsibly, there is a small minority who do not.
“Alcohol can dramatically change someone’s behaviour which can often result in them doing something they may not do when sober. We are asking people to think about the consequences of excessive drinking before they begin their night out.”
Police advice to people to stay safe includes:
Drink responsibly – know when to stop drinking alcohol and drink water regularly during the evening.
Always walk away from trouble. Stay in control and prevent one night’s actions leaving you with a criminal record for years to come.
Plan how to get home before you go out and pre-book a licensed taxi if you will need one at the end of the evening.
Report domestic abuse and seek help and support if you are a victim. Police will be stepping up patrols on the region’s town centre streets to deal swiftly with drink-related incidents during the Christmas period.
Supporting the increased patrols are two poster campaigns, one targeting men and women under 25 with the message ‘Don’t turn a night out into a nightmare.'
The second is a campaign targeting men and women over 25 with graphic images and the message ‘Two drinks ago you would have walked away/got home safety.' | <urn:uuid:fa8dfe83-0f82-470e-8e4d-d1b45e5b0b78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.middevonstar.co.uk/news/10132694.Party_goers_urged_to_stay_safe_and_know_their_limits_this_New_Year_season/?ref=mmsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958064 | 456 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Iowa became more and more specialized, but there are signs today of a return to diversification.
The grape industry is seeing a revival, with the annual economic impact of the state’s vineyard and winery industry at about $234.3 million, according to the Iowa Wine Growers Association.
In 1999 there were 11 licensed wineries in the state; today there are 100.
O’Malley reports about 364 farms growing apples in the state, with about 56 growing on a commercially viable level.
And there’s room for growth, he says. “If people are willing to put in the money and time, there’s a lot of potential yet to be tapped in apples.”
Breaking into large-scale farming can be cost-prohibitive, with a new farmer needing about 1,000 acres.
Per acre farmland prices in Iowa averaged $6,700 last year. (Farmland in Sioux County sold for $20,000 an acre last December, a new record.)
A used tractor goes for around $125,000, a combine is about $100,000, and planters average $60,000.
“You start to add those up, and how do you start farming?” asks Kirschenmann. “It’s almost impossible to get into commodity agriculture.”
That challenge, he says, is helping to fuel the trend toward niche farming — small-scale, organic operations; CSA farms (with clients that pay in advance and receive crops weekly during the growing season); and selling at farmers’ markets.He calls the increase “dramatic.”
“They don’t need 1,000 acres; they need three, four, or five acres,” he says. “We’re starting to see this change take place.”
The trend brings a smile to Andrew Pittz’s face.
During a sunny September afternoon in the Loess Hills, he and his parents are among the bushes picking berries, their hands stained purple.
Their black-and-white cat, Elvis, supervises from the tall rye grass. The rocking chairs on the porch are empty, motionless except when rustled by the late summer wind. No time to sit and gaze. There’s work yet to be done.
The festival is a few days away, and the family’s been toiling day and night, preparing for another celebration of the fruit they’ve devoted so much to. Their exhaustion is mixed with triumph.
It’s a good feeling Andrew hopes can be repeated in Iowa’s rural areas with the return of the family farm. Aronia berries, he suggests, may help fuel the comeback.
“Everyone can be a part of it. The parents planting, farm chores for kids,” he says. “Rural communities have to survive.”
His passion for the idea is evident in his tone, his conviction visible on his face.
“We need them to thrive, not merely survive.”
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IFRSs set down requirements for the measurement and recognition of profits, but if a UK company wishes to pay dividends out of those profits its directors must consider whether those profits are distributable. Our practical issue this quarter considers the concept of distributable profits in the context of some of the more complex areas of IFRS accounting.
An item that can significantly affect a company's distributable profits is a defined benefit pension scheme. This quarter's topic of focus deals with a recent exposure draft (ED) produced by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) which proposes a number of amendments to the required accounting for such schemes.
The IASB and US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) have recently announced a modified strategy for the convergence of IFRS and US GAAP, focusing on projects viewed as a priority. Subsequent to this, a modified work programme for IFRSs was released and is reflected in the ASB and IASB timetables section of this publication. Significantly, the project to replace all aspects of IAS 39 on financial instruments is now expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2011 and the project on derecognition is to proceed with a more limited scope.
One person who will not be involved in these future developments, but has been central to the development of financial reporting both in the UK and around the world, is Ken Wild – the recently retired head of Deloitte's Global IFRS Leadership Team and our interviewee this quarter.
Practical issue: Distributable profits
It goes without saying that a company's primary aim is to make profits. However, in the UK there is another consideration if a company wishes to transfer benefits to its shareholders – are those profits distributable?
The determination of distributable profits is a complex area, operating at the interface between accounting and company law and demanding an appreciation of both. This article aims to summarise briefly the key considerations for directors and their application to IFRS accounting.
As distributions are made by companies, a group's consolidated reserves position is irrelevant to its ability to pay dividends.
UK law dictates that a limited company may make a distribution only out of profits available for that purpose. Those are the accumulated realised profits less accumulated realised losses shown in the company's relevant accounts. Distributions by public companies are further restricted as such companies cannot make a distribution if by so doing its net assets would fall below the aggregate of its called-up share capital and undistributable reserves.
For the purposes of the law on distributions, a public company is any company designated as a plc whether or not its shares are traded on a market.
These terms are discussed below.
The most obvious form of distribution is a company's annual dividend paid in cash. However, the term applies much more widely, encompassing any distribution of a company's assets to its members. This wider definition might often be significant to transactions within a group of companies, such as:
- the waiver of a liability due from a parent to its subsidiary;
- the transfer of tax losses for no consideration; or
- the transfer of a property for below its market value.
It is therefore important that directors are mindful of their distributable profits position whenever they are contemplating a transaction which could constitute a transfer of value from a subsidiary to its parent.
Profits are treated as realised when they arise in the form of cash or another form of 'qualifying consideration'.
Qualifying consideration comprises:
(a) cash; or
(b) an asset that is readily convertible to cash; or
(c) the release, or the settlement or assumption by another party, of all or part of a liability of the company, unless:
(i) the liability arose from the purchase of an asset that does not meet the definition of qualifying consideration and has not been disposed of for qualifying consideration; and
(ii) the purchase and release are part of a group or series of transactions or arrangements that fall within paragraph 3.5 of this guidance; or
(d) an amount receivable in any of the above forms of consideration where:
(i) the debtor is capable of settling the receivable within a reasonable period of time; and
(ii) there is a reasonable certainty that the debtor will be capable of settling when called upon to do so; and
(iii) there is an expectation that the receivable will be settled.
Tech 01/09 Guidance on the determination of realised profits and losses in the context of distributions under the Companies Act 2006.
Again, transactions within a group might often need careful consideration. For example, when a transaction results in recognition of a receivable from another group company it is necessary to consider whether the other company is capable of settling the balance and intends to do so.
The concept of qualifying consideration does not apply to losses. Losses are treated as realised unless the law, accounting standards or relevant technical guidance provide otherwise. This apparent discrepancy is an intentional result of the company law principle of providing protection for a company's creditors.
A company is required to determine whether it has sufficient distributable profits to make a distribution based on its relevant accounts. A company's last set of statutory accounts may be used for this purpose, but if they do not show sufficient distributable profits interim accounts must be prepared. Interim accounts for these purposes do not have to be in the same format as statutory accounts, indeed management accounts may be used provided they deal with all relevant matters (for example, a company's tax balances may need more consideration than would be the case for a normal set of monthly management accounts).
Again, public companies are subject to more stringent requirements. Their interim accounts for the purposes of determining the legality of a distribution must be filed with Companies House prior to the distribution and must be drawn up broadly in accordance with the requirements for annual accounts.
Application of IFRS accounting
When the requirements on distributions were enshrined in the Companies Act 1985, the use of historical cost accounting and the overriding principle of prudence meant that profits recognised in a company's accounts were most probably realised. The advent of IFRSs, with their increased focus on fair values, has meant that this is no longer the case.
In response to this, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) have issued guidance in this area, most recently Tech 01/09 Guidance on the determination of realised profits and losses in the context of distributions under the Companies Act 2006 and Tech 03/09 Proposed additional guidance on the determination of realised profits and losses in the context of distributions under the Companies Act 2006. Some of the more common areas which can cause difficulties are discussed below.
Share-based payment expenses
IFRS 2 Share-based payments requires an expense to be recognised in profit or loss in respect of equity-settled share based payment transactions, with a corresponding credit in equity. The expense is a realised loss. However the credit to equity is frequently considered distributable, meaning there is no net reduction in distributable profits. This is the case so long as:
- the goods or services reflected in the IFRS 2 expense do not, as a matter of law, constitute consideration for the issue of shares; and
- the expense is included in profit or loss (i.e. it has not been capitalised as part of a tangible or intangible asset).
Employee share schemes will often meet these conditions but share-based payment transactions with other suppliers may not.
The position for cash-settled share-based payment transactions is straightforward, as the expense recognised represents an accrual for cash payment and is therefore a realised loss.
Defined benefit retirement benefit schemes
A defined benefit balance results from a number of gains and losses (service costs, interest cost, actuarial gains and losses etc) and cash transactions (contributions paid by the company and benefits paid to members). Only the gains and losses are relevant to a company's distributable profits position.
The impact on distributable profits is determined by the cumulative net gain or loss recognised in reserves in respect of a scheme (including the gain or loss recognised in profit or loss and any gain or loss in other comprehensive income).
- if a net debit to reserves has been recognised, this is a realised loss and there is no difference between the accounting balance and realised profits; and
- if a net credit has been recognised, this is realised only to the extent that it has been agreed by the scheme's trustees that a refund will be paid in qualifying consideration.
This is an example of the principle that losses are assumed to be realised whilst profits are not. A company's realised profits position with respect to a defined benefit scheme cannot be better than its accounting position, but it can be worse.
Fair value measurement
IFRSs require or allow various items to be measured at fair value. As a general principle, fair value gains are realised where they are readily convertible into cash, and as a result:
- profits on remeasurement of a financial asset traded in an active market would be expected to be realised; and
- revaluation gains on investment properties would not be realised.
The status of other fair value gains might be less clear and will require consideration on a case by case basis.
As is often the case, fair value losses are more likely to be considered realised than profits. In fact, such losses are only unrealised where:
- profits on remeasurement of the same asset and liability would be unrealised; and
- the losses would not have been recorded if fair value accounting not been applied.
Thus, to consider a fair value loss on an asset to be unrealised, it is necessary to demonstrate both that the asset is not readily convertible to cash and that if the asset were measured at cost it would not be impaired.
Hedge accounting From a distributable profits point of view, it is necessary to consider the combined effect of both sides of a hedge relationship to determine whether there is a realised profit or loss.
The application of this to hedging under IAS 39 Financial Instruments: Recognition and Measurement is summarised below:
Where a business combination is completed by the purchase of a subsidiary, the accounting required by IFRS 3 Business Combinations will most likely have no impact on distributable profits as the accounting will exist only at a consolidated level. Where trade and assets are acquired, the accounting may impact individual company accounts.
IFRS 3(2008) requires a gain to be recognised on acquisition in a number of circumstances (for example, on a bargain purchase or on settlement of a pre-existing relationship between the acquirer and the acquired entity). Careful consideration will be needed before concluding that any such profit is realised as it is unlikely that qualifying consideration will be received upon completion of a business combination.
Reduction of capital by solvency statement
One means of improving a company's distributable profits position is by reducing its capital (effectively converting share capital into distributable reserves). Under Companies Act 1985, such a reduction required court approval but since October 2008 a simpler method has been available.
A reduction of capital may now be affected by special members' resolution supported by a solvency statement signed by each of the company's directors. The solvency statement and special resolution must then be filed with the Registrar of Companies together with a statement of capital setting out the details of the reduced share capital of the company and a statement by the directors confirming that the solvency statement was made not more than 15 days before the passing of the special resolution.
The resolution to reduce the company's share capital then takes effect on registration by the Registrar.
The above is, of course, only an indication of the many issues which may need to be considered in determining whether a company has sufficient distributable reserves to make a distribution. Companies should consult with their advisers if they are in any doubt about this matter.
Further guidance on distributable profits can be found in the Deloitte publication iGAAP 2010: IFRS Reporting in the UK.
A coffee with ... Ken Wild
Ken Wild was a partner at Deloitte for 26 years until his retirement in 2010, for much of that time he led the firm's UK technical department and, more recently, the Global IFRS Leadership Team. Ken was also a member of the ASB from 1994 to 2003 and IFRIC from 2003 to 2009.
What do you see as the opportunities and risks facing standard setters in the coming years?
The opportunity is to achieve genuinely global standards and thus a common language of accounting. A common language does not mean complete uniformity because even a common language will have different accents, I think you will always be able to recognise a French, a German or an American set of accounts because they will look slightly different. What we have got to avoid is dialects. Dialects being, in accounting standard terms, words having different meanings for different people.
So I think that the opportunity is we will move to a common global set of standards. The risk is that it is such a vast task and when you consider bringing in, say, the Americans the difficulties become clear. The Americans have a really difficult task going from a very detailed set of rules to a less detailed set of rules, so there is real difficulty as we bring some people in.
I think the other main risk is politics and politicians interfering, trying to use accounting standards for regulatory, or tax reasons or whatever and interfering with the thing. Politicians will add layers which will potentially add complexity or may actually distort what we see as real numbers.
An example is the debate around impairment of loans where you ought to be telling the market where you have got to, what's happened with the loans you have made. What you shouldn't do is provide for loans you haven't even yet made on the basis that the economic cycle will turn down and when it does you'll make a load of losses. If you make a load of losses in the future, you make a load of losses in the future, you should not start distorting the accounting, telling people that you've made losses now for smoothing reasons or whatever and that I think is the big danger. The politicians may be acting either for straight political reasons or what they see as good reasons, but reasons that are actually distorting the purpose of accounting which is communicating what has happened to the company.
Will standards be simpler or more complex in ten years time?
I would like to think things can get simpler, but the world tends to make things more complex until you get to a point where they are so complex, somebody says too much and you do a complete rejig. I think that is further away than ten years.
What do you see as the IASB's greatest strength and its biggest weakness?
I think its greatest strength is the strength of will behind making it happen. I think they have some really good people involved and there is a genuine desire to do the job well.
The strength of all these different people from different cultures being involved is also its biggest weakness. The difficulty comes because people from different cultures have a different view of how to write standards. A group of British people will write a standard in a British way. If you put American, French, German, Japanese and British people together writing in different ways, they are tearing in different directions. The danger is that you say, let's just stop and go back to the theory and you forget about communication and start basing it too much on theory. This actually gets in the way of good communication, and accounting is all about good communication.
For example, we seem to be moving towards using exit values much more, whether for assets or for liabilities. Exit value makes enormous sense for some things. A lot of financial instruments, for example, are held for their resale value. But consider office or computer equipment; its exit value may be minimal, nobody wants the second hand equipment, but it's very valuable to you and would cost a lot if you had to replace it. You may want to put a fair value on those things, but exit value would be pretty meaningless.
Or take the example of properties. If you've owned a property for sixty years, its original cost may be pretty meaningless, so you want to revalue it. But why are you revaluing it? Is it because of what you could sell it for or what it would cost you to replace it? So I would say exit value is a good theory, but it may not work for everything.
Are there any major areas where we have no accounting standard yet, but we might in the future, or areas where we might see big changes?
I can think of quite a few I would like to do away with. Deferred tax, get rid of that one, earnings per share, get rid of that one. Unless we get into industry specific standards, I can't honestly think of anywhere we really want to have another standard.
Perhaps we ought to have a standard on liabilities because we haven't actually got one, we have standards covering particular types of liability. We're messing around with IAS 37 and getting it very wrong, but we ought to have an actual liability standard. What I was saying earlier about exit value equally applies to liabilities because that's essentially what they've sought to do with IAS 37. If I wanted somehow to remove completely this liability, what would I have to pay now? For something like litigation, the money you would have to pay now may be a million miles from what you actually intend to do.
What we are doing with things like associates and hedge accounting still needs quite a lot of work. The standards are there but it's a case of harmonising and improving.
What has been the most rewarding and the most challenging experience of your career?
The most rewarding is easy. I've come across so many people that are so good at what they do and so many people that I have really liked and enjoyed working with and have been intellectually stimulating.
Within a firm and a department like ours, we have a fantastic team of people and the banter that goes on is really enjoyable and rewarding. Outside the firm, some of the groups, such as working on the old accounting standards board were very much like that. It's interesting that the proceedings of those groups were not on public record. Whether it alters things when you put them on public record I don't know, but I have always thought the old ASB did a fantastically good job and was a very enjoyable thing to be involved in. I got a lot out of my involvement in public sector accounting because it was sort of nowhere, basically cash accounting and so archaic, and we've now moved to a decent form of accounting.
The issues in the public sector are fascinating. We all know what impairment of an asset is, it's when you are not going to get your money back. But when a government buys an aircraft carrier it doesn't actually get very much money back from it – so impairment must mean something different. You are trying to get to the same basic concept, you have got something you wish you hadn't paid that much for and it's not worth that much to you. There is no money that you are going to get back for it so you have to find another way.
Were there any turning points which changed the course of your career?
When I was at university, I always said there were three things I would never do: be an actuary because it was boring, be a teacher because I didn't have any patience for it and be an accountant because it was even more boring. I wanted to be an academic at university but I hadn't found the post, I needed a job in York and KPMG happened to have a York office and were advertising for people. I thought I would stick with it for a year until I found a proper job – literally that was how I got into accountancy. I then found I enjoyed it.
The next pivotal point was when I was six months qualified and the Accounting Standards Committee advertised for staff members. They were looking for people who were three years qualified and I thought, "that sounds interesting, but maybe in another few years" and my wife said to me: "well you're not going to lose anything by applying." I applied and I got the job and had a couple of years there. I was intending to stay longer but Deloitte advertised for people for a technical post. It was so unusual to see adverts for the technical department that I thought I might as well talk to them as I hadn't done an interview for a couple of years and it's always good to keep your hand in; so I came to Deloitte.
At the time Deloitte was thought of as a bit American and a bit brash; it was the smallest of the firms. I wasn't sure it was where I wanted to be but I found the people really friendly. When I was made a partner, I was just amazed how you were welcomed in; you became part of something that was very important to the individuals involved.
There are lots of other points when I was at the ASB, which became very significant to me. There are various things I suppose that were issues that I took very much for my own. For example, I thought we were getting to a stage that accounting standards were catering for large companies. The average small practitioner was producing a set of accounts for a small company that their bank manager wouldn't be able to understand and the practitioner would say to the company: "don't bother about these, we have got to produce them, got to sign them, got to file them, but you won't recognise your business in them."
I said we ought to do something for small companies and did a lot of campaigning, eventually convincing David Tweedie so he agreed to let me chair a working party. That was the origin of the FRSSE. Equally there was a working party some years later that I was asked to chair. I was chairing the technical committee at the industry and they asked if I would chair a committee on window dressing, which had become a bit of a cause célèbre. I said I would but I thought that the up and coming issue was off balance sheet finance. This then absolutely blew up. We produced a technical paper from the institute which eventually lead into FRS 5.
These became big issues that I was heavily involved in.
What will you miss most about Deloitte, and least?
100% I'll miss the people most. Deloitte has good people, not only in my department – who I obviously know best – but spread across the firm. I also think what I do makes a contribution, both to the firm and more widely. I enjoy it and I think it is interesting, so I will miss the work as well; but it's the people I will miss most.
I am really looking forward to being in control of my own time. I have always felt it is in the nature of what I do that I have to be available 24 hours a day. I never mind when people phone me up in the middle of the night because they are in the office working and I am at least at home, but it will be quite nice not to be subject to that, not to feel responsible.
Topic of focus: Proposed amendments to accounting for defined benefit plans
Accounting for defined benefit plans has long been recognised as one of the more complex and controversial areas of financial reporting. It is also an area in which IFRSs include an unusual amount of optionality, both in the timing of recognition of gains and losses relating to such plans and in their presentation in the statement of comprehensive income.
The IASB's recent exposure draft (ED) Defined Benefit Plans – Proposed amendments to IAS 19 seeks to address the following perceived deficiencies in the current standard:
- companies do not have to account for changes in their defined benefit plan immediately, with the so called 'corridor approach' allowing deferral of some actuarial gains and losses;
- there is little comparability in presentation of amounts relating to defined benefit plans, with actuarial gains and losses recognised either in profit or loss or in other comprehensive income (OCI), but with limited guidance on the presentation of other items within the income statement; and
- there are voluminous disclosure requirements in this area, but these may not always highlight the risks arising from defined benefit plans.
The IASB seeks to address these issues through the ED by standardising the recognition and presentation of gains and losses relating to defined benefit schemes and by introducing new disclosures focussing on risks.
The ED does not address the measurement of defined benefit plans (i.e. the projected unit credit method and the actuarial assumptions inherent in its use) or the accounting for defined contribution schemes. The IASB will consider after 2011 whether to address these topics.
Recognition of actuarial gains and losses
The so called 'corridor method' of deferring a portion of actuarial gains and losses falling outside a specific range (being the greater of 10% of the defined benefit obligation and 10% of the fair value of plan assets) has long been something of an anomaly in IFRSs in allowing some gains and losses not to be recognised at the point they arise. Certain gains and losses (for example, the effective portion of cash flow hedges and revaluation gains on items of property, plant and equipment) are recognised outside profit or loss, but the corridor method of disclosing gains and losses in full but spreading their recognition over a number of years is unique to defined benefit plan accounting.
The ED's proposal to remove this option is intended both to make it easier to understand defined benefit balances and to improve comparability between companies.
Comparison with current UK practice under IAS 19
The corridor approach is employed only by a minority of UK companies in accounting for defined benefit plans. Therefore, this element of the ED (while it is very significant for those entities using the corridor approach) might have less impact on financial reporting in the UK than in other territories where use of the corridor is more widespread.
Presentation of gains and losses
The current version of IAS 19 also offers a choice in the presentation of actuarial gains and losses, meaning that some companies present these, often significant, movements within profit or loss while others present these as items of other comprehensive income.
In addition, IAS 19 does not prescribe the presentation of the various other gains and losses recognised within profit or loss (current service cost, interest cost, expected return on plan assets, curtailment gains etc), which leads to additional variation in practice and lack of comparability between different sets of financial statements.
The ED proposes a simpler, but much more prescriptive approach, classifying all gains and losses into one of three categories and prescribing the presentation of each:
Comparison with current UK practice under IAS 19
The approach suggested by the ED is, on the face of it, similar to that prescribed by FRS 17 (with actuarial gains and losses recognised outside profit or loss and a split between operating and finance elements of costs within profit or loss) and applied by many UK companies in their IFRS reporting.
There are, however, significant differences in the apportionment of gains and losses between the three categories, most notably:
- finance costs in profit or loss are a function of only the net plan surplus or deficit and the time value of money, the concept of expected returns on plan assets is eliminated, actual returns go into OCI;
- settlement gains and losses will be recognised in OCI, not as part of the employee expense in profit or loss; and
- all changes arising from the limitation on recognition of assets for plans in surplus will be recognised in OCI, rather than following actuarial gains and losses to either OCI or profit or loss.
Thus, the ED proposes a split which is superficially similar to the approach currently employed by many UK companies but there may be significant differences in calculated the three items.
In the ED, the IASB attempts to respond to criticism that the requirements of IAS 19 result in disclosures which are of excessive length but which neither aid an understanding of the affect of defined benefit plans on the financial statements as a whole, nor highlight information about the risks arising from such plans.
The ED's revisions to disclosure requirements are thus intended to satisfy the following objectives:
- explanation of the characteristics of an entity's defined benefit plans;
- identification and explanation of the amounts in the financial statements resulting from those plans; and
- description of how future cash flows may be affected by defined benefit plans.
The removal of the option of the 'corridor method' naturally leads to a reduction in the number of disclosure requirements, as this is an option that currently requires a high level of disclosure.
The ED proposals also include requirements to disclose:
- further quantitative information on actuarial assumptions, including:
- separate disclosure of actuarial gains and losses arising from changes in demographic and financial assumptions;
- sensitivity analyses about actuarial assumptions; and
- the present value of the defined benefit obligation adjusted to exclude the effect of projected growth in salaries;
- further narrative information on risks associated with defined benefit plans and the investment strategy for plan assets, including factors that could cause contributions over the next five years to differ from current service costs.
Comparison with current UK practice under IAS 19
Many UK companies have taken note of the ASB's voluntary reporting statement Retirement Benefits – Disclosures and make disclosures in excess of the minimum requirements of IAS 19. In particular, disclosing an analysis of the sensitivity of the defined benefit obligations balance to changes in actuarial assumptions.
However, the proposed disclosures, for example, disaggregation of actuarial gains and losses and adjustment for the effect of projected growth in salaries, go beyond the suggestions of the ASB statement.
Other proposed changes
The ED includes other proposed changes, intended to add clarity in a number of areas.
Classification of employee benefits
The ED proposes the removal of the distinction between 'post employment benefits' and 'other long-term employee benefits', meaning that all long-term defined benefit arrangements would be recognised, measured and disclosed in a consistent manner as described above. Thus, for benefits such as long-term profit sharing or bonus arrangements and long-term disability benefits some elements of actuarial gains and losses are proposed to be taken to OCI.
The ED specifies that only costs relating to the management of plan assets would be presented as a reduction in the return on plan assets (and, therefore, within the 'remeasurement' category in OCI). Future administration costs relating to the administration of benefits would be included in the measurement of the defined benefit obligation.
The next steps
Comments are invited on the ED by 6 September 2010 and following consideration of comments received the IASB expects to finalise amendments to IAS 19 by June 2011 with an effective date no earlier than 1 January 2013.
As noted above, several of the proposals might be expected to have less impact in the UK than in some other territories, but they will still have significant implications for the presentation and disclosure of defined benefit plans, and perhaps other long-term employee benefits, some of which may require additional involvement of a scheme's actuaries.
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Kickstart Torch T1: The Next LED Bicycle Helmet
With the idea of integrating lights into helmets becoming more and more common, it was only a matter of time until someone took it to the level of Torch. Rather than small LED lights that simply clip into integrated ports on the helmet itself, the Torch T1 will utilize multiple LEDs built into the structure of the helmet with lenses that act as the shell of the helmet. The video above contains a working prototype of the T1 helmet which illustrates how the lights in the helmet will work.
While Torch isn’t a reality yet, it is very close to reaching its funding level on Kickstarter. With less than $5,000 to go, and 22 days to make it, there is a very good chance the Torch will make it to production.
Check out some product renderings, including the special edition all black T1, after the break.
Torch is a new brand that focuses on lit apparel for the urban rider and skater who’s not afraid to have fun after dark. The T1 helmet, our first product, is unique as it draws attention to the rider at night by elevating the light signature above city traffic. In addition to our primary goal of safety, we focused on creating a helmet with a clean, iconic style geared towards urban riders. To achieve this we started with a classic silhouette and kept the details simple.
The helmet will be produced using an in-mold technique with a thin polycarbonate shell and an expanded polystyrene body. This method creates a very light, yet strong helmet. Torch will also include an adjustable system for a more accurate fit, making the helmet safer and more comfortable.
The helmet features front and rear lenses which the LEDs project onto. This projection method is important as it disperses the light across the lens. This creates increased visibility and brighter light from wider viewing angles. The lenses also protect the LEDs from water, dust, and debris; as you see in the video.
The helmet will be available in three exterior colors (red, black, or white) plus a special Midnight Edition (black with smoked lenses). Torch will be fully CPSC/CE certified and retail for around $100. We are offering a discount to our Kickstarter backers because without your support we cannot make Torch a reality. All funds raised on Kickstarter will go towards tooling, initial production, packaging, and domestic shipping to our backers.
We would like to thank our backers, and everyone who has been involved in the amazing process of the development of Torch. With your help we can make cycling safer !
Want a Torch T1? Get to it. If you choose to support their Kickstarter, you can call dibs on a standard T1 for $80 in support, which should be less than the planned $100 retail of the T1. | <urn:uuid:6cb5a3c9-cfa2-46a1-8fc6-68bd3913346a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bikerumor.com/2012/05/07/kickstart-torch-the-next-led-bicycle-helmet/ | 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 | 0.945034 | 580 | 1.5625 | 2 |
"Localize This": Direct Action Training Camp Turns Inward to Define a Movement
YES! ex-intern attends a radical summer camp
“We train people to have strategic minds, not just strategic plans,” Adrienne Maree Brown instructs me against a backdrop of water defense kayakers, direct action climbers, and political puppeteers. Brown, Executive Director of Ruckus Society, co-sponsored Localize This, a direct action training camp taking place this week on Vashon Island, WA. Direct Action, from the Greenpeace Mount Rushmore Banner drop to the Die-Ins in San Francisco over budget cuts, has received increased news coverage lately. How do these activists organize such complex operations? And, more importantly, what motivates them to put their bodies on the line? Once at camp, I soon learned that the answers lie in the localization of struggle, as the camp and its participants testified to the importance of community in movement building.
Localize This grew out of another radical direct action camp—Globalize This—meeting in the days leading to the infamous WTO protests of 1999. There, many of today’s direct action leaders received training and began to identify as global activists working against the negative effects of the IMF and the World Bank. Ten years later activists, in an attempt redefine themselves as for rather than against, are shifting their identity back to local issues. Enter the Backbone Campaign (the inspiration for Localize This). The Vashon Island based organization is a national grassroots effort to embolden citizens and elected officials to stand up for progressive values—to have a backbone, in case you didn’t catch the metaphor. Their spectacular tactics and actions have received international attention, but their most recent and personal campaign provided the vision for Localize This.
In early January the Backbone Campaign led a movement to stop Glacier Northwest from constructing a gravel-mining pit on Maury Island (a small island near Vashon). The threat of environmental degradation united the Vashon community in direct actions against the operations. Their strategies included deployment of the mosquito fleet—a group of water defense trained kayakers—who used non-violent tactics to shut down operations for two days. The success of this localized struggle inspired Backbone Campaign Executive Director, Bill Moyer, to organize Localize This, calling activists working on local campaigns all over the country to meet, learn from each other, and have a lot of fun!
“Direct action is a key component of how you strengthen and create solidarity in a community,” Adrienne Brown tells me. This is the heartbeat of camp and what a strategically trained mind can comprehend about the radical power of localization. At camp we learned about each other’s separate communities and struggles, and formed community: sharing chores and tasks, living in harmony with beautiful land, and eating meals together—equally important to learning how to banner drop, talk to the media, form blockades, drum, or build a 25 foot orca puppet.
Direct action also appeals to the pragmatic needs of organizers, accounting for its increased popularity. Brown explains: “especially in these hard economic times, we can’t rely on non-profits to foot the bill to get our messages out there… Direct action is the cheapest way to have an impact.” Not only is direct action economically beneficial, as Brown describes, but it roots us in an empowering ideological framework. This brings us closer to a people centered, not non-profit centered, movement. This distinction urges us to examine the sustainability of our actions, empowering us to transform reactionary messages into visionary proclamations of human potential.
We'll be posting a more in depth look at some of the “Localize This” campers and their campaigns soon. | <urn:uuid:6cad05dc-42c9-4a6c-823a-4ef9c487c3cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/intern-blog/localize-this-direct-action-training-camp-turns-inward-to-define-a-movement | 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 | 0.93698 | 775 | 1.703125 | 2 |
On the Issues
Throughout his Senate career, Senator Levin has advocated for openness and accountability in government. He believes it is important for the people of Michigan to know his legislative record and where he stands on the issues.
Many of the issues on which Senator Levin works are related to his committee assignments. As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin works on issues concerning national security and the Department of Defense. On the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Levin has led in-depth investigations into the financial crisis, the credit card industry, offshore tax havens and more.
This section of the website contains Senator Levin's positions on some of the major issues facing Michigan and our country such as job creation, consumer protection, education, energy and the environment, the Great Lakes, and national security. Several of the issues listed below have sub-topics, which can be accessed by clicking on the main issue.
Michigan is known for quality cars and stunning Great Lakes, but less well known is the fact that agriculture is our state’s second biggest industry. Michigan produces a greater variety of crops than all but two states, ranging from corn and soybeans to tart cherries, apples, beans, blueberries, asparagus and other specialty crops.
A strong domestic auto industry isn’t just important to Michigan; it’s crucial to rebuilding the U.S. economy. Manufacturing, and especially auto manufacturing, generates jobs with good pay and benefits, and the economic spin-offs from those jobs are vital to other sectors of the economy.
The financial crisis of 2008 cost millions of Americans their jobs, their homes and their financial security. It has endangered businesses large and small. And it was the result not of the normal ups and downs of the economy, but of recklessness and irresponsibility among mortgage lenders, Wall Street banks, credit rating agencies and government regulators.
Most of us believe education is the key to our country’s future. But we can’t just say that; we have to back our words with action. Since coming to the Senate, I have tried to increase educational opportunities for Michigan families.
Michiganians know that protecting the environment is vital to human health, and that we must preserve the natural beauty and resources that are important not just to our state’s identity, but to our economy. We also know that finding and developing clean sources of energy is a key to creating economic opportunity for our state, and a vital part of our national security strategy.
Careful stewardship of taxpayer dollars is one of my most important duties, and so is ensuring that the burden of federal taxes is fairly shared. That means ensuring federal dollars are spent wisely and that tax policy promotes economic opportunity for all Americans.
The Great Lakes are central to Michigan’s identity and to the health and prosperity of Michigan residents. They are also an immensely valuable natural resource for the entire nation. Protecting that resource has been a top priority of mine since coming to the Senate.
Our strength as a nation depends on a social safety net that is consistent with American values. Such a safety net is a necessary complement to a vibrant, dynamic and growing market economy. Since coming to the Senate, I have supported programs that serve the elderly and disadvantaged and help families who are hurt by the ups and downs of the economy through no fault of their own.
Oversight of government operations is one of Congress’ most important duties. Careful, thorough review of complex but significant issues can yield important insights into how our institutions are performing and valuable information for policy makers. I take that role seriously, and as chairman of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I have led investigations into government waste, fraud and abuse and have lifted the veil on wrongdoing and failures of government regulation in financial markets and other institutions.
The most urgent challenge for the 113th Congress is to help restore the jobs that were lost in the recession. I supported the steps taken in 2008 and 2009 to prevent a depression and begin our economic recovery, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; federal assistance for the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler; the HIRE Act and Small Business Jobs and Credit Act; and emergency unemployment benefits.
Our nation’s commitment to equality under the law for all citizens, and to a justice system that protects the community while ensuring fairness for all, are the hallmarks of our democracy. As a lawyer who began my public service career as the first general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, I understand why it’s important to fight for equality under the law. I have supported laws that protect Americans from the damage that crime can do in their communities, and for a justice system free from discrimination.
As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, helping craft U.S. defense policy is one of my most important duties. Our national security policy must maintain a military capable of defending the United States, its allies and its interests around the world; fully support the men and women of our military and their families in keeping with their sacrifices; make careful use of taxpayer dollars; take full advantage of the productivity of U.S. workers and the innovation of U.S. companies; remain firmly grounded in American values; and recognize that our security challenges cannot be solved by the use of force alone. | <urn:uuid:7acb6b94-205e-4606-aa33-421831f5f972> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.levin.senate.gov/issues/index.cfm?MainIssue=Environment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960287 | 1,086 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Line: a documentary about poverty
Tuesday, March 12th
University Union, Loch Raven Room
A short discussion to follow.
From the website: "The Line documents the stories of people across the country living at or below the poverty line. They have goals. They have children. They work hard. They are people like you and me. Across America, millions are struggling every day to make it above The Line?"
We love Jesus. We come together to pray for our brothers and sisters. We care about justice and the needs of our neighbors. We like to eat. We are Lutherans and Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, those from non-denominational churches and we are people who aren't quite sure what we believe. We come to learn about this God that loves us. Come, join us.
For over 30 years, we've had the privilege of sharing space with our Catholic brothers and sisters at the Newman Center. It's the big white house across the street from Stephens Hall at 7909 York Road. But we have events on campus, too, so check out our calendar to see where we'll be.
Or find us on Facebook:
Lutheran Campus Ministry at Towson | <urn:uuid:9db37518-95cc-47c3-bedd-8ac4d5611790> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.baltimorelutherancampusministry.org/towson.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956526 | 248 | 1.59375 | 2 |
In response to diversifying customer needs and in order to increase the efficiency of development and reduce cost, we are undertaking radical reform of design processes, in which the entire supply chain related to development, design, production, and procurement is taken into consideration.
Improvement in development efficiency through "creation without making new parts and without making many prototypes"
As customer needs expand and change, we are increasingly required to achieve high-mix low-volume production and to shorten the development cycle. The Ricoh Group is now undertaking radical reform of its development and design processes based on the concept of "creation without making new parts and without making many prototypes" from five individual standpoints as follows: "testing without prototypes," "making fewer parts and fewer prototypes," "if 'something' needs to be produced, that 'something' must be highly robust," "improvement of manufacturers" and "creation and effective use of design assets."
The concept of the "creation without making new parts and without making many prototypes" basically aims to use existing parts of stable quality as much as possible instead of making new parts and many prototypes. Our efforts in line with this concept have already allowed us to shorten development period, reduce cost and reduce environmental impact.
Particularly regarding "testing without prototypes," we use 3DCAD/CAE and other simulation tools as often as possible. It is possible to achieve greater accuracy and more detailed verification in a virtual environment than with actual prototypes, thus enabling us to achieve a level of quality that satisfies customers at the design stage. Our increase in the use of simulation tools has helped us shorten the time required for developing new products by 30% and halved the number of prototypes employed compared to just a few years ago.
"Platform- & Module-type Development"
With "Platform- & Module-type Development," we limit our product planning to already existing series models, but grow a development concept that is not only for existing models but also takes into account successor models. Efforts are focused on developing and designing modules with flexible specifications.
In developing a successor model for a series model, in principle, we use the platform and module that were developed for the predecessor model without adding any additional changes, or replace the minimum possible number of modules to improve the specifications. This enables us to improve quality while increasing the efficiency of development, and eventually allows us to allocate more development resources to acquire highly competitive technology. In addition, this development approach allows us to repeatedly use collected reusable parts that will be equipped with new functions for products to be developed in the generations to come.
The "ΣE System" to reduce the number of product parts to ≤10%
The "ΣE System" was established from 1996 through 2006 with the aim of achieving efficient selection of electronic parts, reduction in procurement costs and reduction in inventories. This system has helped to reduce the number of parts from as many as 35,000 to just 3,000. Under the "ΣE System," the parts are registered in the certified electronic parts database and their QCDE (quality, cost, delivery, ecology) is always guaranteed by an organization specialized in parts certification. With this system, we have successfully improved the efficiency of parts selection upstream of the design process. In addition, the system has allowed us to ensure design quality and to reduce parts procurement costs and factory inventories. | <urn:uuid:409de35c-dbf0-4d68-8770-8166741ee3ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ricoh.com/about/sustainability/topics/supplychain/01_01.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955419 | 680 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I’m afraid the editors of the New York Times may be right:
Americans continue dying in Iraq, but their mission creeps steadily downward. The nonexistent weapons of mass destruction dropped out of the picture long ago. Now the United States seems ready to walk away from its fine words about helping the Iraqis create a beacon of freedom, harmony and democracy for the Middle East. All that remains to be seen is whether the White House has become so desperate for an excuse to declare victory that it will settle for an Iranian-style Shiite theocracy.
The Iraqis seem to be on the way to making Islam the supreme law of the land. And ironically, two myths of Western culture are what have led American leaders to be so blithe to this turn of events: a distorted multiculturalism that thinks every way of thinking is worthwhile and an overconfidence in the democratic process.
The distorted multiculturalism prevents us from telling the Iraqis that some of their ideas are unwise or wrong, and our overconfidence in democratic elections fools us into thinking that a just political system will spring forth even from a culture devoid of a just political tradition.
Whether or not he was right to invade Iraq, President Bush initiated a grand political experiment that requires more commitment and time (educating the Iraqis and shepherding the formation of their government) than any of our political factions seems willing to give. | <urn:uuid:e64be0f7-fc75-4f03-9239-c6bba9982dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://austinmatzko.com/2005/08/23/sacrificing-their-lives-for-islam-our-american-troops/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948825 | 276 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The party of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, has threatened to boycott the parliament's opening session set to take place on Monday over a dispute regarding the constitutional oath of office.
A senior member of the National League for Democracy's executive committee says that its 43 newly elected MPs will not take up their seats unless the military-led government rewords the vow of allegiance.
NLD wants change in the wording of the swearing-in oath from "safeguarding" the constitution to one that pledges to "respect" it, a demand authorities have reportedly rejected.
It appears to be the first sign of discord between the quasi-civilian Myanmar government and the NLD since April 1 by-elections that gave Suu Kyi her first-ever seat in parliament.
Suu Kyi campaigned in the by-elections on a pledge to amend the country's constitution, which was drawn up by Burma's former military leaders.
The Nobel Laureate, who spent much of the past two decades locked up by the former junta, had been set to make her debut in parliament on Monday after her party's decisive win.
The NLD has petitioned the constitutional court to change the oath and Suu Kyi has written to Thein Sein, Myanmar's president, asking him to change the wording of the oath.
Larry Jagan, a Southeast Asia expert and journalist, told Al Jazeera that he was optimistic that the boycott would not be a major setback for a wave of democratic reforms in the country.
"My understanding is that the boycott is going ahead, but I don’t think it means the NLD does not want to work with the government on issues that affect people on the ground, like poverty, development and the ceasefire agreements," he said.
"The issue with the oath is just deferring them being sworn in."
The potential parliamentary impasse comes as Japan announced it would waive about $3.7bn of Myanmar's debt and resume suspended assistance.
"Myanmar's reforms are progressing with certainty," Yoshihiko Noda, Japan's prime minister, said in Tokyo after meeting Thein Sein. | <urn:uuid:d30c91e2-3b67-4c5e-af3d-e5426ef075a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/04/201242253114733192.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973431 | 445 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Obamas March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new study by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR.org). And advocates of such a systemtwo of whom participated in the White House summitwere almost entirely shut out, FAIR found.
Single-payera model in which healthcare delivery would remain largely private, but would be paid for by a single federal health insurance fund (much like Medicare provides for seniors, and comparable to Canadas current system)polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15). But a media consumer in the week leading up to the summit was more likely to read about single-payer from the hostile perspective of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer than see an op-ed by a single-payer advocate in a major US newspaper.
Hundreds of stories in major newspapers and on NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and PBSs NewsHour mentioned healthcare reform, according to a search of the Nexis database (2/25-3/4). Yet all but 18 of these stories made no mention of single-payer (or synonyms commonly used by its proponents, such as Medicare for all, or the proposed single-payer bill, HR 676 ), and only five included the views of advocates of single-payernone of which appeared on television. HR 676, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., has more than 60 co-sponsors and support from most AFL-CIO unions.
Of a total of 10 newspaper columns FAIR found that mentioned single-payer, Krauthammers column critical of the concept, published in the Washington Post (2/27) and reprinted in four other daily newspapers, accounted for five instances. Only three columns in the study period advocated for a single-payer system (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2/26; Boston Globe, 3/1; St. Petersburg Times, 3/3).
The FAIR study turned up only three mentions of single-payer on TV outlets surveyed, and two of those references were by TV guests who expressed strong disapproval of it: conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks (NewsHour, 2/27) and Republican congressman Darrell Issa (MSNBCs Hardball, 2/26).
In many newspapers, the only argument in favor of the policy has been made in letters to the editor (Oregonian, 2/28; USA Today, 2/26; Washington Post, 3/4; Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/27; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/26).
In contrast, the terminology of choice for detractors of any greater public-sector role in healthcaresuch as socialized medicine and government-run healthcareturned up seven times on TV, including once on ABC Newss This Week (3/1) and five times on CNN. CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has herself adopted this terminology in discussing healthcare reform, stating (CNN Newsroom, 2/26) that if in time, Americans start to think what President Obama is proposing is some kind of government-run health systema la Canada, a la Englandhe will get resistance in the same way that Hillary Clinton got resistance when she tried to do tried to do this in the 90s. That despite polling that suggests the public would actually favor single-payer.
Saul Friedman, columnist for Newsday, noted (2/21) that only Congressional Quarterly covered a 1/28 news conference on a study done by a coalition of advocacy groups representing 15,000 doctors and more than 50,000 nurses that found Conyers bill could create 2.6 mln new jobs and would cost far less than the private insurance currently paid by individuals and employers. John Rother, chief lobbyist for AARP, told Friedman that he is in favor of a single-payer system, but he is not encouraging such proposals because theyre outside the mainstream and are not likely to pass. This is simply a matter of pragmatism, Rother said. Single-payer advocates could play a destructive role in the coming debate. But Elaine Fox, a physician and health-care activist from Long Island, argues, There cannot be a credible debate when one side disappears.
PROBLEMS WITH TRADE PACTS. President Obama has indicated he will work with Congress to approve long-stalled free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee (3/3), according to Reuters. Obama opposed the South Korean and Colombian trade deals during last years campaign, but Geithner said the president would work with Congress to find a way to move forward on those important agreements.
The Citizens Trade Campaign has expressed strong opposition to the Panama Free Trade Agreement, which the Bush administration negotiated with minimal protections for American labor, health regulations and sovereignty. In a letter to members of Congress, the progressive trade group noted that more than 100 candidates from both parties ran on trade reform in 2008. The past trade model has led to massive American job loss, downward pressure on wages, the loss of nearly 300,000 family farms and massive trade imbalances that have contributed to our current economic crisis. It has given broad, expansive new rights to foreign corporations to challenge our environmental and public health standards, and flooded the United States with unsafe imported food and products. And, it has devastated developing nations where millions of family farmers have been forced off their land and poverty, despair and desperation-driven mass migrations have grown.
We support President Obamas campaign commitments to create a new American trade agenda that serves the needs of all Americans, not only the special interests who have promoted the past, failed policy. Achieving this goal requires the development of a new model for American trade agreements. President Obama and numerous members of Congress have also committed to ending the perverse incentives for American companies to move jobs overseas, including closing various tax loopholes.
The letter noted that Panamas economy thrives on banking secrecy, which allows US companies to create subsidiaries there to evade US taxes. A US Government Accountability Office study identified Panama as one of eight countriesand the only current or prospective free trade partnerthat was listed on all of the major tax-haven watchdog lists.
The Panama trade agreement, as well as other leftover Bush agreements with Colombia and Korea, do not advance the public interest, the letter notes. Instead the Citizens Trade Campaign promotes the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine) as a blueprint for amending the Panama pact, and offer a more balanced way to expand trade.
We are all eager to support trade agreements that benefit a majority of US workers, farmers, small businesses and consumers. We all want trade agreements that work to achieve the larger societal goals of economic justice, poverty alleviation, healthy communities, pollution reduction, human rights and a healthy environment. Unfortunately, the Panama FTA does not meet these goals, and we strongly urge you to oppose the text written by the past administration, the letter concluded.
Signatories included International Brotherhood of Teamsters, United Steelworkers, Friends of the Earth US, National Farmers Union, Communications Workers of America, United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Public Citizen, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, TransAfrica Forum, IATPAction, UNITE HERE, Americans for Democratic Action, International Association of Machinists and the National Family Farm Coalition. See citizenstrade.org.
FOOD ADVOCATES WARM TO VILSACK. After initial concerns about the appointment of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack because of his support for the biotech industry when he was governor of Iowa, organic food advocates are praising Vilsacks and the Obama administrations early moves on food policy. Obamas budget plan includes a $1 bln a year increase in funding for US child nutrition programs, including school lunches. Vilsack named Dr. Kathleen Merrigan, a Tufts University assistant professor with a background in sustainable and organic agriculture, as his deputy secretary. I cannot think of a more qualified public policy expert to take on this important role at what Abraham Lincoln referred to as the peoples department, said Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute, which lobbied hard for Merrigans appointment. She was the director of the Center on Agriculture, Food and Environment at Tufts in Boston.
Vilsack also has called for government support for farmers using alternative energy; he has called for cuts in taxpayer subsidy payments to large farms and he has pledged the USDAs support in ending racial discrimination in the farm sector. The USDAs National Organic Program has cracked down on companies spiking organic fertilizer with prohibited synthetic additives and Obama has guaranteed at last $500 mln for green jobs in the stimulus package.
BATTLE JOINED OVER EMPLOYEE CHOICE. The Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize, was introduced in the House and Senate (3/10), setting up an epic battle between unions, which supports it, and the business lobby, which hates it. Among the provisions, the bill would trigger union representation when half the workers sign cards indicating their support, it would prevent coercion of workers by bosses and it would force employers into binding arbitration if they refuse to negotiate with the union. Workers would still have the opportunity to call for a secret-ballot election. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), manager of the bill, presided over the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in the absence of Chairman Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Tim Fernholz noted at Prospect.org (3/10). The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a study showing that in 26% of union campaigns from 2001-07, pro-union workers were fired. Opponents of union rights, including the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, have said they will spend $200 mln on advertising and lobbying to block the measure. Among the Dems they are targeting are Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu (La.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.), Bloomberg News reported. Dems have 58 votes in the Senate and expect another when Al Franken is declared winner of a disputed election in Minnesota, but they expect to need 60 to break a Republican filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Bloomberg he was confident they would have the votes to pass the bill.
Citigroup injected itself into the political debate as it lowered its rating on Wal-Mart from a buy to a hold even before the bill was introduced, because of the possibility that the legislation intended to make it easier for employees to unionize would raise the retail giants labor costs and hurt its competitiveness.
Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com commented, Its hard to view this as anything other than a reckless and overt political act on the part of a company, Citigroup, that has made stupendously bad business decisions with dire economic consequences necessitating billions in taxpayer bailouts, at a time when the market can ill-afford it. Even Bank of America admitted in an internal memo that increased wages for working people would mean increased spending power of lower income consumers, which would mean that even if Wal-Mart was successfully unionizeda big ifthey could make up the cost of higher wages with an increase in sales. Somehow that calculation didnt enter into [Citigroup analyst Debora] Weinswigs extraordinarily premature analysis.
Ezra Klein commented, [I]ts hard to recall another time when an analyst actually downgraded a stock on fears of legislation that few expect to pass. Indeed, many on the Left are arguing that this is more about generating a controlled stock market panic that will convince wavering senators to vote against EFCA than about accurately pricing Wal-Marts stock.
Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute told Klein, When I see upgrades to the stocks of Wal-Marts already-unionized competitors (grocery stores like Safeway who will gain back market share if easier unionization results in higher Wal-Mart labor costs) specifically pegged to the specter of EFCA, then Ill admit that Citi is engaged in good-faith prognosticating here. Otherwise, not so much.
GOP REP: ITS ALL ABOUT 10. GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a key player in helping craft the Republican message, has offered an unusually blunt description of the Republican strategy, Greg Sargent noted at theplumline.whoruns-gov.com (3/9). National Journal quoted McHenry: We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010 ... Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Republicans have their work cut out for them as a recent Gallup Poll found that Red China was more popular than the Congressional Republicans. The nationwide poll (2/20-22) found that 56% disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are handling their job while 36% approve. An earlier Gallup Poll (2/9-12) found that 51% had an unfavorable view of China while 41% were favorable.
PUBLIC SUPPORTS BANK NATIONALIZATION. A Newsweek poll (3/6) finds that 72% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Obama, 58% approve of the job hes doing and 65% are very or somewhat successful in turning the economy around. It also contained the somewhat surprising finding that 56% support nationalizing large banks in danger of failing, where the government takes temporary control.
SPECTERS INCENTIVE TO LEAVE GOP. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) may be looking for an exit from the GOP as former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), head of the right-wing Club for Growth, plans to challenge Specter in the Republican primary in 2010, The Hill reported (3/7). Specter barely beat Toomey in 2004 and Terry Madonna, a professor of political science at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., estimated that 150,000 to 200,000 centrist Republicans switched registration to the Democratic Party in 2008, leaving the remaining GOP electorate more conservative. Many Republicans are looking to punish Specter for supporting Barack Obamas stimulus package last month. Specter could run as an independent or he could return to the Democratic Party, which he left in 1965 to run for district attorney in Philadelphia. Specter cannot run as an independent if he loses the Republican primary.
Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos wrote (3/10) that union leaders have promised to stand with Specter if he votes for the Employee Free Choice Act, which is considered a life-and-death issue for unions. That wont help Specter in the GOP primary, but if he becomes a Democrat with the unions behind him and his longtime friendship with Gov. Ed Rendell (D), its hard to see an opening for a real Democrat in the primary. Moulitsas noted that Democrats might support Specter as an independent, but it would be much messier.
COSTS FORCE FAMILIES TO SKIMP ON HEALTH CARE. More than half of Americans (53%) say their family skimped on medical care because of cost in the past year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundations first health care tracking poll of 2009 (released 2/25). The most common actions reported are relying on home remedies and over-the-counter drugs rather than visiting a doctor (35%) or skipping dental care (34%). Roughly one in four report putting off health care they needed (27%), one in five say they have not filled a prescription (21%) and one in six (15%) say they cut pills in half or skipped doses to make their prescription last longer.
The share of Americans who say that the countrys economic problems make it more important than ever to take on health care reform has remained remarkably stable over the past five months at roughly six in 10 (62%). However, the partisan divide also remains large with 79% of Dems saying reform is more important than ever and 58% of Republicans saying the nation cannot afford to tackle health care reform at this point. Independents tilt the balance in favor of reform now (57%).
HEALTH REFORMERS MEET THEIR VILLAIN. A group called Conservatives for Patients Rights promises a $20 mln ad campaign to warn that Obamas health reform effort will hurtle the country toward socialized medicine. Ezra Klein of Prospect.org noted (3/3) that its leader is Richard L. Scott, former president of Columbia/HCA, who built up the nations largest for-profit hospital chain in the 1990s and promised to squeeze blood from every one. More than any other single company, Klein noted, HCA was responsible for the cruelty that turned the public against managed care as it pioneered ruthless cost-cutting. Scott was ousted in 1997 after a federal investigation uncovered widespread fraud that bilked the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars. The corporation later pleaded guilty to a variety of fraud charges and agreed to pay $1.7 bln in the largest fraud settlement in US history. So, to recap: The first major health care group fielded in opposition to Obamas initiative comes from a for-profit hospital executive who resigned amidst the largest fraud case in United States history and means to sell an anti-government message using the same PR firm that helped the Swift Boat veterans, Klein wrote. Theres an old saying: It is good to be lucky in your friends. But it is even better to be lucky in your enemies. Health reform, it would seem, is lucky in its enemies.
GOP TURNABOUT ON JUDICIAL FILIBUSTERS. When President George. W. Bush was stocking the federal court with conservative ideologues, the New York Times noted (3/8), Senate Republicans threatened to change the rules and do away with the filibuster if Democrats tried to block his choices. Now that President Obama is preparing to fill vacancies on federal benches, Republicans have fired off a letter threatening to filibuster any of Obamas nominees who are not to their liking. They insisted that Obama should renominate Bush nominees who were never confirmed to the Senate. They also are demanding veto rights over nominees form their states, in what is called the blue slip tradition, which holds that judicial nominees should not move forward without their home-state senators support. But Republicans abandoned that tradition when they controlled the Senate under Bush and confirmed judges over the objections of home-state senators.
It is particularly strange to see Senate Republicans raising the specter of filibustering nominees, Times editors wrote. When Mr. Bush was doing the nominating, Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah and a former Judiciary Committee chairman, warned Democrats that filibusters mired the judicial-confirmation process in a political and constitutional crisis that undermines democracy, the judiciary, the Senate, and the Constitution.
A filibuster can be an appropriate response when it is clear that a particular nominee would be a dangerous addition to the bench. The Republicans rush to threaten filibusters in the absence of actual nominees is not only at odds with their previous views on the subject, but shows a lack of respect for the confirmation process.
The Republicans are trying to use intimidation to hold onto the one branch of government where they still hold sway. Mr. Obama may be tempted to give in to win Republican cooperation for other parts of his legislative agenda. He should resist that temptation, and get to work right away appointing the kind of highly qualified, progressive-minded judges the nation needs.
HOLT CALLS FOR ANTHRAX PROBE. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) has introduced a bill that would establish a congressional commission to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks and the federal governments response to and investigation of the attacks. All of usbut especially the families of the victims of the anthrax attacksdeserve credible answers about how the attacks happened and whether the case really is closed, Holt said in a news release. While the FBI asserted that a deceased US Army research scientist, Bruce Ivins, alone perpetrated the attack, Glenn Greenwald wrote at Salon.com (3/4) that huge questions still remain with regards to the anthrax attacks, with the FBIs case riddled with glaring inconsistencies and internal contradictions. One of the two Senate targets of the attack, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Pa.), stated at a Senate hearing last September that he does not believe the FBIs case against Ivins, and he does not believe that Ivins acted alone. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), at the same hearing, told the FBI they could never have obtained a conviction against Ivins in court based on their caseriddled, as it is, with so much doubtand he also demanded an independent evaluation of the FBIs evidence.Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has been a long-time skeptic of the FBIs anthrax investigation and has expressed serious doubts about the case against Ivins. the science journal Nature flatly declared in its editorial headlineCase Not Closedand demanded an independent investigation into the FBIs case.
Greenwald noted, Whatever ones views are on the abstract 9/11-anthrax comparison, there is no question that the anthrax attacks were a major political crime. According to the FBI, the anthrax letters were directed at US Senators (Leahy and then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.) due to their political views (specifically their opposition to the Patriot Act, their allegedly soft on terrorism approach, and their pro-choice views). And perhaps most importantly, the anthrax attacksagain, according to the FBI itselfcame from a US Army laboratory, perpetrated by a US Government scientist.
TURNING LEFT PAYS FOR MSNBC. For years broadcasters have resisted putting liberal commentators on radio and TV, but the saturated market of right-wing ranters may leave them no choice. Two years ago, MSNBC executives decided to turn the cable news network more opinionated and politically leftward. BusinessInsider.com noted (3/9) that its paying off. MSNBC is up from 341,000 daily viewers in February 2007 to 471,000 in February 2009. The New York Times reported (3/9) that NBC News, which includes the broadcast news division, MSNBC and its website, supplied about 13% of the overall $3.1 bln profit of its parent company, NBC Universal.
LIMBAUGH JOKES ABOUT KENNEDY CANCER. Sen. Ted Kennedy has long been a popular target for conservatives' ire, but since the Massachusetts senator was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, and suffered a seizure on Inauguration Day, Republican attacks have basically ceased, Chris Good noted at Politics.TheAtlantic.com (3/6). Rush Limbaugh didn't get the memo, Steve Benen noted at WashingtonMonthly.com (3/7), as Limbaugh predicted Kennedy would be 6 feet under by the time Congress passed health care reform. "Before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill," Limbaugh sneered on his show (3/6), Michael Saul reported in the New York Daily News (3/7). Brian Wolff, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee denounced the remark as "reprehensible." Republican leaders declined to comment, according to Glenn Thrush of Politico.com (3/6).
From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2009
Subscribe to The Progressive Populist | <urn:uuid:df740704-a784-4d3a-8fde-ffc3ae9ad3a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.populist.com/09.6.dispatches.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954539 | 4,948 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Green sympathy flowers in chartreuse and pale green ÔÇô as well as the addition of foliage ÔÇô signifies renewal and optimism. Soothing green tones represent the cycle of life.
Losing a loved one whether suddenly or after battling a medical condition is never easy. Not only will the family need to start making arrangements for the person's funeral or memorial service, but they'll also need to tell other relatives and friends about the recent passing, which can be difficult on its own. This can leave little time for them to actually grieve, though it's still important for you to send your regards.
Offer your condolences with green flowers
Upon hearing a friend lost a relative, it may be a nice gesture to call the person to offer your condolences and to let him or her know that you are there during his or her time of need. Just hearing your voice and your kind words may be enough to help your friend get through this difficult time. Another way to show your friend and his or her extended family that you are grieving the loss of their relative as well is to send a collection of flowers to their home.
Soothing green condolence bouquets are popular selections to send, flower bouquets can die off after a few weeks so you may opt to have a sympathy plant delivered, the family will remember your kind gesture for months or even years to come. The plant could even help signify the fact that life continues to go on even after a loss. | <urn:uuid:c301dbc2-8aec-41c7-aae1-92b05f827513> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teleflora.com/sympathy-plants/green-funeral-flowers-87_117435c.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972856 | 305 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Corporate Social Responsibility, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Aggressiveness
The Pennsylvania State University
November 20, 2012
2011 American Accounting Association Annual Meeting - Tax Concurrent Sessions
I examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility, tax avoidance, and tax aggressiveness. I find evidence of a general negative relation between CSR and effective tax rates (ETRs). This relationship is driven by socially responsible firms, which have lower ETRs than other firms consistent with greater tax avoidance. Socially responsible firms also have higher unrecognized tax benefits than other firms, consistent with greater tax aggressiveness. The results suggest that firms are not willing to reduce their profits in order to demonstrate social responsibility on a tax dimension, confirming a Friedman (1970) shareholder view of corporate social responsibility in which firms undertake socially responsible actions only when it is profit-maximizing.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 22working papers series
Date posted: August 3, 2011 ; Last revised: January 16, 2013
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This page was processed by apollo8 in 0.688 seconds | <urn:uuid:cfdf116d-cf8a-4cf8-90cb-47807375281e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1904004&rec=1&srcabs=1904002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931086 | 227 | 1.625 | 2 |
Mililani woman recovering from bear attack in Alaska
A Mililani woman was being treated in a Seattle hospital yesterday after she was mauled by a brown bear in southeastern Alaska.
Ann Scheller, a 57-year-old emergency room nurse, suffered head and leg wounds in the attack Sunday in Berg Bay, about 20 miles east of Wrangell.
Scheller, reached by phone in her hospital room yesterday, said she was briefly separated from two friends while on a hike. She suddenly found herself between a female bear and her two cubs, and tried to quietly slip away when the bear attacked.
"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Scheller said. "She sent out the warnings, and I was just trying to move on."
After the attack, Scheller tried to crawl back to a meadow that she and her companions had traversed earlier, but she did not get all the way there and remained in the open for "about an hour" until her friends found her.
Alaska State Troopers said the bears left the area after the attack.
Scheller was mauled on the right lower leg, left thigh and neck. She also suffered fractures of bones in her neck and a fractured frontal sinus.
Scheller, who had been on a sailing trip with friends along the Alaska coast, was flown first to a hospital in the Alaska town of Ketchikan, then to Seattle for further treatment. She was listed in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center.
Doctors have told her she could be ready to return to Hawaii by the weekend following minor surgery, she said.
Scheller had praise for the evacuation and emergency personnel who cared for her and got her to the hospital.
"There was such a wonderful response from all the people. I don't even know their names, but they really should be commended," she said.
Star-Bulletin reporter Dan Martin and the Associated Press contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:7f9a1eb9-028c-48dd-9ce0-32ca266ab75d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/07/07/news/story10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987085 | 407 | 1.648438 | 2 |
COLUMBIA, Tenn. (AP) -- Votes in Columbia and Maury County have rejected a proposal to combine their local governments.
Unofficial returns from Tuesday's referendum showed voters turned down metropolitan government by a wide margin, according to The Daily Herald.
It would have taken a majority "yes" vote both within the city and in the county to unite the governments. But it was rejected by 68 percent of city dwellers and 84 percent of county residents.
Maury County election administrator Todd Baxter said he was surprised that the referendum question didn't spark higher voter participation, but said the turnout was similar to previous primary elections countywide.
Only three counties have metro government -- Nashville-Davidson, Lynchburg-Moore and Hartsville-Trousdale. | <urn:uuid:592607b8-fef5-4314-9eef-fdd1a00382f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.local8now.com/news/state/headlines/Columbia_Maury_County_voters_reject_metro_141768753.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968841 | 157 | 1.625 | 2 |
We should have included a footnote in the title. You can say that [Thomas Polasek] installed a full version of Arch Linux on his Nook Color, but there’s one caveat. It’s running on top of the Android kernel and his proof-of-concept uses a second computer to get it up and running. But there’s potential for that to change moving forward.
Unlike previous attempts to run a Linux distro on Android, this does away with using a VNC to show the desktop. [Thomas] is commandeering Android’s frame buffer so that it can be used by the X desktop without needing to set up display drivers. To start off he installed a ROM based on CM7. A couple of Android apps give him the functionality needed to get the Arch Linux distro running from the SD card. This is accomplished by tunneling into the tablet via SSH, and using the ‘chroot’ command to make it active. The hope is that this can somehow be automated by a script.
A female to female USB coupler was used to connect the keyboard and mouse to the Nook. It looks like LXDE would be useless without them; touch control is not yet implemented. Those shortcomings aside, everything seems to be running pretty fast in the video after the break. | <urn:uuid:fbb74987-32c6-41dc-beda-5f1fa304bfd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2012/04/17/full-linux-distro-on-a-nook-color/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=1a35c759c1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953919 | 271 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Docs Miss Alcohol Abuse -- Almost Always
The study could just as easily have come to the same conclusion about all physicians, not just those in primary care, according to Sam Cullison, MD, a Seattle family physician who's also a specialist in addiction medicine. He agrees that more training in addiction and substance abuse is desirable, but he tells WebMD the study's recommendation that doctors be held liable for missing such a diagnosis a "crazy" attempt at punishing physicians.
Cullison, a clinical associate professor of family medicine in a residency program affiliated with the University of Washington School of Medicine, says that if a patient came in for a sore throat, Cullison wouldn't necessarily ask questions about alcohol or drugs unless there were obvious signs -- such as alcohol on one's breath or a deviated septum from cocaine use. However, substance abuse and addiction questions would come up in detail on an annual physical. | <urn:uuid:29772895-9fd9-40ff-a5a9-658c77b15bef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/alcohol-abuse/news/20000510/docs-miss-alcohol-abuse----almost-always?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968173 | 184 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Asian Dub Foundation formed in 1993 as an outgrowth of the documentary Identical Beat, a film shot at London's Farringdon Community Music House, the site of a series of summer workshops designed to teach Asian children the essentials of music technology. In charge of the workshops were tutor Aniruddha Das and youth worker John Pandit, also a noted DJ; with one of their students, a 15-year-old Bengali rapper named Deedar Zaman, they soon formed a sound system that they called the Asian Dub Foundation. After each adopted an alias -- bassist/tabla player Das became Dr. Das, Pandit became Pandit G, and Zaman became Master D -- they gradually evolved into a working band with the 1994 addition of former Higher Intelligence Agency guitarist Steve Chandra Savale, an innovative performer known for tuning his strings to one note like a sitar, turning up the distortion unit, and playing his instrument with a knife, earning him the nickname "Chandrasonic." Emerging in the midst of considerable anti-Asian violence throughout Britain, the Foundation's early demos landed them a contract with Nation Records, and they recorded their debut EP, Conscious, in 1994.
Channeling influences ranging from punk to ambient music to Bengali folk songs, Asian Dub Foundation quickly gained a strong fan base not only among clubgoers but also among the anti-fascist movement, who applauded the group's vocal stand against racism. After earning a reputation as standout live performers, the Foundation -- who now included dancer Bubble-E and second DJ Sun-J -- won widespread acclaim for the 1995 single "Rebel Warrior." Their first full-length effort, Facts and Fictions, followed later that same year, and in 1998 Asian Dub Foundation returned with Rafi's Revenge. Community Music appeared in mid-2000, followed later that year by another full-length, R.A.F.I. Subsequent Asian Dub Foundation albums have included Enemy of the Enemy (2003) and Tank (2005). ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi | <urn:uuid:abcf7b38-a820-4e0a-86aa-21de893419dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pandora.com/asian-dub-foundation/frontline-rareities-remixes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964459 | 411 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Björk wants to make her Biophilia app, which provides educational multimedia experiences about science and sound, available on platforms in addition to iOS, and she has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the work.
The Biophilia app also forms part of a larger the Biophilia Educational Program for schoolchildren, which is run as a non-profit. The app “create[s] an extraordinary multimedia exploration of the universe and its physical forces, processes and structures — of which music is a part,” according to the app store. It also sells Björk’s music as in-app purchases.
In her Kickstarter pitch, Björk says she wants to expand the program to reach more low-income kids by taking the app to more financially accessible mobile platforms than Apple’s.
“The most interest has come from students from low-income households and schools with underfunded art budgets, and the only way to bring the project to those people is to have Biophilia reprogrammed for Android and Windows [Phone] 8,” Björk wrote on Kickstarter.
The project, hosted in the U.K., hopes to raise just under $600,000 to port the media-rich app to the other operating systems.
Contributors to the project will get unique Kickstarter Björk swag and credits within the app. Those who contribute £650 will receive tickets to one of the educational program’s residency shows and “an invitation to post-show drinks with musicians (Björk appearance not guaranteed).” | <urn:uuid:6fe26767-5661-41a4-82bd-f6a7a5aa1b5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialtimes.com/bjork-takes-to-kickstarter-to-fund-educational-apps-for-android-and-windows_b117575 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953111 | 325 | 1.625 | 2 |
NO member of Sinn Fein makes a public statement on anything until the contents of the statement have been approved by the relevant figure in the leadership.
In just the same way that Declan Kearney’s recent articles and interviews about the ‘reconciliation project’ have been rubber-stamped, then so too will Phil Flanagan’s objections to the new ‘Welcome to Northern Ireland’ signs.
Actually, I understand Sinn Fein’s objections to the presence of the signs.
A sign saying ‘Welcome to Northern Ireland’ tells you five very specific things: there is a border dividing Ireland into two parts; one part remains firmly anchored to the United Kingdom; a pro-Union minister will have authorised the erection of the signs; republicans have failed (yet again!) in their latest campaign to unite Ireland; and, there are significant legal, political, constitutional, currency and governance differences between the Republic and Northern Ireland. Let’s face it, it’s no wonder the signs annoy them!
But their objection to the signs also tells you something else. How can they be sincere about reconciliation with unionists in Northern Ireland when they can barely admit to themselves that Northern Ireland still exists? What is so wrong about a sign alerting tourists to the fact that they have just entered Northern Ireland and that there are important differences in currency and measurements? Tourists like to know they are in different countries; it is, after all, part of the fun and purpose of being a tourist!
Sinn Fein’s response strikes me as mean-spirited and petty. Indeed, if they feel so strongly about anything which indicates a difference between the two jurisdictions then why don’t they object to the signs directing drivers to currency exchanges; or the signs indicating that speed is measured in different ways? No, their objections are, as always, based on the self-serving mantra about the ‘negative impact of partition on a daily basis and ... the unnatural division of Ireland’. Their objection boils down to just one thing: they don’t like to see ‘Northern Ireland’ anywhere.
Come the next triggering of d’Hondt maybe Sinn Fein should take the DRD ministry and erect huge signs saying: “Until such times as the glorious revolution succeeds and brings ultimate liberty to Ireland by removing the hated oppressor, then we apologise for the arbitrary and spiteful division of our land by those who still seek to humiliate and harry us. Enjoy your stay in this unnatural enclave. Welcome to the un-free six counties.”
Okay, I’m only half joking: but I am deadly serious when I say that Sinn Fein has no interest whatsoever in reconciliation with unionists and no intention of doing anything that promotes Northern Ireland as Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell has spent the past couple of days proving how utterly, utterly delusional he has become. The News Letter’s political correspondent Sam McBride provided him with the platform of a major interview to set out how he sees the role and relevance of the SDLP. It was a very good opportunity for McDonnell to promote his party to a unionist audience and maybe even suggest ways in which the SDLP and elements of unionism (particularly the UUP) could find common cause.
But no! He chose to lay into Sinn Fein, accusing them of a ‘Soviet-style’ approach to leadership and organisation and further accusing them of moving a ‘lot of their military people into council and MLA positions’. Maybe so, but it was the SDLP who spent years in secret talks with Sinn Fein and who assisted them to set up a pan-nationalist front whose only purpose was to undermine, demoralise and outflank unionism.
It was the SDLP who used to argue that it would be better to have the IRA in government than engaged in terror. And it was the SDLP who refused to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with David Trimble at key periods between 1998 and 2003 when he was trying to put pressure on Sinn Fein/IRA to move on decommissioning.
Dr McDonnell also spent a great deal of time complaining about how the SDLP’s only minister is routinely bullied by the DUP and Sinn Fein: “They put a gun to Alex’s (Attwood) head and said, if you don’t implement this we’ll marginalise you, we’ll strip it off you. We cannot allow the DUP and SF to collude to basically put the public interest down the list.”
That’s all true and the only logical response would have been for Dr McDonnell to indicate a willingness to leave the Executive. Not a bit of it: “We are where we are. I mean I don’t think you can take it in isolation. The SDLP is working.”
What!? Does he really believe that being routinely bullied and ignored while his party spirals downwards in the polls is an indication that the SDLP is working?
Then, for good measure, he also attacks unionists for not really being sincere about power-sharing and only doing it because they have been forced into it.
He seems to have forgotten that the UUP’s governing council supported power-sharing with the SDLP in the autumn of 1972 and did so at a time when the SDLP was regarded as an old-fashioned republican party.
And he seems to have forgotten that the UUP backed Faulkner’s original proposal to create power sharing.
Most important of all, he has clearly forgotten that it was the SDLP’s refusal to compromise on a Council of Ireland which scuppered Faulkner and brought the whole thing crashing down within a matter of months.
When Seamus Mallon described the Good Friday Agreement as ‘Sunningdale for slow learners,’ he was right. But it was the SDLP who were the slow learners, because the GFA turned out to be very much worse for them than for unionism. Had they helped Faulkner in 1973/4 it’s possible that Sinn Fein would not now be the lead party of nationalism.
Anyway, not one word of what Dr McDonnell said in the interview suggested that he has a recovery plan for the SDLP. His position can be summed up thus: Sinn Fein bad. Sinn Fein/DUP carve-up bad. Unionists not sincere about power-sharing (by which he means they are sectarian).
But never mind – ‘the SDLP is working’. I’m surprised he doesn’t want to work with the UUP, because he would be very comfortable with a party that has an almost identical grasp on political/electoral realities!
What all of this suggests is that neither Sinn Fein nor the SDLP has come to terms with the fact that Northern Ireland is here and here to stay.
Begging the question: is ‘slow learning’ one of the fixed points of republicanism/nationalism?
Follow Alex every day on Twitter@AlexKane221b | <urn:uuid:37464b78-b729-42e6-a28e-2b17c318f119> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/alex-kane-slow-learners-getting-left-behind-1-4157340 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966918 | 1,479 | 1.578125 | 2 |
On the plate, in the world'
Our philosophy in the kitchen is based on a dynamic tradition: a tradition that reworks and reassembles elements, progressing on a track of research and enhancement of the territory, its products and its food culture. An authentic research, attentive to the seasonality of the products, which, in the course of time, has led us to cooperate with people and realities working to preserve the genuineness of the products. Beside the traditional and local enthusiasm upon which we have formed the basis of our cooking, the echos of ingredients and scents from the world often come to be part of our dishes, extending the tradition, enriching its palette of flavors.
Our identity, indeed, is the one of artisans, not traders, who reinterpret the tradition through the experience and their own hands.
Quality and experience: for over a decade, these features have made us rated in the best wine and food guides and, recently, in the most authoritative blogs on food. | <urn:uuid:68dbc9c5-4039-496d-a18e-c5ec0b172828> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soramariaearcangelo.com/index.php/eng/The-Restaurant/Our-Cuisine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961223 | 206 | 1.507813 | 2 |
It’s an idea that many people do, and this far from original. It will explain a bit of my thinking and influences, though, and hopefully give you something else to read.
Every Sunday, I will post 6 links and 1 photo of things i’ve found interesting this week. If you follow me on Twitter then you’ll probably see the favourites when I click the star on Google Reader, retweets as I retweet them, or favourites if you post it.
So, for the week ending 8/7/12
Adam Westbrook explains his 6 steps to making a video interesting, which should be required reading for all video journalists or producers creating video for their websites.
The Guardian takes a look at the 10 top tips they believe will help you get the most from shooting summer events. They include advice on thinking which kit to take, and checking the weather. Simple, but needed.
Paul Bradshaw taught me many things about data journalism when on the City University MA Interactive Journalism course, and here he is teaching everyone else. It’s released next week, so sign up, and read it if you think you can find a use for it in your newsroom (clue: you can)
An important series of papers about open justice were launched this week from City University. They say:
The new collection of working papers is part of a wider project encouraging ‘Open Justice in the Digital Era‘. The issues are extensive and diverse: the recommendations of the government’s ‘secret justice’ green paper, now the Justice & Security bill, which would see more cases behind closed doors; the decline in local and national court reporting as a result of cuts in journalism; the courts’ barriers to entry due to ill-informed staff; and the difficulties in obtaining free legal information.
In the first section on the tradition and context of open justice, Geoffrey Robertson QC, the keynote speaker at the event, sets out the history of the principle and argues that the government’s Justice and Security recommendations are simply not compatible.
The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, examines the way in which open justice is important and underpins our society amongst others.
Martin Belam, Lead UX & Information Architect at The Guardian, details what Neal Mann (@fieldproducer, who recently left Sky News) and Simon Rogers (Editor of the Guardian Datastore) think are the ways technology has changed how they work as journalists.
Data Driven Journalism introduces us to new mapping tool, CartoDB. They say users “have more freedom to customise their data, for example they can choose how much data is displayed and how it is shown.”
It aims to give journalists the right tools to work with journalism every day – but with Google Fusion Tables already very easy to use, will it make a difference?
And the final part, one photograph from the archives. I use my archives on Flickr.com mainly, so browse there for interesting stuff I’ve taken in the past.
From 2008, but could as well as have been from this week.
I hope you enjoyed this weeks look back. | <urn:uuid:021337fb-3614-4458-b20b-4a36fc050bee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.andrewwgstuart.com/2012/07/08/6-of-the-week-and-1-from-the-past-8712/ | 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 | 0.936773 | 651 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Without dissent, a legislative committee has approved a plan by the Colorado River Commission (CRC) to sell its low-cost hydropower to other users in Southern Nevada in the future.
Under a 2011 federal law, the commission would sell 95 percent of the power from Hoover and other dams on the Colorado River to its present customers for 50 years. But 5 percent would now be set aside for new customers.
Under Nevada law, the CRC cannot serve new customers without coming under the jurisdiction of the state Public Utilities Commission.
The Legislative Commission on Public Lands unanimously agreed Friday to introduce a bill in the 2013 Legislative to allow the CRC to serve the additional customers without submitting an application and getting approval from its sister agency.
Jayne Harkins, executive director of the CRC, said typically the hydropower is one-half to two-thirds cheaper than the rates charged. The commission will have a public process for new potential customers to follow, she said.
The commission will set the standards and then make the allocation, probably in 2014, of the 11 megawatts that must be set aside.
Some of the current customers that receive the low-cost hydropower are NV Energy, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Basic Water Company, Boulder City, Tronox, Timet, Lincoln County Power District and the Overton Power District.
Harkins also said the Western Area Power Administration, a federal agency, will have 50 megawatts to sell among three western states, including Nevada.
The CRC want to see what Nevada entities get part of the federal share before making its allocations, Harkins said | <urn:uuid:7634ebba-6035-4dfb-883d-9395317e282c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/aug/25/plan-developed-allow-colorado-river-commission-sel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946954 | 342 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Nowhere To Go
Each winter, cold-and-wet weather conditions threaten the lives of the approximately 1,000 homeless men and women who live on Sacramento-area streets. With county budget cuts forcing a decrease in Winter Shelter funding, the situation continues to worsen.
A New ‘Sanctuary’
Hope for the homeless came in late 2010, when a rotating network of more than 20 interfaith congregations – under the leadership of Volunteers of America and Sacramento Steps Forward – began offering meals, shelter and fellowship as part of a new component to the Winter Shelter initiative.
While the program’s first two parts were designed to house homeless families, people with disabilities, and seniors via motel vouchers and county-funded shelter beds, the goal of the privately funded “Winter Sanctuary” was to help single adult men and women who all-too-frequently fall through the cracks of society’s foundation.
A True Success Story
Thanks to start-up funding provided by Sierra Health Foundation, Volunteers of America and Sacramento Steps Forward launched Winter Sanctuary on Dec. 1, 2010.
When the program ended its 129-day season on March 31, 2011, 24 interfaith congregations and 2,000 of their volunteers had hosted more than 545 people (370 men; 175 women). Some of these individuals spent one night, some became familiar faces to the volunteers who would greet them by name.
The community as a whole also showed its generosity, with some 80 individuals and 25 businesses and civic associations making donations.
Beyond the numbers, the inaugural season of the Winter Sanctuary program touched hearts and inspired souls.
“Winter Sanctuary was one of the very best outreach events that Arcade Church has been involved with in years,” said Pastor Dann Bryant. “We didn’t know what to expect, and we were pleasantly surprised. It truly far exceeded my expectations. It was just a great blessing for the volunteers who participated, and for the people it was administered to.”
(To view an Animoto slideshow of 2010-11 Winter Sanctuary volunteers in action, click here
How Winter Sanctuary Works
Each afternoon this winter season, Volunteers of America shuttle buses will pick up as many as 100 men and women who have been screened by Winter Sanctuary representatives at the Loaves & Fishes staging area in downtown Sacramento. (All guests sign a contract pledging “no drugs, no alcohol and no violence.”) The shuttles then take the guests to that day’s designated host site.
While the guests (who are given sleeping bags by program staff during the registration process) settle in, volunteers prepare a hot and nutritious dinner which their congregation has graciously funded.
During the inaugural Winter Sanctuary season, it wasn’t unusual for see volunteers further interact with their guests, playing board games, showing movies, giving haircuts and engaging in conversation and Bible studies.
Overnight staff, provided by Volunteers of America, ensure a safe and restful night’s sleep for all. In the morning, congregation volunteers prepare and serve breakfast before the shuttles return the guests to Loaves & Fishes.
You Can Make a Difference
Thanks to a $75,000 contribution by Wells Fargo announced Dec. 13, 2011
, the budget shortfall that threatened the continued operation of Winter Sanctuary 2011-12 was filled.
However, hosting spots are still open. If your congregation is interested in hosting homeless guests this winter, please contact: Shannon Stevens, Sacramento Steps Forward, at (916) 557-9772, or email@example.com
Participating houses of worship/faith-based organizations (2011-12)
- Arcade Church
- Capital Christian Center
- First Baptist Church of Elk Grove
- First Covenant Church of Sacramento
- Mars Hill Church
- New Life Community Church
- Restoration Life
- The Rock of Roseville
- Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church
- St. Luke’s Lutheran Church
- St. Mark’s United Methodist Church
- St. Paul Baptist Church
- St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
- Sun River Church
- This Is Pentecost Fellowship Ministries
- Trinity Life Center
- Westminster Presbyterian Church | <urn:uuid:2ef1a004-d767-4a8e-8803-9b7c93acda96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voa-sac.org/Our-Services/Greater-Sacramento-Services/Homeless-services/SAC-Homeless-Shelters/Winter-Sanctuary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94735 | 874 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Components of STEP Research
In addition to treating patients, STEP is committed to conducting research that will assist in our understanding of the best ways, both clinically and financially, to treat young people in the early stages of a psychotic episode. We are particularly interested in gauging the value of early intervention. Our research efforts involve:
- Compensated yearly diagnostic reviews and evaluations of symptoms and functioning
- Compensated six-month evaluations of symptoms and functioning
- Evaluating outcomes of patients receiving treatment in the clinic as compared to those receiving treatment in the community
- Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of early intervention in a U.S. public mental health center. | <urn:uuid:eda649e3-91ee-4db1-8703-55d5c103a07e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/step/stepcare/research.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939394 | 136 | 1.789063 | 2 |
5 Apr 2012
With summer fast approaching there are a bunch of things to think about and plan ahead for. Where do you want to go? What trips do you want to take? What activities do you have in mind? What kinds of things do you want to do? What kind of job do you want? What are some things you need to prepare for summer? The O.C.D Experience has come up with several important themes to get your mind running on summer planning and organization.
Summertime is great chance to travel and visit family, friends, and new and exciting places. There are several inexpensive, alternative ways you can reach your destination with out paying the hefty prices traveling by plane can bring. The O.C.D. Experience loves traveling by train because it saves money, has a flexible schedule, it’s comfortable and relaxing, has room for more baggage, and it’s a trip within itself! Amtrak has really great routes that travel all over and across the country, like the Empire Builder. What is so great about these Amtrak routes is that they run daily and you can hop on and off whenever and wherever you’d like. Click here for more information on the routes Amtrak has to offer. Once you book your trip, we recommend you use Tripit to help you organize your travel plans. You can get more facts about Tripit and what the O.C.D. Experience has to say about this great organizer here. Have fun planning your trip!
Here is a summer DIY activity that the O.C.D. Experience and O.C.D. Events thinks would be fun for everyone! Get a pair of white canvas sneakers, acrylic paint, and a few different sized paint brushes. Paint your favorite designs and symbols and create your own, unique pair of sneakers made especially by you and for you! This DIY activity is great for people of all ages: a crafty play date for kids and an original way to show off artistic talent for teenagers and young adults.
With the school year fast approaching, it’s time to think about what kind of internship you want for the summer. If your’re a teenager or young adult, here are some tips the O.C.D. Experience has for you: First, think about what you’re interested in and what you want to learn more about. Second, pursue your interests and research places, people, and companies that align with the things you are passionate about. Third, network. Get in touch with the contacts you want to work with and take advantage of your resources. Use your High School and College Career Services to help you find contacts and get in touch with Alumni. Internships are a great opportunity to gain experience in the field of your interests and sometimes even secure a job right out of college.
With the beautiful weather summertime brings it’s hard to resist taking advantage of it. There are a bunch of things you can do to exercise while your outdoors: run, walk, hike, bike swim, kayak, the list goes on and on! In order to motivate yourself to go outside, the O.C.D. Experience recommends that before you begin your workout you should: update your playlist so you have fresh new beats to listen to while you’re on the go, eat a small snack like a handful of almonds to give yourself a boost of energy, and use MapmyRUN to help you keep track of your exercise routine.
These planning tips will help you organize your thoughts so when summertime finally approaches you will already have these things organized and planned out! | <urn:uuid:8ec12be5-5a88-4c8e-a3cf-69c695c12f38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocdexperience.com/blog/tag/planning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954768 | 736 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Complete Relief in As Little As 12 Hours! Rid Your Yeast Infection Permanently - Or Your Money Back!
Yeast infection is something that appears to be very common these days and most people that live all around us, primarily women, surely have had yeast infection at one point of their lives or the other. There are many home-made remedies which one can find as a cure to yeast infection and being home remedies these are pretty easy to prepare. It is very important to deal with yeast infection because allowing yeast to build colonies within the body can be a really dangerous thing.
Yogurt, which can be used for both internal and external usage makes for a very good home remedy that helps to cure vaginal yeast infection. It is very important, however, for a person to buy unsweetened as well as plain yogurt because sweetened yogurt can reverse the effects as yeast thrives on sugar. One can make yogurt at home for sure and this can be taken before the meals each day which helps in the production of good bacteria within the digestive system and thus keeps the yeast under control. One can also dip a tampon into the liquid and apply it inside and outside the vagina for better results.
Diluted tree tea oil, when applied within the vagina, works like a charm to cure yeast infection. But it is very important to understand that pure and strong tree tea oil can not be applied around the vaginal area.
Probiotics are basically micro-organisms that live naturally within the digestive tract and help to keep a control over the harmful growths and over-growths like yeast infection. Probiotic supplements are easily available and are suggested to most women by their physicians as a home remedy which can be used to cure Candida or vaginal yeast infection.
Apple Cider Vinegar is another of the home remedies very popular as a cure to yeast infection and this is never to be applied raw being very strong. Adding a cup of this liquid into the bath water and then taking a nice bath is the best, painless and effective way to apply Apple Cider Vinegar.
If one is looking for instant and fast relief then it is garlic that one ought to opt for as most women who have tried out inserting garlic tabs in the vagina have given positive reviews of the remedy.
A very powerful and affective herb that works wonderfully against yeast infection is the Oil of Oregano. It is to be taken internally and it is important that the oil has a high carvacrol concentration which is the key ingredient used against yeast infection.
Drinking lots of water would make a person to urinate more often and this will help to flush out the yeast infections from within the vaginal region and as for the few men who get the infection urinating often will help to make the penile tract yeast free.
As Potassium Sorbate is an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial agent it is used to cure vaginal yeast infections and all that one will need to prepare this home remedy is one tablespoon of this product mixed in a cup of pure water. A tampon syringe is to be used while applying the product within the vagina.
For men who suffer from yeast infections cranberries are often suggested as a remedy and even for the women cranberries are really effective as it helps to balance the pH level in the vagina. And another very popular remedy is gentian violet but one ought to know about the possible side-effects of it beforehand, like allergies which one can get after usage. It is very important to consult a doctor to try and find out if you have yeast infection as if uncared for in time the infection can lead to very bad health conditions. | <urn:uuid:731f4ded-6b82-44fc-880a-64613777416e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yeastinfectionbegone.com/yeast-infection-treatment/remedies-for-yeast-infection.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973246 | 746 | 1.5 | 2 |
Gardener's , like everyone else, live second by second and minute by minute. What we see at one particular moment is then and there before us. But there is a second way of seeing. Seeing with the eye of memory, not the eye of our anatomy, calls up days and seasons past and years gone by.
Source: The Gardener's Eye, 1992, p. 16
Contributed by: Zaady | <urn:uuid:2f0478ad-c64e-4f48-8d71-a6cc1b7cf50a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/topics/past?page=45 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938005 | 87 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Help make parent-teacher conference constructive. Credit: Getty Images We all think our ...We know you think your little angel is perfect, but if you try to see things from his teacher's perspective, it will make the oft-dreaded parent-teacher meetings much more constructive. | <urn:uuid:1dd7c915-709c-4599-8160-8d0c696ff773> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentdish.com/category/education-tweens/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940989 | 443 | 1.617188 | 2 |
By Hannah Nicholas,
MSN NZ Money writer
Auctions are as popular as ever and to be successful at one and win your dream property, you have to know what's involved and importantly, how to play the game. We'll get you started.
Get to know the process
Before you bid at auction you really need to know what happens during one. The best way to get to know how auctions work is to gain experience.
Attend as many auctions as you can to get a feel for how they run and how the agents and bidders play the game. This will help to build up your confidence before it's your turn to become part of the action.
Tip: If you know who the auctioneers are going to be for a particular property you'll be bidding on, attend other auctions they are conducting to gain a feel for their style.
Sort out your finances and other matters
Speak to your lender before the auction day to organise your finances. You must able to proceed with the sale if you're the winning bidder.
Have your solicitor go over the sales contract and any other legal documents. If you want to change any of the conditions in the contract of sale, such as the settlement time, you must request this before the auction.
Tip: Be sure do all your pre-purchase research such as building, pest and LIM reports before the auction. You need to be satisfied with all aspects of the property before you bid.
Set your limit
You should always come to an auction with a set budget in mind and be sure to stick to it. Never give your limit away to an agent or give any indication of what you think the property is worth. Do your research and figure out what you believe you should pay for the property.
Tip: Set your limit just above a rounded number say $653,000 instead of $650,000 as most bidders will round a figure off.
How you plan on bidding is up to you and something you need to give thought to. Do you want to come in strong on the day and show others its game on? Or do you intend to sit back and play the waiting game? Everyone will have different opinions and strategies on the best way to tackle auctions but whatever you decide make sure it's something you're comfortable with.
Tip: You will face pressure on the day from the selling agent so have tactics in place to overcome this.
When a property doesn't sell
If you're the highest bidder and the property's passed in, do you know where to go from here? You'll have to be prepared to negotiate and stick to your budget. If you're not the highest bidder, let the agent know you're interested too as you may still be in with a chance.
Other top tips
- Always let the real estate agent know you're interested in a property (without given away a figure). This is called "registering your interest" and means the agent must let you know if any pre-auction offers are made.
- Consider a pre-auction offer if you think you are in with a chance.
- Ask the agent how many building reports etc have been conducted so you can gain an idea of how many parties may be bidding on the day.
- Remember there's no cooling off period. You must do all your pre-auction checks beforehand and have your deposit ready on the day (usually 10 percent of the purchase price).
- Arrive at the auction will plenty of time to spare and take someone along with you for support.
- Lastly, remember to always stick to your limit. Don't get carried away by the pressure and your emotions on the day. There are other houses out there. | <urn:uuid:2c493f1c-c9f3-4183-8886-e0932152d143> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.msn.co.nz/homeloancentre/8208763/how-to-win-at-auction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964925 | 759 | 1.625 | 2 |
Facebook ban in Pakistan is shocking, says Bytes For All
Por Bytes For All para APCNews
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, 25 May 2010
Pakistanis woke up on Thursday, May 20 to find sites like Facebook and YouTube blocked after a government crackdown on “blasphemous” websites. APC member Bytes For All issued the following statement through APC:
APC member Bytes For All and its members are shocked at the blanket ban exercised on Facebook in Pakistan. With the ongoing campaign of Muslim Facebook users against “Draw Mohammed Day”, a campaign urging Facebookers to sarcastically draw the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the Lahore High Court today ordered Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block Facebook in Pakistani cyberspace until the next hearing of the case, scheduled on May 31 2010.
We consider this blanket ban of the website unnecessary, based on wrongful accusations, against civil liberties and it will further instigate hatred among international Muslim and non-Muslim communities.
We believe that the court was misinformed by the lawyers or supporting technical persons that the specific URL block is not possible, and as a result the entire site is blocked because of a single hate-speech page.
Responding to this as quoted in Dawn Newspaper, Mr. Wahaj-us-Siraj, Convener of Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan said “basically, our judges aren’t technically sound. They have just ordered it, but it should have been done in a better way than by just blocking a particular URL or link.”
“Blocking the entire website would anger users, especially youth and adults, because the social networking website is so popular among them and they spend most of their time on it.”
Ms. Nighat Dad, Advocate High Court and renown women’s rights advocate said “the petitioners [those who took the banning of Facebook to the Court] have in fact imputed Facebook for such “blasphemous” reporting, as they have no expertise/know-how in relation to the use of information technology, and especially using internet. Therefore, the Court may have been misled by the main petitioner, and as a result, the court order may have extensive negative effects related to internet governance in Pakistan.
Facebook is extremely popular among internet users in Pakistan. The court was told today that there are about 4.3 million Facebook users in Pakistan. However, as per http://www.checkfacebook.com/ the total number of Pakistani users is around 2.35 million. According to Alexa.com, it is third most accessed website from Pakistan.
Bytes For All is also shocked about the argument given in the court on May 20 – that since China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates blocked Facebook, Pakistan should also do the same. We believe that Pakistan, as a democratic country, is different to the mentioned dictatorial regimes. These countries block Facebook in order to prevent social mobilisation against dictators for democracy.
Sana Saleem, a young blogger from Karachi who writes for Global Voices also said “the ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ campaign appears to be nothing more than a desperate attempt to incite and provoke Muslims – let’s not give them the satisfaction.”
On the blanket ban of the Facebook, Sana said “the ban has left me dumbfounded. I mean the Country’s high court has chosen to overlook a thousand piled up cases and react to a campaign on a social networking site? Truly ironic. This whole mess has only added more fuel to the fire and has given the campaign a publicity boost.”
Dr. Awab Alvi, the most famous political blogger in Pakistan said “why should the people of Pakistan suffer for an action committed elsewhere, it may have better been to order a Pakistani lawyer to represent the people of Pakistan, filing a lawsuit in the jurisdiction of Facebook and accusing them of having violated their own terms of service listed on their own website. It may have taught them a lesson not to repeat such a mistake again. Little good this ban shall do now in Pakistan.”
In a twitter message from abroad, Jehan Ara, President P@SHA said “it’s ridiculous to ban Facebook. Who does it hurt but us? Suddenly Pakistanis have lost use of a social networking tool. When will sense prevail?”
Worried about possible violent clashes on the issue in the country, Fariha Akhtar, an IT Professional, Take Back the Tech! campaigner and women rights activist said “I consider blocking Facebook as a protest to a religious hatred group similar to burying your head in the sand. I want to join the Facebook group to “Honour the Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W)” and to record a peaceful protest to that hatred group but I cannot. The solution to the problem is not in turning your eyes away from the problem but in facing it head on and figuring out ways to SOLVE it so that it does not happen again. While I’m an advocate of freedom of expression, I also believe in respecting others’ beliefs and do not approve of violence of any kind, be it Holocaust or continuous attacks on the character of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Websites like Facebook should follow their policies that do not allow any sort of racism and should immediately delete all sorts of hatred groups. Furthermore, I appeal anti-violence activists from across the world to reject all forms of hate speech that can result in extreme violence.”
Due to media frenzy, the situation in the country on this issue is getting increasingly heated with the passage of time. Local media is further hyping things up based solely on emotional grounds, without understanding the actual dynamics of the Facebook Ban. We have yet to witness rational discussion on this issue.
It is very unfortunate that a few of the civil rights activists against this ban have already gotten death threats or are being accused of blasphemy.
Adding more fuel to the fire, different religious leaders have called for the government to order total ban on diplomatic, social and economic relations with the West. Without understanding the core issue, different religious political parties have moved their youth wings in colleges and universities to demonstrate against Facebook, which can result in violent clashes and loss of life and property as was witnessed during Danish caricatures saga.
The Facebook ban also impacted Google search engine, which was temporarily blocked, as well as Wikipedia. The popular video streaming site, Youtube, is now also inaccessible from the country. Other services like Blackberry that were also blocked are now slowly coming back, however cell phone bandwidth also blocks Facebook and Youtube.
While we stand for civil liberties and open net in the country, Pakistani internet users are the ones who suffer, while hate speech mongers and extremist on both sides continue to gain more ground. Let’s hope that sanity prevails in the long run!
PTA’s Orders to Block Facebook
Express Tribune: Access denied: PTA blocks Facebook
Dawn Newspaper: LHC orders ban on Facebook over caricatures
This image and others from “Sabeen Mahmud”:http://www.bitsonline.net/beanz/?p=314 | <urn:uuid:c3e6d12f-bf27-4d41-a143-b5aa53694a30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apc.org/es/node/10440 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94932 | 1,490 | 1.664063 | 2 |
)nly in Japan, where something as mundane as making tea can be elevated to an elaborate ritual, would bartenders spend years of apprenticeship carving ice cubes into ice spheres. It’s not a particularly difficult skill to master, but you may well be wondering why anyone would bother. Well, spheres look great, for starters, but it’s also true that they have less surface area than cubes, so they melt more slowly, keeping your drink from premature dilution. Now you can wow your guests without risking frostbite. Taisin, a Japanese company (of course), makes a device that uses heat and gravity to convert an ice cube into a perfect orb (japantrendshop.com; from $170). But if you don’t mind a little wabi (imperfection), The Museum of Modern Art (momastore.org) sells an ice mold that works surprisingly well (see photo above). And it’s only $16. That’s how much two Gläce Luxury Ice spheres (glace-ice.com) will set you back, shipping not included. | <urn:uuid:5d7c4be2-f67b-4757-9278-9c7e35725c7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/07/spherical-ice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932323 | 231 | 1.71875 | 2 |
By Jason Menard
Free speech comes with a cost – personal responsibility. The repeal of a California law banning the sale and rental of violent games to minors puts the responsibility for parenting right where it should lie – with the parents.
Unfortunately for many kids that’s not exactly a comforting thought.
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law by a 7-2 vote. The Court said the law, which also would impose strict labelling requirements, was unconstitutional, as video games should have the same free-speech protection as books, movies, and plays.
It’s a victory for free speech and a victory for personal responsibility. Unfortunately, my experience has been that monitoring their children’s media-consumption habits isn’t something that all parents take seriously enough.
We may be Draconian in our house – our teenager thinks so, at least. But we believe in limits. We decide what media is consumed in our house, which movies are watched, and what games are played. There have always been certain musicians and songs that were off limits. There are movies and games that mom and dad can play, that our 16-year-old can’t. And if he defies those rules, there are consequences.
Censorship? Not at all. We’re not banning this content for life; it’s just that we didn’t feel it was appropriate for a five-year-old boy to be listening to Eminem, or a 13-year-old boy to be playing Grand Theft Auto. And we, as adults, consume this media ourselves. I’ve played and enjoyed games like GTA, God of War, and the like – but I wouldn’t allow either of my kids to do the same at this point in their development. I don’t believe that any media is inherently bad, but that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all from the minute they can pick up a remote.
Nor do I believe that TV, movies, and video games turn normal kids into degenerates and killers. If you’re sick enough to choose to rape, assault, or murder someone, then there’s already something wrong with you. A game is no more of a catalyst than watching CNN. It’s an easy — and wrong — answer to a complex question.
It’s not easy for parents like us. We’ve met too many kids who have been raised in environments contrary to the one we’re trying to establish. One of his friends, at five, was listening to Eminem. His parents, for whom English was a daily challenge, didn’t understand the lyrics and saw no issue with the music. Friends who were younger than him were playing games that were in no way appropriate for their age. We disagreed with those parents and held fast to our rules. But how do you explain to a five-year-old that he can’t do what his friends are doing?
In the end, it’s not about explanation. His friends can watch horror films like Saw? Good for them. Not in our house. We take the time to monitor what our kids watch, do on-line, and play. We explain our decisions, listen to arguments, and – in the end – make a final decision. Too many parents don’t believe they have the final authority. That may be true – if you give it away.
At 16, the restrictions have loosened, but not as far as he’d like. Certain games are still off limits. Mature means just that – and we’ve determined that he’s not ready. Can we stop everything? No, of course not. And kids will find a way to circumvent their parents’ wishes.
However, it’s not up to us to throw up our hands and give in. Drinking, drugs, violent media? Save for locking him up, we can’t prevent his exposure to these things. But we can make damn sure he knows where we stand.
In the end, he’s made – and likely will continue to make – bad choices. Those choices come with consequences. Whether or not we’re supported by other parents, the school system, or other authority figures is of no concern to us. Parenting isn’t about consensus; it’s about doing what’s best for your child.
Our nine-year-old daughter still self-regulates. She’s well aware of what we consider inappropriate and actively refuses to watch things that cross those lines. We’re under no false belief that will continue. Eventually, she’ll want to test the boundaries. But nowhere does it say that parents have to take the path of least resistance.
We’re not the ultimate parenting authority in general, but we are when it comes to our kids. Just because kids can buy sex-and-violence-filled games in California doesn’t mean that they should. However, that decision is not one for the courts. That ultimate responsibility lies with the parents.
Hopefully more of them will take that responsibility seriously. After all, raising kids is no game. | <urn:uuid:e35353f3-a6ef-4241-ba2e-9e0e3a4927fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jaymenard.com/2011/06/27/california-gaming-law-puts-rules-squarely-in-parents%E2%80%99-hands/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969153 | 1,092 | 1.8125 | 2 |
By DAVID B. CARUSO | AP
NEW YORK (AP) -- A group of rabbis are clashing with New York City health officials over the safety of an ancient circumcision ritual.
Three rabbis and three Jewish groups sued the city Thursday in an attempt to block enforcement of a new regulation requiring written parental consent for the rite, which health experts say spreads infection and has killed two children since 2004.
During the ritual, the person performing the circumcision attempts to cleanse the wound by sucking blood from the cut and spitting it aside.
New York City's Health Department says the saliva contact could give the infant Herpes simplex, a virus that is harmless in adults but can be deadly in newborns.
The ultra-Orthodox rabbis in the suit say the city has exaggerated the danger and infringed on their religious freedom. | <urn:uuid:d57ca143-6d91-4e80-8f7f-cf5014b6ada9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/19798726/nyc-rabbis-clash-over-circumcision-ritual | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936608 | 172 | 1.546875 | 2 |
According to U.S. Census Bureau figures, U.S. soybean farmers exported more than 1.8 billion bushels of U.S. soy during the 2011-2012 marketing year, compared with approximately 2 billion bushels in 2010-2011. The 2012 export numbers include 1.3 billion bushels of whole soybeans, meal from more than 404 million bushels of soybeans and the oil from 126.5 million bushels of soybeans. U.S. soy exports this year are valued at more than $23 billion.
U.S. farmers harvested 3.05 billion bushels of soybeans last year, so these exports represent about 55 percent of that production. Soy customers in China, the largest importer, bought almost 850 million bushels of whole soybeans, or more than one out of every four rows U.S. farmers grew.
"Our customers' main concern has been whether we were going to be a reliable supplier," says Sharon Covert, soybean farmer from Tiskilwa, Ill., who leads USB's International Marketing program. "The checkoff continues to assure them that while we may not have as many bushels per acre, we are a reliable supplier of high-quality soybeans."
Throughout the year, the soy checkoff remains in contact with international customers to discuss many soy industry issues, such as quality and current crop conditions. These conversations proved to be especially important with this summer's conditions.
Covert adds that it is important for customers of U.S. soy to know that farmers provide this supply of soy in a sustainable manner. The production practices farmers use, such as no-till or low-till, are not only important to many soy buyers but also help soil retain water in dry years such as this past production year.
Top buyers of whole U.S. soybeans include:
• China: 848.7 million bushels
• Mexico: 122.1 million bushels
• Japan: 66.3 million bushels
• Indonesia: 65.1 million bushels
• Egypt: 43.1 million bushels
• Taiwan: 38.7 million bushels
Top buyers of U.S. soy meal include:
• Mexico: meal from 67.6 million bushels of soybeans
• Philippines: meal from 53.1 million bushels of soybeans
• Canada: meal from 50.4 million bushels of soybeans
Top buyers of U.S. soy oil include:
• Morocco: oil from 30.4 million bushels of soybeans
• Mexico: oil from 28.8 million bushels of soybeans
• China: oil from 20.2 million bushels of soybeans | <urn:uuid:f8a67caa-5848-45b5-b5a7-8f7177768903> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geneseorepublic.com/article/20130117/BLOGS/130109386/1665/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94301 | 576 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Healthy Cooking - Kitchen Preparation For Fat
am going to take you around the kitchen real quick and show you
some handy appliances and kitchenware that can get you through those
tough times with your meal preparation. First off, as you see in
my kitchen I have a little mini food processor. A food processor
can be very beneficial for making different things like hummus and
when you are finely cutting up vegetables for different recipes
like soups and chillies. Even if you are trying to make a healthy
dessert and you are trying to mix up some dried fruit or make some
banana puree, using a food processor is perfect for things like
that. It can be a pretty handy kitchenware item to have and I highly
recommend it. Another great thing is that is doesn't take up a lot
of space and it can come in handy on a regular basis.
Another item I tend to use all the time is called
the Vidalia chop wizard. Any item that will finely cut up fruits
and vegetables is great to have around the kitchen. This one works
excellent for stir-fries, and any type of recipe where you will
be cutting up a lot of vegetables. The clean up is super easy also
and I like to leave it out on the counter to remind myself that
I actually have it so I don't forget about it.
A tea kettle is another beneficial item to have in
your kitchen. Tea is one of those beverages that is tremendously
healthy and satisfies thirst very well. I like to leave the tea
kettle out because tea is a regular mainstay of my nutrition regimen
along with most of my clients.
A couple of important things you might not think about when it
comes to a good kitchen, but they do come in handy on a daily basis,
is having a handy utensil with a sponge on the end that you can
put some soap in and then easily clean up dishes in a minute or
so. Along with the cleaning sponge is having a good vegetable brush
on hand. It is not too tough on vegetables and will not tear off
the skin but it is firm enough to get off a lot of the extra pesticide,
waxes and residues on all the fresh vegetables and fruits that we
are all trying to include in our healthy nutrition program.
Having a good blender on hand is also very important. If you don't
have a food processor, that's fine. The food processor and blender
are kind of interchangeable for most recipe items such as hummus,
salsas, dicing up a lot of veggies, and anything like puddings and
dessert items. The blender works great for making smoothies, protein
shakes and things like that. I highly recommend purchasing a quality
blender and leaving it out on the counter because it's probably
going to come in handy more often than not.
Don't forget to have a good pair of kitchen shears on hand. I think
a lot of times people forget to have a good pair of these because
they think they will just use a knife. From a safety standpoint,
if you are trying to open a bag of frozen veggies or a bag of brown
rice and you hold it by the top and try to slice the top off with
a nice sharp knife, that's an accident waiting to happen. Just invest
a few dollars in a good pair of kitchen shears and you'll save yourself
Obviously, mixing cups and measuring spoons are all important to
have along with a can opener and a rubber scraper. I have my refills
for the sponge utensil, a spatula, salad tongs and a nut cracker
which is an excellent device if you get nuts that aren't already
Having a good cooler on hand is very important. I am always curious
why people who really want to follow a healthy diet regimen make
the mistake of not having a simple cooler for their meals. I don't
know how they get their day's worth of nutrition around with them
to school, to work, on the bus, or wherever they're going. Having
a good cooler and some ice packs is very important to good nutrition.
This is one of those stop gaps that will get you on your way to
better nutrition and help you reach your goals faster.
Lastly, I am going to tell you about a very important item that
most people do not currently have in their refrigerator. That's
the old fridge thermometer. The key is to make sure it's in the
safe zone which is about 34 to 40 degrees. Get yourself a nice kitchen
thermometer since it will help fight any potential foodborne illnesses.
I hope my trip around the kitchen showed you some important things
to keep on hand for successful meal preparation and healthy eating! | <urn:uuid:0fe3147c-22b7-479b-a217-26069c67e59d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shapefit.com/healthy-cooking-kitchen-preparation-video.html | 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 | 0.960554 | 1,006 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Duncan Unveils Details on Race to the Top Aid
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s game plan for his Race to the Top fund—the most talked-about portion of the economic-stimulus package for education—is coming into clearer focus, with his announcement that $350 million of the $4.35 billion fund will be used to help states develop common academic assessments.
Yesterday’s announcement, made a day before the U.S. Department of Education unveiled a time line for the doling out the rest of the money, will help bolster an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to create common standards. Forty-six states have joined in the project.
Mr. Duncan told the nation’s governors at a meeting in Cary, N.C., that high-quality assessments to measure progress toward common standards will cost more than the fill-in-the-bubble variety.
The expense of developing those high-quality tests makes it difficult for any single state to do on its own, which is why the federal government must provide the resources, Mr. Duncan said at an education symposium sponsored by the NGA and the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy.
But he also stressed that the states, not the federal government, will be the driving force behind the effort. And he added that he hopes the states will choose to collaborate with one another.
“Some people may claim that a commonly created test is a threat to state control—but let’s remember who is in charge,” Mr. Duncan said in prepared remarks. “You are. You will create these tests. You will drive the process. You will call the shots.”
Mr. Duncan also said he wants states to work together on so-called formative assessments, which help teachers gauge their students’ progress during the course of the school year.
“This is a growth area for the testing industry, which may worry that assessments used across multiple states will be bad for business, even if it’s the right thing for kids,” Mr. Duncan said. “However, it’s not my job to worry about their business. My job is to worry about kids.”
Dane Linn, the education division director of the NGA’s Center for Best Practices, said the testing component is a crucial piece of the common-standards effort.
“Standards mean nothing unless we have assessments to measure student performance against them,” he said. He noted that developing common tests could reduce the costs states incur for their testing systems.
Matthew Gandal, the vice president of Achieve, Inc., an organization in Washington, called the proposal “potentially groundbreaking.” Achieve has partnered with the CCSSO and the NGA on the common-standards effort and organizes the American Diploma Project, an effort to align K-12 standards, assessments, and accountability systems with college and career readiness.
Mr. Gandal said that even if only a few states eventually receive funding through the Race to the Top fund, a successful push for common assessments could benefit nearly all participating states.
But Eugene W. Hickok, who served as deputy secretary and undersecretary of education during President George W. Bush’s first term, said it may be hard for states to muster the political will to adopt tests that could cast their schools in an unfavorable light.
“Theoretically it’s feasible, theoretically it makes lots of sense, but I do think getting it done will be very, very difficult,” said Mr. Hickok, who also served as the state schools chief in Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001.
“Getting people to agree to a set of standards will be very difficult, Mr. Hickok continued. “And it will be very difficult for [state officials ] to accept a set of standards and assessments that will make [their] state look bad, and inevitably somebody is going to look bad.”
Mr. Duncan addressed that point in his speech.
“The fact is, higher standards will make some of your states look bad in the short term because fewer students will be meeting them,” he told the governors. “So I will work with you to ensure that your states will not be penalized for doing the right thing.”
He said he wants to see the 7-year-old federal No Child Left Behind Act rewritten to make sure that it rewards states for raising their standards. But he gave no further details as to what that might look like.
Time Line Set
The $350 million for assessments means that the $4.35 billion Race to the Top state-grant funding is now down to $4 billion.
The Race to the Top program is a part of up to $100 billion for education in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grant program is intended to reward states that make significant progress on teacher distribution and effectiveness, standards and assessments, data systems, and turning around low-performing schools.
States can either collaborate with one another or apply on their own for the grants, Mr. Duncan said. And he reiterated that the funding will be doled out in two rounds. States that lose out the first time are eligible for the second round of funding.
Under the time line outlined today, the agency in late July will publish a proposed grant application and evaluation criteria in the Federal Register and will seek public comment for 30 days. In October, states will be officially invited to apply for the funds.
In December, the first phase of the applications will be due. The grant winners will be announced in March 2010. The applications for the second phase of funding will be due in June 2010. Those winners will be announced in September of 2010.
Mr. Duncan’s speech to the governors on standards and assessments was one in a series on each of the four “assurances” spelled out in the stimulus package. Those assurances are essentially four education policy areas in which states must agree to improve as a condition of receiving a major piece of the stimulus funding.
Next, Mr. Duncan will talk about turning around low-performing school on June 22 at the National Charter School Conference in Washington. He will outline his vision for teacher and principal quality in a speech to the National Education Association in July. The NEA has historically been critical of performance pay, which has been a key feature of Mr. Duncan’s rhetoric on teacher effectiveness.
Education Week Assistant Editor Michele McNeil contributed to this story.
Vol. 28, Issue 36
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
- Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, Multiple Locations
- Amargosa Valley Elementary School, Amargosa Valley, NV
- Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX
- The Berkeley Institute, HAMILTON, Bermuda
- Chief of Human Resources
- San Francisco Unified School District, San Francisco, CA | <urn:uuid:e24e55a1-c46d-480c-9c23-31dc4fe72177> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/06/15/36duncan.h28.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963633 | 1,455 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Must be Monday. New podcast! Just click on the fancy logo below.
aka: Drop What You Are Doing
Drop everything! (Unless it is a baby.)
Dramatic Drop is kind of a step-sib to Dropped Glasses
and Slow Motion Drop
. Something very startling or utterly shocking is announced or discovered - and the person encountering the shock literally drops what they're holding in astonishment. It most often falls ...and falls...
and shatters at their feet
- an aural punctuation mark to the bewildering announcement.
It usually occurs in specific situations:
- The person is given shocking or bad news, or sees someone unexpected come into the room, and they drop what they're holding, so it falls to the floor, and breaks.
- The person was doing something, and is in trouble.
- The person was minding their own business, when the bad guy comes and yanks them out of their day. What they were doing falls to the ground, broken or otherwise ruined.
- The person was minding their own business, and fell ill or succumbed to some injury or illness they were previously unaware of. What they were doing gets dropped.
- In particular, seizures, heart attacks, catatonia due to major emotional trauma (or Heroic BSOD), etc., are frequently announced by dropping crockery.
- The person dies.
- The person drops something to get the attention of someone they think is not paying attention, like a huge pile of books or a bowling ball.
- The person drops something in order to make a mad dash to save something more important/valuable.
- The person is suddenly the victim of Mind Control and turns immediately to the task they've been commanded to do.
This is a very commonly used trope. It used to happen quite frequently with telephone receivers left dangling when someone gets shocking news, but the advent of cordless and cellphones has caused that usage to fall out of favor and usage. Used comedically in parodies of the ending of The Usual Suspects
See Also Jaw Drop
, Bowel Breaking Bricks
, and Spit Take
open/close all folders
- A British PSA about how to recognise the symptoms of a stroke includes the on-screen victim losing control of one arm and dropping her mug of coffee.
Anime & Manga
- Ranma ½: Kasumi sees Akane's Close-Call Haircut and drops what she was cooking in shock. Ranma, not one to waste food, manages to save dinner.
- Used at least twice in the 2003 anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist: first, Edward drops a basket of vegetables when he sees his sick mother collapsed on the floor, and later on, Hughes's wife drops a tea set when she goes into labor.
- Hilariously invoked on Crayon Shinchan, when Misae tells his son some shocking news (not really, but Shin-chan is quite the drama queen) and he actually goes to the kitchen to fetch some cookies in order to drop them after he makes his mother repeat what she just said.
- Done in a blatant fashion in Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl, when Tomari catches Hazumu and Yasuna kissing, which in turn makes her realize her own feelings for Hazumu.
- In Seirei No Moribito when Shuga, who was the tutor of a young prince receives a message that the boy is dead: He reads it and wordlessly drops several probably valuable books. The scene has some impact as he's normally very composed and circumspect.
- Doraemon: A woman drops her shopping onto the floor on seeing her baby hanging on the rail of a balcony.
- Haibane Renmei: In the first episode, Reki drops her box of art supplies when she finds Rakka's cocoon. Later on, Rakka herself drops a teapot when she's feeling faint.
- A heartbreaking example occurs in Fushigi Yuugi. Just before Miaka and her Seishi leave for Hokkan, Tamahome pays a visit to his family with Miaka and Nuriko. He buys them a few gifts before heading to their home, but when he opens the door to their house, he is horrified to see that his entire family had been murdered. The ball he had bought for Yuiren rolled right out of his hands and bounced on the floor before reaching her barely-alive fingertips.
- Fate Testarossa drops her intelligent device Bardiche when she discovers the truth about her past. Quite the Tear Jerker moment.
- In A's, Shamal is preparing a bento when she gets a message on her cell phone from Suzuka about wanting to visit the hospitalized Hayate with some friends. Shamal's initially pleased to hear this, but when she recognizes Nanoha and Fate (whom she fears will expose Hayate as her mistress), in the attached picture, she becomes shocked and drops her chopsticks.
- In Meitantei Holmes, Mrs. Hudson is chloroformed and kidnapped by Moriarty, and as she loses consciousness she drops the flowerpot she's carrying.
- In D Gray Man, episode "The Black Order Annihilation Incident", both Lenalee and Alan drop their trays full of coffee during their encounter with Komui's robot.
- In one of the picture dramas of Code Geass, Nunnally is holding half of her mother's commemorative plate (she had an argument with Lelouch over whether Euphemia would give it to her when it got cracked in half and Euphemia gave one half to her) while listening to the news about Euphemia starting the Specially Administered Zone. When the news gets cut off as the massacre begins, Nunnally drops the plate.
- The Fantastic Adventures of Unico features a variant, in that Katy drops the bucket she was carrying to fetch water after the Baron D'Ghost invites her to his castle, and then only after he leaves.
- In the Mai Otome manga, Erstin drops her tray upon learning that she will have to move out of Nina's room to accommodate Mashiro.
- In Pokémon Heroes movie, when the team was just about to leave the island, Bianca (or Latias, it is never made clear) kisses Ash on the cheek. It seems to be so shocking that Misty drops her Togepi.
- In Girls Und Panzer, this happens twice. Darjeeling drops her teacup, breaking a pre-fight promise, when Oarai manages to put pressure on her. Mako drops her cell phone after receiving a call informing her that her grandmother has collapsed and been hospitalized.
- In Backward with Purpose, Snape drops his wand in shock when Dumbledore admits to having the Elder Wand. Several more revelations later, he states that he needs to sit down as well.
- In The Eye, a man and woman are having a conversation over the phone. The man drops the phone in the middle of a conversation with her because he's been mind controlled. The woman he's conversing with realizes something is wrong, and she drops the phone and her bags to rush to him and see if he's all right.
- Run Lola Run: plays this after Manny calls Lola; because the story explores several For Want of a Nail possible outcomes, it's repeated three times.
- Disney's Cinderella drops a tea tray when she overhears Lady Tremaine tell the stepsisters that the prince is searching for the mystery maiden he met at the ball.
- Done offscreen in Disney's Hercules: Megara, holding a vase, is told by Hades that she will be freed from her Deal with the Devil if she finds Hercules' weakness. The camera is held close on Meg's reaction, but a distinct crashing sound is heard.
- In the film version of Driving Miss Daisy, Idella drops a bowl of peas when she dies suddenly.
- Kill Bill: Hattori Hanzo is preparing food when The Bride addresses him by name. The food doesn't make it.
- Happens in the movie Latter Days when the main character Christian finds out that his love interest Aaron has not killed himself as he was previously led to believe and he's come back to be with him. He drops all the dishes he's holding to embrace him.
- In Spaceballs the cook at the space rest stop drops what he's carrying when he catches sight of the little alien doing its song and dance number on the counter.
- In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Elliott's mom doesn't completely drop what she's doing when she sees E.T. isn't just a great Halloween costume, but her fingers go slack on her coffee cup and it dangles from her fingers, spilling messily to the floor.
- Citizen Kane provides one of the best known examples: when Kane dies, the snow globe in his hand rolls down the stairs and shatters.
- Johnathan drops the Book of the Dead when an angry Imhotep turns on him in the first film of The Mummy Trilogy.
- In National Treasure 2, Riley drops several incalculably valuable treasures instantaneously the moment someone recognizes him as a treasure hunter and book author, and asks for his autograph.
- Probably justified, in the fact that the person that asks him is a very hot girl.
- Furthermore, she's the very first person to have an interest in his book. It's a Running Gag throughout the movie that nobody—not even his best friend—has read his book.
- The scene where Kevin Spacey throws his dinner plate against a wall in American Beauty was supposed to be one of these, but after it didn't work, Spacey unexpectedly ad-libbed, causing a priceless reaction that was kept.
- At the end of 1408, Mike Enslin is listening to his mini-recorder while his wife puts away stuff from a recent move. The recording jumps from mundane observations by Mike to the sound of the couple's dead daughter's voice. Mrs. Enslin stares dumbfounded at the recorder and very gradually lets go of the box she's holding, letting it crash to the floor.
- In Armageddon, Chick's ex-wife drops the phone when her small child says, "Mommy? That salesman is on TV." 'That Salesman' was her ex-husband, and the TV announcement was of the Freedom and Independence teams being launched to save the world.
- Also, later one in the movie Truman drops a mug (which shatters on impact) after receiving bad news.
- The Incredible Hulk has
an old man Stan Lee who drank a soda with Banner's blood in it getting gamma poisoning and dropping the soda.
- Amélie uses this to get the plot started, as the titular protagonist reacts in shock to hearing news of Princess Diana's death.
- A slight variation occurs in The Prince Of Egypt. During the plague of the Death of the Firstborn, we see a young boy carrying a jar of presumably water into his home. He gets through the door, we hear a loud exhale, and then the sound of the jar shattering. All we see is the boy's hand sticking out from the doorway.
- In The Hunt For Red October a high-ranking Soviet politician has a cup of tea in his hand when he reads a letter in which Ramius announces his intention to defect. He very carefully tries to put the cup down, but his hand is shaking so much it falls over anyway. Then he mobilizes the entire Soviet navy to sink the renegade submarine before it reaches America.
- In Gran Torino, Walt drops his glass when he sees Sue come back into her house bloody and beaten from being kidnapped and raped by Spider's gang.
- In Critters when the mom spots a crite outside she drops her tray breaking many dishes and teacups
- In The Usual Suspects, Agent Kujan drops his coffee cup when he realizes that he [apparently] let Keyzer Soze walk out the door after having him in the police station for several hours spinning his yarn.
- At the end of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, it happens when Pintel and Rageki are confronted by Barbossa.
- When the Police Inspector in M finds out that the criminals caught the Serial Killer he was looking for, the cigar he's smoking falls out of his mouth.
- The Omen has the second type: Damien intentionally runs his tricycle into the chair that his mother is standing on while she changes a second-story light fixture, it crashes to the first-story floor slightly before she does.
- Averted and played for laughs in The Shawshank Redemption when Tommy narrates his most recent crime he committed.
Tommy Williams: So I'm backing out the door, right, and I got the TV, like this; it was a big old thing, I couldn't see shit; suddenly I hear this voice, "Police, kid, hands in the air." You know, I was standing there, holdin' on to that TV, so finally the voice says, "You hear what I said, boy?" And I say, "Yes sir, I sure did, but if I drop this fucking thing you got me on destruction of property too."
- The Black Cauldron did this with a dog and his bone.
- Near the beginning of The Princess and the Frog, After Tiana realizes that she had made enough money to start her own restaurant for being a waitress at another, Duke, said restaurant's owner actually drogs a fried egg from a spatula.
- Cars: Chick Hicks' forklift pit crew's mustache grilles upon seeing how Guido can change all four of Lightning McQueen's tires in four seconds.
- A bar patron in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby dropped his beer the second that Jean Girard introduces everyone to his "husband".
- In The Dark Knight Rises , Bane collapses most of Heinz Field in the middle of a game. A single player makes it to safety in the endzone, then looks back on the gaping hole in the ground, and drops the ball in shock.
- Fun fact: that's Hines Ward before he left the Steelers.
- One of the "targets" in Munich drops his groceries when he's shot.
- Happens a lot in mystery novels (Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes and the like): Someone who on the face of it shouldn't be startled or even interested in the news, drops something when hearing it and thus reveals to the detective that they have a secret interest in the matter.
- In Breaking Dawn Alice drops a vase because she had just had a vision of the Volturi coming to kill the Cullens.
- In Deathly Hallows, Hermione dumps a whole armload of basilisk fangs to kiss Ron after he finally earns his Relationship Upgrade by showing concern for the Hogwarts house-elves.
- Also, in ''Philosopher's Stone, Minerva McGonagall dropped the books she was carrying when she learned the Golden Trio knew about the Philosopher's Stone being kept inside Hogwarts.
- In Faith of the Fallen, from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth, Nicci "was only dimly aware of the eggs hitting the floor" after being informed that Richard had been taken prisoner. Although, thinking about it, he gets captured so frequently in the series - indeed, by Nicci herself just earlier in the book - that you think she'd just roll her eyes or something.
- In Paradise Lost, Adam makes a crown of flowers for Eve, and then drops it when she tells him about having eaten the forbidden fruit.
- In The Iliad, Andromache drops her weaving shuttle when she realises that Hektor has died.
Live Action TV
- In Fringe, Olivia Dunham drops the bowl of cereal she was eating when her dead love and partner walks into the room. Seeing as this is Fringe, we see the shot several times over a couple of episodes.
- In Smallville:
- Happens offscreen in Doctor Who, "Boom Town". The Ninth Doctor goes to confront a previous enemy, who is currently Mayor of Cardiff, and asks her receptionist to tell her "The Doctor" is there to see her. He goes in, the Doctor turns, waits...and looks rather smug when he hears something shatter.
- "The Aliens of London": The Ninth Doctor brings Rose back to London after her first journey in the TARDIS. Problem is, he overshot the return date. He intended to drop her off where only twelve hours went by, but they arrive twelve months into the future. Rose's mum thought her daughter was missing all this time, and she's so stunned at her daughter's sudden return (while Rose has no idea of how much time really passed), she drops her coffee mug and it smashes into pieces... what a waste of good Joe. And then she furiously bitch-slaps the Doctor when she hears he's responsible for whisking away her beloved child for a year.
- When the Eleventh Doctor turns up at Rory's stag night and casually mentions that he kissed her fiancee, we hear a beer glass being dropped offscreen.
- Ned's mother in Pushing Daisies was brushing dust off him when she died suddenly, the brush falling from her hands. She then drops a pie after being revived and seeing her neighbor drop dead across the street.
- The last 30 seconds of an episode of Babylon 5 has Delenn dropping a snow globe which shatters at her feet.
- Of course you would too if the supposedly dead wife of your love interest walked into the room and found you spending the night with her husband.
- Hilariously parodied in Blackadder The Third: Prince George is reading the news that a criminal (who unknown to the prince, Blackadder teamed up with then was almost immediately betrayed by) was hanged:
George: It says here she had an accomplice!
(Blackadder drops the tray he was carrying)
George: But they don't know who it was!
- In an earlier episode of the same series, Blackadder "accidentally" dropped a tray full of refreshments after the Prince insulted him one time too many, leading him to the brink of resigning that very moment.
- In one episode of Home and Away, Leah drops the plates and cutlery onto the floor after she learns Dan dies
- In an early episode of Numb3rs, Charlie is making a sandwich when he sees a news report on TV saying that FBI agents are in a fire fight with bank robbers; we see the knife he was holding drop to the counter as Charlie realizes that his brother Don is among the agents on the scene.
- Wendy is consoling herself with ice cream from the carton because she just screwed up badly and got sent home by her boss, The Middle Man, when roommate Lacey casually mentions that the Villain Of The Week is hanging out at the restaurant from which she just quit working. Wendy turns attentively to Lacey, and the viewer hears the spoon clatter to the floor.
- On Supernatural, Sam drops a cup of coffee when his father dies suddenly as part of a Deal with the Devil. Notably, the cup doesn't tip over when it lands.
- Monk, "Mr. Monk and the Genius": Linda Kloster is nervous because her husband has been threatening to kill her. Her housekeeper tries to calm her, then leaves the room to get her a sandwich. When the housekeeper reenters the room, she drops her tea tray as she sees Linda's dead body on the bed. Lampshaded and played with in the same episode: Randy tells Stottlemeyer to put down his coffee mug so he won't drop when he hears the news. He puts it down, but when Randy tells him Linda is dead, he picks it up again and hurls it against the wall.
- "Mr. Monk and Little Monk": When Natalie tells him he has a visitor and that it's his childhood crush, he drops the cup he's holding and temporarily forgets that they're no longer thirteen years old.
- Psych, "Ghosts": Gus drops his cocoa mug when he sees someone moving in the woods outside. Later the pattern on the china turns out to be a clue.
- Colin on Everwood drops a glass when he starts having a seizure in a late first season episode.
- In the first episode of Chuck, the hotness of Sarah is startling enough to Chuck that he drops the phone he's using.
- Big Mike drops his fishing tackle box when he gets a text about a security breach at Buy More. In a much earlier episode, he likewise drops his danish (a huge shift in moment-to-moment priorities for the character) when the fire alarm is pulled at the Buy More.
- Jed Bartlet of The West Wing, on discovering that his daughter, Zoey, had been kidnapped dropped first of all the photos he had been holding, followed shortly by his whiskey glass. A particularly well-executed example of the trope.
- Heroes: In "The Eclipse, Part 1" when Mrs Bennet walks into the room and finds Claire unconscious on the sofa she drops what she's holding.
- In the Heritage Minute about Dr. Wilder Penfield, Mrs. 'burnt toast' famously announces her seizure by dropping the traditional plate.
- In the Fawlty Towers episode "Communication Problems" Basil drops an expensive vase when The Major tells Sybill that Basil had been betting on the horses behind her back.
- This happens in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Surprise" for no real reason other than some anvilicious foreshadowing.
- Also happens in "Passion," when Giles discovers Jenny's corpse.
- Also happens in "Earshot", in which Buffy is temporarily telepathic and suddenly hears someone in the cafeteria think about killing everyone in the school. She's so shocked by this that she drops her lunch tray, and the whole cafeteria applauds her (while she, of course, goes into a mindless panic).
- And also happens in "Out of My Mind", when Joyce is preparing breakfast for Dawn before suddenly asking Dawn who she is and then dropping the plate and collapsing.
- On Charmed, when Phoebe and Dex got married under a spell, Dex carried Phoebe over the threshold and then they realized what happened. Confused by what happened, Dex promptly dropped Phoebe on the floor.
- On Wishbone, David drops a glass when his father walks in holding the rear view mirror of the new car.
- There's an episode of Brian Clemens' Thriller in which the heroine tries to phone for help but the villainess cuts the phone line. The heroine then drops the receiver.
- This trope is the very reason Moss always makes two cups of tea.
- In the Twilight Zone episode, Mr. Garrity and the Graves, Mr. Garrity was telling the bartender that he brings back the dead for a living. The bartender promptly dropped a full mug of beer.
- This is the Character Tic of Kazu in Kamen Rider Double, who drops whatever he's holding almost every single time he's asked a question or is told something even remotely dramatic. (This is in almost every scene he's in) Inverted in the fact that he hardly even seems to be fazed by this in any way, regardless of what he may be holding, be it a spoon, a suitcase, a teacup, etc, even if the object breaks.
- Played straight with Shoutarou late in the series with his phone.
- When Henry Blake's death is announced at the end of the third season of M*A*S*H, a nurse is heard dropping a scalpel amidst the shocked silence in the operating theatre. This was a case of Throw It In. The actors had not been told prior to filming what would happen, they expected Radar to announce that Henry had made it back to the States safely. The actress' reaction in the first take was genuine, and the director decided to keep it in later takes.
- In True Blood, last episode of the first season, Sookie drops the pitcher she was holding when she realizes the killer is in the room with her.
- Parodied in The Goodies - Bill isn't really shocked, he's just into loud noises.
- At the end of the Sliders pilot episode, the Sliders are sitting down to dinner believing they are safe and sound on their home earth. Quinn and the others make a toast just as Quinn's father, who died years ago, walks into the room. Realizing this means they didn't make it home, Quinn drops his wine glass and it shatters on the floor.
- Happens in the Criminal Minds episode "Won't Get Fooled Again." A mother is cooking when she realizes her daughter is holding a package containing a bomb. She drops an egg she was holding and it smashes to the floor.
- On an episode of Night Court, someone said "Who's willing to drop everything and help me?" Roz drops her lunch tray, just before she passes out. (Turned out she had diabetes.)
- It happened in NCIS when Gibbs drops his coffee after hearing a bullet whiz by, shattering glass, and the sound of Abby screaming. I repeat, he DROPPED his COFFEE.
- In The Duchess of Duke Street, a character's very quiet death is heralded by his cigarette falling from his fingers.
- Used humorously to make for a particularly charming moment in Once Upon A Time, especially considering it sets up an important Tragic Keepsake.
You will serve me my meals, and you will clean the Dark Castle... You will dust my collection and launder my clothing... You will fetch me fresh straw when I'm spinning at the wheel... OH! And you will skin the children I hunt
. For their pelts.
Belle: *drops teacup in alarm*
Rumpelstiltskin: ...That one was a quip.
- Happens on One Tree Hill when Peyton finds the body of her biological mother, Ellie Harp, who has succumbed to her battle with breast cancer, resulting in Peyton dropping the box of cds she is carrying.
Religion and Mythology
- In ''Charlie's Aunt' upon hearing the news that one man intends to marry Charlie's Aunt, who is actually another man in drag, drops the tray he's holding.
- At one point during Final Fantasy VII's ending, Cid drops his cigar from his mouth.
- The team is stuck in a collapsing cavern, with things about to get worse. Cid mutters to himself something along the lines of "Lady Luck, don't give up on me now." Cue the reaction above when the Highwind litterly drops from the ceiling.
- In the Riviera drama CDs, this is the young Malice's reaction to realizing that her mother has just died; she was fixing Rizuna some fruit beforehand, and we hear the plates shatter when she drops them.
- Kim Possible: Ron drops his "flour baby" in shock when his parents spring on him that they've adopted a baby. The "flour baby" is a school project, and it becomes the episode's Running Gag, as it is repeatedly dropped or otherwise damaged.
- And when Nana Possible gets mind-controlled, she lets her lemon squares drop to the floor.
- Invoked during an episode of American Dad.
Stan: Francine, drop whatever you're doing and help me!
Francine: (holding a plate with food) But it'll stain the floor. Can't I just put it away first?
Stan: Drop it!
(Francine sighs and drops the plate.)
- Avatar The Last Airbender:
- Season 1
- "Imprisoned": Katara drops what she's doing (a perfectly nice ceramic jug of water) when she realizes that Haru's been arrested and taken prisoner for illegal Earthbending.
- "The Fortuneteller": Aang goes all the way up the mountain at the top of the village for a panda lily to give his crush. He drops it when he realizes that the volcano atop said mountain is close to erupting.
- Season 3: Katara again, when she discovers that Aang has run (well, flown) away (perfectly good food).
- Batman The Animated Series episode "See No Evil": There's a criminal who is literally the Disappeared Dad, thanks to the Applied Phlebotinum. He pretends to be his daughter's Imaginary Friend, and holds a toy so she can tell where he is. When the little girl tells him they're moving, he drops the doll in shock.
- Yin Yang Yo: Master Yo, who is extremely fond of soft pretzels, drops one when he realizes the twins have been duped into actions that will result in letting Sealed Evil in a Can out.
- Transformers Animated is very fond of this. We even get close-ups of the objects hitting the ground.
- The Spectacular Spider Man's Gwen Stacy drops her books in shock at seeing Harry Osborn unconscious on the ground after disappearing a while.
- Danny Phantom where Sam drops her tea cup when she gets word Danny and Valerie have been in the same room together for hours. Can be taken as a Double Entendre as well.
- As Told by Ginger: Macie's father, on realizing Ginger's right and he and his wife have forgotten Macie's 13th birthday, drops the stylus to his PDA — and then lets the PDA fall.
- Felicia Hardy drops a jar of face cream when she hears the body of Michael Morbius has been found in an episode of the 90s Spider-Man Animated Series.
- Justice League Unlimited uses this trope a fair bit:
- The Flash drops his autograph pen when the bad guys show up.
- Wonder Woman drops Superman's birthday present when she and Batman walk in and find him dangerously compromised by a Lotus Eater Plant.
- Two old ladies drop their teacups to shatter on the floor when Solomon Grundy shows up for revenge in a Halloween episode of The Batman.
- Alfred drops a Ming vase when Ethan says something to Bruce about the Batman.
Alfred: Just a Ming.
- Daria's Mom was busy talking to her boss, Eric, on the phone when Jake collapsed from a heart attack. As soon as she realized what happened, she dropped her phone.
- Helga and her father Big Bob on Hey Arnold! both drop their glasses in shock when Miriam anounces she's going to be away from a few days, suggesting they spend some father-daughter quality time together while she's gone in the episode Quantity Time.
- In the episode Hand in Hand on Kick Buttowski, Kendall drops her phone in the middle of a conversation with her boyfriend, Ronaldo, when she realizes she's right outside the store he's in and he's about to exit and sees the possibility of him catching her and Kick together.
- In the Arthur episode "Bleep" when DW is in a store she sees a mother arguing with her son and when she tells him he can't go to a concert he swears and the mother drops the glass she was holding in shock. Later she repeats the word to Arthur to ask what it means and he drops his model plane. She gets the idea that this is some kind of magic word that makes people drop things. | <urn:uuid:32b693a2-2877-41d6-9cc6-19a16b93c028> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DramaticDrop?from=Main.DropWhatYouAreDoing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964671 | 6,598 | 1.6875 | 2 |
STIMULUS TRACKER: Locally, 191 jobs and one dream come true
LORAIN — In an area devastated by closing and downsizing companies, the promise of stimulus funds to bolster job creation seemed too good to be true.
For Karen Morell, a new business owner in Lorain County, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act made it possible to post a “Help Wanted” sign.
Morell had tried to find a bank, any bank, to issue her a small business loan.
Despite having good credit, Morell said she was turned down at every bank she went to because of the failing economy.
Finally, with the availability of stimulus funds, one bank was able to finance Dairy Grove, Morell’s small ice cream stand in North Ridgeville.
Since opening, Morell has hired 15 employees — some who had previously been laid off — and “put currency in the pockets of people who did my construction, sold me my signs and machine and my food suppliers who are all Ohio companies.”
When President Barack Obama announced the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, the act’s primary focus was to create jobs using shovel-ready projects, he said.
In Lorain County, according to the Recovery Act’s website, www.Recovery.gov, recipients reported that stimulus-based projects have funded 191 jobs as of Sept. 21. Within the city of Lorain, 19 jobs have been created. Using the website, tracking funds by Lorain zip codes, 56 grants have been awarded for a total of $44,058,085, and one contract was awarded for $354,599, as of Sept. 21.
“I think (the stimulus money) is definitely a positive impact,” said Bill Holtzman, Lorain County chief deputy engineer. “It certainly brought some work for ... Lorain County. And while (companies) are working here in the county, they pay taxes to the county.” Continued...
Within Ohio, as of Sept. 21, a total of 7,800 projects were awarded $7.87 billion. With stimulus money, almost 25,896 jobs were funded.
“I think it’s a positive influence, we’re seeing a positive turn out there considering without stimulus money where we would be,” said Ohio Sen. Sue Morano.
Lorain, Erie and Huron counties received grants from the U.S. Department of Labor through the Recovery Act in the summer of 2009. The money awarded to each county — $311,455 to Erie County, $365,000 to Huron County and $1.33 million in Lorain County — was used to train people, ages 14 to 24, for summer jobs.
The effect the training has on participants is a side effect of the stimulus money, Morano said.
“In addition to the tangible jobs the stimulus funds created, one thing that seems to be going over and over again is the fact that the jobs are long-term visions,” Morano said. “Some (of the projects and jobs) are quality of life issues ... that will help invest in Lorain’s economy down the road and create more jobs ... We have to look at the big picture and the potential that this has.”
Location, ST | website.com
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Recent Activity on Facebook
Browse local photo galleries, and purchase prints. | <urn:uuid:cd747c23-e1b3-4b5a-8750-157c5a930d00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.morningjournal.com/articles/2010/10/03/news/doc4ca7efe78217d284232040.txt?viewmode=default | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954 | 967 | 1.625 | 2 |
mandre221 on Family Tree Circles
Journals and Posts
For a long time, I have been curious about this person. He married my great aunt, Emma CUMMINS. He was b 1872- d 1938. He and Emma are buried in Dunn Hill Station Cem. in Sullivan, IL. Emma was b 1872- d 1936. They had no children, that I am aware of. I have no clue where he and his family are from.
I am researching the DAHM family, originally from Krewinkel, Prussia.
Eligius DAHM was married to Catherina Blaser in Krewinkel.Their so, Eligius was married three times in Krewinkel.The brides names were Lenzen, Thelen, and Altendorf., I have a copy of each marriage document, written in German. I also have photos of family graves in Krewinkel. Eligius and children came to Wisconsin and then to Lafayette, IN. Most of my research has been in IN and IL.
- Displaying 1-2 of 2 Journals | <urn:uuid:a7c1aea1-f4c5-4acb-906a-69565b7561e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.familytreecircles.com/u/mandre221/?next=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97757 | 230 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Serrano Statement on Marriage Equality Vote
New York, NY- Senator José M. Serrano (D-Manhattan/Bronx) expressed disappointment that a marriage equality bill (S.4401) did not pass on the Senate floor today.
"I am deeply saddened and disappointed by the result of today's vote on marriage equality. This issue is a part of the ongoing struggle for civil rights in the United States, and I maintain that State government must take action.
"There have always been some on the wrong side of history who believed that expanding freedom and liberty would somehow be detrimental to our society - they were always wrong. Expanding civil rights to all will serve to make our society more whole and complete. Now that we are faced with the civil rights issue of our time, we cannot allow ourselves to be on the wrong side of history on this extremely important issue.
"We should fully embrace the diversity of our nation, for that is our strength. Our diversity is what makes us the greatest nation on earth, and I am certain that as a nation we share a fundamental commitment to equal rights.
"Every instance in which freedoms in American society have been extended it has resulted in our country becoming stronger and more unified. Indeed, extending liberty through marriage equality is the epitome of the American ideal in its most organic form."
Serrano, a co-sponsor of the bill, and a staunch advocate for marriage equality, is hopeful that the issue will soon be re-addressed in the Senate.
"I will continue to be a voice in the fight for equal rights for same-sex couples. The passage of a marriage equality bill will enhance our communities and, indeed, our humanity." | <urn:uuid:cda2b2a3-b729-4103-a362-e03b87fe41fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/serrano-statement-marriage-equality-vote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955864 | 347 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The last 48 hrs have been chock full of WTF moments (Egypt’s first democratically-elected Parliament was dissolved, the emergency law was reinstated, and a whole lot of people suddenly started saying the word “coup”; Obama kinda sorta passed the Dream Act; and the ICC demanded the return of its detained staff members without once mentioning the word “immunity”), but my biggest spit-take of the week went to the U.S. government’s brand new amicus brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell.
Kiobel is an Alien Tort Claims Act case (see my previous ATCA coverage here) currently before the Supreme Court. ATCA permits foreign citizens to sue in U.S. federal courts when they have suffered damages as a result of a “violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” In Kiobel, Nigerian citizens are suing the Dutch corporation for “aiding and abetting” abuses committed by the Nigerian government against civilians opposed to oil exploration.
The extent of the right to sue under ATCA is a hotly contested area of federal law. There are two big questions in ATCA jurisprudence: (1) what kind of conduct qualifies as a “violation of the law of nations,” and (2) who can be sued? The defendants in Kiobel allege that ATCA does not provide a right of action against corporations, only private individuals. (Bonus points to Royal Dutch Shell’s lawyers for not even blinking at the Citizens United induced irony here!)
The case was argued before the Supreme Court this spring, and the U.S. submitted an amicus brief saying, amongst other things, “Yes, definitely, ATCA applies to corporations the same as individuals and any company that does business in the U.S. can be sued in U.S. courts for its conduct abroad.” But instead of giving a decision, on March 5 the Court issued a surprise order for reargument, asking the parties to address the question of whether ATCA allows “a cause of action for violations of the law of nations occurring within the territory of a sovereign other than the United States.” (Note: This is already intensely WTF-y on its own. Providing a cause of action for violations that occurred abroad is what ATCA does.)
The U.S. submitted its new brief this week, and lo and behold, the Obama administration now believes that when the connection to the U.S. is attenuated – such as when a foreign corporation is alleged to have aided and abetted a foreign government on foreign territory – ATCA does not apply.
This is an epic disappointment for human rights activists (and probably for U.S.-based corporations, too, who may now be held to a higher standard than their foreign competitors), and a confusing development for everyone else. It’s not clear how or why the reversal happened (although Trey Childress has some convincing guesses here), but the removal of the State Department’s signature between the first and second round of briefing suggests that the decision may have been contentious. | <urn:uuid:b4cf52de-6b4b-4da3-9673-958b748b6114> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wrongingrights.com/2012/06/wtf-friday-6152012.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960367 | 668 | 1.625 | 2 |
There are a huge number of exciting ideas in this book. For a start, there's Chingwe. Now, he's some kind of primate, possibly a cross between a human and a chimpanzee, (is that possible?). Or, he might be the missing link. That would mean he was a surviving remnant of an ancient breed from which modern man is directly descended. Anyway, Chingwe is living a miserable life in a fairground freak show until he is spotted and rescued by Nemo. Nemo is brilliant. He's a flea handler in his parents flea circus, among other roles.
I think that could have made an enjoyable book standing alone, but that's just the first couple of chapters. Next, Nemo and his parents, who travel a lot because they are the Whirligig Theatre Company, go home for a break to their remote cottage in the north. They discover, to their consternation, that the natural spring which they are dependent on for all their water, has suddenly dried up. In the story, this is extremely important because the whole country is parched due to climate changes and global warming.
Nemo ventures into the underground cave system which has been revealed by the retreating spring in search of their water. He doesn't find the water but he does find that they have new neighbours, (he pops up out of the ground through another hole over on their side of the hill). He is struck, at first, by how frank and friendly this family is, especially Martha who he would like very much to see more of.
He's made a big mistake. This is a family of fundamental Christians who are preparing for Armageddon (the end of the world/Judgment Day) which is scheduled to happen in the year 2000. Martha's parents are a lot more sinister than they seem. Her father has converted one of the caves into an underground bunker for his family and stocked it with supplies of food, water (yes, Nemo's diverted water course) and weapons.
Martha has been brought up to believe absolutely in the story of Adam and Eve and has never heard of the theory of evolution, or the existence of dinosaurs. She is totally fascinated to meet Chingwe, and feels she needs a few explanations from her parents.
There's more, but I have to leave you something to read for yourself. As I said at the beginning, this book is crammed full of ideas. I thought it was hugely enjoyable. There's a lot of rip-roaring action which I haven't even mentioned, romance, thought-provoking ideas, humour and grief, all played out by carefully drawn characters. I particularly liked Nemo, who swings between wild extrovert over-confidence due to his theatrical upbringing and devastating shyness due to his sudden interest in girls. And Chingwe is very endearing, in his own mangy way:
Chingwe was staring back at Martha. There was absolutely no expression on his face. With one hand he was scratching his belly. But I saw his other hand reach behind him and close on a stone.
Ma had seen it too. She warned me, 'Nemo, he's got a stone.'
'Chingwe!' I said. 'Don't you dare throw that!' I apologized to Martha, 'Sorry, he's a bit of a hooligan. But he can't help it. It's 'cos he's scared of people.' I shrugged. 'And he's scared of other apes too.'
Gently, I unclasped Chingwe's fingers one by one and took the stone away. Like an octopus he sneaked out another long arm. I thought he'd picked up another stone. His arm whirled round. 'Duck!' I yelled to Martha.
She didn't duck, she was too surprised. But nothing hit her. Confused, I looked back at Chingwe.
His shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. I opened his hand. It was empty.
'Sorry,' I told Martha, shrugging. 'It's his idea of a joke. Chingwe,' I said, wagging my finger at him, 'behave yourself.'
Quick to read, because the action pulls you along. This is one of those books where you have to disregard some of the impossibilities. I think it's called 'suspending your disbelief'. For instance, I'm not much of a civil engineer, but I think you probably would notice if your neighbours were building a dam and a reservoir and an underground bunker with solid radiation-proof doors, even if you were away a fair amount of the time. And what would the local planning officer have to say about it? It's like all those secret rocket installations hidden away on remote desert islands that 007 has to go searching for, as if they wouldn't have taken years to build and twice the local population in the workforce. Anyway, highly recommended.
Amir, boy, age 14, from BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom, on 12th October 2005. Rating: 7/10
I thought this book was brilliant the way it was written was very deep i thoughrly enjoyed it!
If you want to buy Humanzee by Susan Gates and help readingmatters, please use these links
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Susan Gates has written other excellent books. Have a look at this one:
If you enjoy the theatrical background of Nemo's life, you might like to look at this excellent story set in a circus, by Kirsty Murray:
You might also consider having a look at this one by Dirk Walbrecker:
There's a huge amount of adventure in Humanzee, so you might really enjoy this one by Louis Sachar: | <urn:uuid:b2ec9c67-e169-491c-831f-7dec6ca81471> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=55 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986244 | 1,186 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Posted: Nov 9, 2011 12:29 PM by Dr. Anya Winslow
DENVER (AP) - Colorado officials are taking final action on a teacher rating system that could make it easier to fire teachers who don't meet testing standards.
The Board of Education was poised to approve the system Wednesday. The standards create a four-tier grading system for teachers and principals. The grades are "highly effective," "effective," "partially effective" and "ineffective."
Educators rated "ineffective" for two consecutive years would lose tenure. New teachers would need two consecutive years of "effective" ratings to make tenure.
The standards won't be in place for many just yet. They will be tested at pilot schools, and state lawmakers have to sign off next year.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:bef45abd-4cec-49b1-9608-d65f832b047c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.koaa.com/news/colorado-moving-ahead-with-4-tier-teacher-ratings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974557 | 175 | 1.625 | 2 |
As a kid, I actually looked forward to getting hiccups, all thanks to my dad’s distinctive cure. He’d sit us on the kitchen counter, measure a spoon full of sugar and tell us we had to swallow it all. My hiccups routinely occurred around bedtime, so much to my mother’s chagrin, I rarely fell asleep on time after taking my “hiccup medicine.”
I’m not a sugar fiend anymore like I was during my childhood. Nowadays when I get a hiccup attack I hold my breath until I turn blue in the face. Or for a particularly rough bout, I’ll try to drink a cup of water backwards and usually spill most of it on the floor.
By cdw9/Courtesy Flickr
I’d always I thought that, because hiccups are caused by spasms of your diaphragm, you had to alter your breathing pattern to stop them. However, you also need to increase the level of carbon dioxide in your blood, which is how certain herbs can help.
It turns out that there are as many hiccup remedies as there are hiccups. Traditional herbal cures include eating a whole chervil plant, drinking anise or taking tinctures of mustard or peppermint. Today, many experts recommed specific herbal tinctures to reduce hiccup suffering. For instance, Life Mojo suggests boiling a combination of cardamom and mint leaves.
In his article, Fix-ups for Hiccups, Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa says that there are many herbal hiccup cures but unfortunately not all of them work. Also, if your hiccups last longer than three days you should see a doctor. His holistic recommendations include plain yogurt and salt, honey and castor oil, watermelon, Kaki tea, and fresh ginger. Surprisingly, both white sugar and cardamom were on his list as well. So I guess my dad’s hiccup medicine wasn’t just an “old wives’ tale” after all.
Have you tried herbs to get rid of hiccups? What method works for you? Leave me a comment and let me know! | <urn:uuid:7adf5385-0d7b-4469-aae3-e6bd3733b9e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherearthliving.com/natural-health/how-to-get-rid-of-hiccups-with-herbs.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958351 | 468 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Featuring Distinguished Speakers at the WCCI 14th World Conference in Hungary
WCCI is proud to present well known speakers in their respective field as Keynote Speakers at the WCCI 40th Year Celebration at the University of Pecs, Pécs, Hungary, 2010 European Capital of Culture.
Betty A. Reardon, Ph. D. Columbia University, New York. She is the Founding Director Emeritus of the International Institute on Peace Education, an annual intensive residential experience in peace education. Since 1982 the IIPE has been held at universities and peace education centers in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Central America. For this work she received a special Honorable Mention Award from UNESCO in 2001. More…
Negotiating Definitions and Manifestations of Values for a Culturally Diverse Global Civil Society
John Raven (www.johnraven.co.uk) is a psychologist who has specialised in the study of values, attitudes, and institutional structures associated with the development of different kinds of society (including economic and social development). This work has included extensive studies of the nature, development, and assessment of competence – and the, often surprising, reasons why the so-called educational system fails to nurture the diverse competencies that people have the potential to develop and are required in workplaces and society. He describes his work as “a continuous adventure into the unknown and encounter with the unexpected”. He has published more than 20 books and 200 journal articles taking him further and further into previously uncharted areas. More…
ABC to Democracy, Entrepreneurship and Freedom in Education | <urn:uuid:269cd550-ae13-47e6-baff-e4c79dee1f03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcci-international.org/?mid=news&listStyle=list&document_srl=570&sort_index=readed_count&order_type=desc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955545 | 330 | 1.695313 | 2 |
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