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DreamWorks Animation’s last traditional animated film was Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Part of the reason was the film’s “poor” financial receptiona little over 80 million for a film with a budget of 60 million. Regardless of your thoughts on Hollywood logic, the film is actually a hidden treasure, with expert performances from Brad Pitt as Sinbad, Michelle Pfeiffer as Eris, goddess of chaos, Joseph Fiennes as Proteus, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as the love interest who shifts allegiances from the beginning to the end of the film.Sinbad was originally an Arabic story, but the film takes place in Greece. For a more accurate presentation of the material, look for the original tale in Richard Burton’s translation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Still, enjoy the film for what it is, and mourn the fact that we won’t see its like again.
October 4, 2010
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Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time. | <urn:uuid:a01ecac3-f48b-4e46-b76d-b0db86a6d43a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.warriorsoflegend.com/2010/10/04/sinbad-legend-of-the-seven-seassink-or-swim/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94217 | 217 | 1.546875 | 2 |
[Enter, on one side, DUKE VINCENTIO disguised as]
[p]before; on the other, ELBOW, and Officers with POMPEY]
- Elbow. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will
needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we
shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard.
- Pompey. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the
merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by
order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and
furred with fox and lamb-skins too, to signify, that
craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the facing.
- Elbow. Come your way, sir. 'Bless you, good father friar.
- Vincentio. And you, good brother father. What offence hath
this man made you, sir?
- Elbow. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law: and, sir, we
take him to be a thief too, sir; for we have found
upon him, sir, a strange picklock, which we have
sent to the deputy.
- Vincentio. Fie, sirrah! a bawd, a wicked bawd!
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
- Pompey. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet,
sir, I would prove—
- Vincentio. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,
Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer:
Correction and instruction must both work
Ere this rude beast will profit.
- Elbow. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him
warning: the deputy cannot abide a whoremaster: if
he be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were
as good go a mile on his errand.
- Vincentio. That we were all, as some would seem to be,
From our faults, as faults from seeming, free!
- Elbow. His neck will come to your waist,—a cord, sir.
- Pompey. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman and a
friend of mine.
- Lucio. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of
Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is there
none of Pygmalion's images, newly made woman, to be
had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and
extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What
sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is't
not drowned i' the last rain, ha? What sayest
thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is
the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The
trick of it?
- Vincentio. Still thus, and thus; still worse!
- Lucio. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she
- Pompey. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she
is herself in the tub.
- Lucio. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be
so: ever your fresh whore and your powdered bawd:
an unshunned consequence; it must be so. Art going
to prison, Pompey?
- Lucio. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell: go, say I
sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? or how?
- Elbow. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
- Lucio. Well, then, imprison him: if imprisonment be the
due of a bawd, why, 'tis his right: bawd is he
doubtless, and of antiquity too; bawd-born.
Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison,
Pompey: you will turn good husband now, Pompey; you
will keep the house.
- Pompey. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.
- Lucio. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear.
I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage: If
you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the
more. Adieu, trusty Pompey. 'Bless you, friar.
- Lucio. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
- Elbow. Come your ways, sir; come.
- Pompey. You will not bail me, then, sir?
- Lucio. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar?
- Elbow. Come your ways, sir; come.
- Lucio. Go to kennel, Pompey; go.
[Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and Officers]
What news, friar, of the duke?
- Vincentio. I know none. Can you tell me of any?
- Lucio. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other
some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you?
- Vincentio. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
- Lucio. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from
the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born
to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence; he
puts transgression to 't.
- Lucio. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in
him: something too crabbed that way, friar.
- Vincentio. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
- Lucio. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred;
it is well allied: but it is impossible to extirp
it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put
down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and
woman after this downright way of creation: is it
true, think you?
- Lucio. Some report a sea-maid spawned him; some, that he
was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is
certain that when he makes water his urine is
congealed ice; that I know to be true: and he is a
motion generative; that's infallible.
- Vincentio. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
- Lucio. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the
rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a
man! Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a
hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing
a thousand: he had some feeling of the sport: he
knew the service, and that instructed him to mercy.
- Vincentio. I never heard the absent duke much detected for
women; he was not inclined that way.
- Lucio. O, sir, you are deceived.
- Lucio. Who, not the duke? yes, your beggar of fifty; and
his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish: the
duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too;
that let me inform you.
- Lucio. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the
duke: and I believe I know the cause of his
- Vincentio. What, I prithee, might be the cause?
- Lucio. No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be locked within the
teeth and the lips: but this I can let you
understand, the greater file of the subject held the
duke to be wise.
- Vincentio. Wise! why, no question but he was.
- Lucio. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
- Vincentio. Either this is the envy in you, folly, or mistaking:
the very stream of his life and the business he hath
helmed must upon a warranted need give him a better
proclamation. Let him be but testimonied in his own
bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the
envious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier.
Therefore you speak unskilfully: or if your
knowledge be more it is much darkened in your malice.
- Lucio. Sir, I know him, and I love him.
- Vincentio. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with
- Lucio. Come, sir, I know what I know.
- Vincentio. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what
you speak. But, if ever the duke return, as our
prayers are he may, let me desire you to make your
answer before him. If it be honest you have spoke,
you have courage to maintain it: I am bound to call
upon you; and, I pray you, your name?
- Lucio. Sir, my name is Lucio; well known to the duke.
- Vincentio. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to
- Vincentio. O, you hope the duke will return no more; or you
imagine me too unhurtful an opposite. But indeed I
can do you little harm; you'll forswear this again.
- Lucio. I'll be hanged first: thou art deceived in me,
friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if
Claudio die to-morrow or no?
- Lucio. Why? For filling a bottle with a tundish. I would
the duke we talk of were returned again: the
ungenitured agent will unpeople the province with
continency; sparrows must not build in his
house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke
yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would
never bring them to light: would he were returned!
Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.
Farewell, good friar: I prithee, pray for me. The
duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on
Fridays. He's not past it yet, and I say to thee,
he would mouth with a beggar, though she smelt brown
bread and garlic: say that I said so. Farewell.
- Vincentio. No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
But who comes here?
[Enter ESCALUS, Provost, and Officers with MISTRESS OVERDONE]
- Escalus. Go; away with her to prison!
- Mistress Overdone. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is accounted
a merciful man; good my lord.
- Escalus. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in
the same kind! This would make mercy swear and play
- Provost. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please
- Mistress Overdone. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the
duke's time; he promised her marriage: his child
is a year and a quarter old, come Philip and Jacob:
I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!
- Escalus. That fellow is a fellow of much licence: let him be
called before us. Away with her to prison! Go to;
no more words.
[Exeunt Officers with MISTRESS OVERDONE]
Provost, my brother Angelo will not be altered;
Claudio must die to-morrow: let him be furnished
with divines, and have all charitable preparation.
if my brother wrought by my pity, it should not be
so with him.
- Provost. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and
advised him for the entertainment of death.
- Vincentio. Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time: I am a brother
Of gracious order, late come from the See
In special business from his holiness.
- Escalus. What news abroad i' the world?
- Vincentio. None, but that there is so great a fever on
goodness, that the dissolution of it must cure it:
novelty is only in request; and it is as dangerous
to be aged in any kind of course, as it is virtuous
to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce
truth enough alive to make societies secure; but
security enough to make fellowships accurst: much
upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This
news is old enough, yet it is every day's news. I
pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?
- Escalus. One that, above all other strifes, contended
especially to know himself.
- Escalus. Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at
any thing which professed to make him rejoice: a
gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to
his events, with a prayer they may prove prosperous;
and let me desire to know how you find Claudio
prepared. I am made to understand that you have
lent him visitation.
- Vincentio. He professes to have received no sinister measure
from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself
to the determination of justice: yet had he framed
to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many
deceiving promises of life; which I by my good
leisure have discredited to him, and now is he
resolved to die.
- Escalus. You have paid the heavens your function, and the
prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have
laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest
shore of my modesty: but my brother justice have I
found so severe, that he hath forced me to tell him
he is indeed Justice.
- Vincentio. If his own life answer the straitness of his
proceeding, it shall become him well; wherein if he
chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.
- Escalus. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.
- Vincentio. Peace be with you!
[Exeunt ESCALUS and Provost]
He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How may likeness made in crimes,
Making practise on the times,
To draw with idle spiders' strings
Most ponderous and substantial things!
Craft against vice I must apply:
With Angelo to-night shall lie
His old betrothed but despised;
So disguise shall, by the disguised,
Pay with falsehood false exacting,
And perform an old contracting. | <urn:uuid:753ad2fa-f6ba-4cac-9b3d-8149623f7ae1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=measure&Act=3&Scene=2&Scope=scene&LineHighlight=1608 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939908 | 3,492 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Investing recklessness at Harvard is making ‘the best and the brightest’ look awfully silly — almost as silly as a nation that lets staggering quantities of wealth continue to concentrate.
Wild chases after vast riches, last fall’s global meltdown reminded the world, can destroy economies — and corrupt entire societies. Great universities, in theory at least, can serve to slow these chases. They offer a refuge from marketplace passions, a place where sober scholars can reflect thoughtfully on the damage frenzied speculation can do and how that damage can be undone.
America’s greatest university — Harvard — hasn’t enabled much of that reflection lately. The reason? Harvard has been too busy chasing riches.
Now that chasing has left Harvard, the world’s wealthiest university, enveloped in an embarrassing financial debacle that has cost hundreds of university employees their jobs, frozen the salaries of many others, and stopped campus development projects dead in their tracks.
Kaiser and other Harvard grads from the class of 1969 have been critiquing Harvard investment practices since they learned six years ago that officials in the Harvard Management Co., the university office that invests Harvard’s endowment, were pulling in enormous Wall Street-style bonuses. In 2002, just six of these investment managers pocketed a combined $107.5 million.
To go about grabbing those millions, Harvard’s financial managers were investing university endowment dollars in exotic “derivatives” that promised high, double-digit annual returns. The higher the returns, the higher the rewards for the investment managers — and the greater the incentive to keep plowing endowment dollars into even shakier investments.
But the risk taking went beyond endowment dollars. Harvard actually began investing general operating funds in the same risky investments, in the process, observed the Boston Globe, violating “one of the most basic rules of corporate or family finance: Don’t gamble with the money you need to pay the daily bills.”
And what were Harvard’s grown-ups doing while all this was happening? They were looking the other way. In May 2002, a staffer at Harvard Management wrote then Harvard president Lawrence Summers a confidential letter to warn about the investing recklessness she saw all around her. Nothing changed. Two months later, she was fired for making “baseless allegations.”
Summers, a controversial figure at the university in his own right, would leave Harvard in 2006. He resurfaced, after last November, as the director of the new Obama administration’s National Economic Council.
By that time, the global financial industry had collapsed. In the wake of that tumble, Harvard’s celebrated endowment — worth $36.9 billion at its peak two years ago — lost nearly $11 billion in just a year. The Harvard general operating fund lost another $1.8 billion.
More bad news came earlier this month. Harvard officials revealed they had shelled out just under $500 million, in the university’s last fiscal year, to a host of big Wall Street banks to cover a “failed bet that interest rates would rise.”
University officials, notes the Class of 1969 Ad Hoc Committee on Harvard’s Endowment, have responded to some alumni complaints. The university, for instance, significantly increased student financial aid several years ago. But Harvard, alumni critics charge, is still refusing to “acknowledge any fundamental mistakes.”
These alumni now want the university to cap investment manager earnings.
“We continue to believe,” the Class of 1969 committee related in a recent letter to Harvard president Drew Faust, “that no Harvard employee should earn more annually than the president of the university and that multi-million dollar bonuses are inappropriate in nonprofit institutions.”
The alumni critics also want Harvard to report how many university dollars have gone to the outside investment firms that have, in recent years, managed as much as two-thirds of the university’s endowment investing.
Outside investment managers typically receive a flat 2 percent annual fee on the billions they invest and a 20 percent cut of the profits they make buying and selling invested assets.
Absolutely “no one,” adds the alumni letter to Harvard’s president, “should be compensated on such an enormous scale for managing nonprofit funds.”
But the angry alumni are seeking an even broader change. They want Harvard to start acting as a great university should.
The reckless investment moves that have cost the university so dearly, the alumni note, essentially mirror “the practices that in the same period brought down most of our major financial institutions, with enormous short-, medium and long-term costs to the United States and the entire world economy.”
“Surely Harvard,” they note, “can find the intellectual, moral, and financial capital to face this fact squarely and begin a public discussion of the weaknesses of our financial practices, not only for the sake of the institution, but to help the society which it serves.”
In the end, the Harvard financial fiasco helps make clear, financial maneuvers that pump up endowment jackpots — and rewards for endowment investment managers — don’t contribute to academic greatness. They undermine it.
Indeed, the staggering concentration of wealth in the Harvard endowment — from $4.7 billion in 1990 to $36.9 billion in 2007 — has taken place over years that have witnessed the overall deterioration of American higher education.
The public colleges and universities that deliver most of that education have been steadily cutting academic services and raising tuition beyond the means of average working families, in no small part because tax cuts for America’s wealthy — the same wealthy who donate so prodigiously to their elite alma maters — have helped drive down state budget support for higher education.
The total average annual cost of attending a public four-year college, the College Board reported earlier this month, has now hit $15,213.
“The level of debt we’re asking people to undertake,” agonizes Patrick Callan of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, “is unsustainable.”
The lesson in all this? In both academe and society at large, as the most learned Sir Francis Bacon pointed out over four centuries ago, wealth — like manure — only does good when you spread it around.
Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online weekly on excess and inequality. | <urn:uuid:0b23a1ee-ea3a-4f00-a335-608a66a3e7df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ourfuture.org/20091101/a-rich-university's-mad-dash-to-get-richer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950103 | 1,340 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Full Show Summary: While some shows based on superhero comic-books have been quite popular in the past (Batman, Wonder Woman), this is arguably the first time that a tv series based on an independent comic has been successful. Robert Kirkman’s The walking dead started publication in 2003 under a clear premise, explained by its author: What happens at the end of your typical zombie story? What if, even if you’ve survived, things don’t return to normal? How would you live in world where most of the population has turned into zombies? Closely following the comic-book story-line, the show follows the story of Rick Grimes, an Atlanta cop who wakes up from a comma only to find out that everyone seems to be dead... or worse, a zombie. Soon he’ll find survivors like him, but they’re certainly the minority, and with no help nor authority in sight, they’ll have to get used to live among the dead... for a long time. Mixing horror and action, this is no cozy show, and some describe it as dowright depressing, but if you’re willing to go with the ride you’ll find an addictive story, full of interesting characters and dilemmas. How does our personality change when the world has come to shambles? Is it possible to raise a family in such conditions, or even be an acceptable human being? How long is it possible to go on? Supervised by famed director Frank Darabont (The Shawhank Redemption) and starring Andrew Lincoln and Laurie Holden, the show is already at its third season and going strong. One good advice - don’t get too attached to the characters, since there are numerous losses, and they usually happen in gruesome, cruel ways. But then again, maybe that’s the main attraction of the show for a significant part of the audience, right? | <urn:uuid:33a2d0ee-b3b1-41cb-b46e-55800a6ca85e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvduck.com/The-Walking-Dead.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956161 | 394 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Odds are hostilities will continue into next week as the U.S. and South Korea conduct annual military exercises near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two countries, and North Korea continues large-scale military exercises.
"Tensions will likely go up further next week as both sides start military drills," Ellen Kim, assistant director and Fellow of the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI. "So this is not a good situation."
The Hermit Kingdom also closed the border, cut off phone hotlines, and cancelled the nonaggression pact between the countries; clamped down on overseas travel and domestic movements; and established no-fly and no-sail zones off its coasts as the UN Security council signed a new wave of sanctions.
“Tensions are high in North Korea as if there is a likely war to be triggered soon,” a source in North Pyongang province who recently visited China told Radio Free Asia.
As Kim explains: the North interprets joint U.S.-South Korea exercises "as an act of war — that's why they were ratcheting up the rhetoric. ... North Korea sees this as the other side trying to go into North Korea."
Which means that a slip-up during live fire drills — which will take place within an ear shot of one another — could lead to an unintended confrontation.
"Everyone is ready," Kim said. "This is a very sensitive situation and you don't want to make a small mistake because it could really lead to a big confrontation ... [it] really could be disastrous."
Further raising the stakes, the fact that the North cut off the hotlines means that if "there is any mistake there's no way to communicate that (it was an accident)," Kim said. "This situation we really don't want to see."
Even if the exercises go on without a hitch, Kim believes that in the short term "it's highly likely that we will see another provocation from North Korea — a missile test, a nuclear test, or even an attack on South Korean soil like the shelling of Yeonpyeong island in 2010."
That's because North Korea "can use this opportunity to their advantage ... to test their capabilities and advance their technology," Kim said.
The kicker is that no one really knows who is truly directing North Korea's military given that Jong-un is so inexperienced and much his father's posse is still around.
"Basically we don't know what Kim Jong-un is thinking," Kim said. "This young leader may be more reckless than his father or, if not, he may not be in full control and hardliners are in control of the country." | <urn:uuid:cf8c7565-e0df-46ff-a994-ade6999e3426> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/tensions-between-north-and-south-korea-2013-3?pundits_only=0&get_all_comments=1&no_reply_filter=1 | 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 | 0.976029 | 557 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) issued its 2010 Annual Report today.
The development and review of codes of welfare was the main focus of NAWAC’s work in 2010. Four new codes of welfare were issued during the year; the dairy cattle code, commercial slaughter code, dogs code, and sheep and beef cattle code. A review of the pigs code of welfare was completed and a revised code issued.
Work continued on the review of the meat chicken and layer hens codes of welfare, as well as the development of several more codes.
Dr John Hellström, Chairman of NAWAC, says the past year has been a very busy one for NAWAC and members have worked through a number of challenging issues.
"Although NAWAC is extremely well served by a balanced and diverse range of expert members, the review of the pigs code was particularly challenging as it involved very significant changes to current industry practices."
"Members' expertise has been particularly helpful as the committee worked through practical, scientific, economic and ethical issues".
Other initiatives over the year included supporting Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF)- funded research on the animal welfare risks posed by housing dairy cows, to explore whether this relatively new practice requires any amendment to the dairy cattle code of welfare. The research is expected to be completed mid-2011.
NAWAC is an independent advisory committee to the Minister of Agriculture. The committee was established under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 to provide advice to the Minister on matters relating to the welfare of animals in New Zealand and to develop codes of welfare.
A copy of the annual report is available at http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/regs/animal-welfare/nawac/annual-reports or by request from firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:9e7dfb0a-ce75-4271-a304-70c9932702b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=1&t=144&id=67576 | 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 | 0.97205 | 382 | 1.820313 | 2 |
If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman, many same-sex couples could be in for substantial tax windfalls.
The Supreme Court is expected to discuss whether to hear cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, later this month. If the court decides to review the law, it could later rule that same-sex couples married in states where gay marriage is legal should also be considered married in the eyes of the federal government.
If this happens, the financial landscape for same-sex couples would change drastically. And not just going forward. Some couples who are already married at a state level would suddenly qualify for refunds of estate or income taxes that they paid as a result of DOMA going back to 2009, said Nanette Miller, head of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) practice at accounting firm Marcum LLP.
Since same-sex couples can't file federal taxes jointly -- and can't combine their incomes and deductions to take advantage of lower tax rates and certain credits -- many pay thousands of dollars a year in extra income tax. This is especially true when one of the spouses earns a lot more than their partner.
Miller estimates that, on average, clients who would qualify for extra income tax refunds in the event that DOMA is overturned could expect to receive refunds of around $10,000 for each year they were married since 2009.
And depending on the individual situation, the windfalls could be much larger -- especially since same-sex couples would also be able to claim the extra tax that was paid on a home sold in one person's name, money gifted to a spouse or health insurance benefits received through a partner's plan, said Ken Weissenberg, a partner at accounting firm EisnerAmper.
"[On the very high end], you're potentially talking $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 -- the numbers could be off the charts," said Weissenberg. "I think it will be a very pleasant surprise for a lot of them."
Estate taxes would be fair game, too. Currently, the surviving spouse in a heterosexual marriage can inherit their spouse's estate tax-free, while the surviving partner in a same-sex relationship is charged a 35% estate tax on anything that is transferred in excess of the exemption (so anything more than $3.5 million for 2009 and $5 million in 2011).
If DOMA is overturned, those who paid taxes on their deceased spouse's estate could amend their estate tax return and be refunded the extra money they paid.
In one case challenging DOMA that the Supreme Court may choose to review, Edith Windsor of New York, had to pay more than $300,000 in estate taxes when her partner died. All of that would be returned to her if DOMA is found unconstitutional, said Weissenberg. | <urn:uuid:16933a71-f00d-4fb1-b454-d5af968577d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wdsu.com/news/money/Same-sex-couples-could-see-tax-windfalls/-/9853238/17398652/-/item/0/-/tk7aig/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980004 | 598 | 1.71875 | 2 |
|Andrew L. Kostin:||Professional Website||Academic Website||Personal Weblog|
Student means business at his own lecture series
By: Donna Porstner
Article Published: Saturday, April 5, 2008
STAMFORD - Andrew Kostin starts his days at the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering. But by midafternoon, he's working for one of world's largest investment banks.
The high school senior, who recently began his second internship with UBS Investment Bank in downtown Stamford, started a lecture series to teach his peers about the company - and what it's like to enter the rat race.
The 17-year-old decided to bring what he was learning in the workplace back to school after getting peppered with questions from curious classmates.
"They would say, 'What types of servers do you use, and what's your BCM plan?' "he said, explaining the tech-savvy teens wanted to know what business continuity plans the firm has in place to disperse information during power outages and other emergencies.
Kostin couldn't answer all their questions, so he decided to bring in the experts who could. He invited UBS executives to speak on topics ranging from balancing stock portfolios and equities to diversity in the workplace.
He modeled the talks after a lecture series he participated in last summer for UBS interns. About 50 students have attended each session.
"It gives our students an idea what's going on with the economy, what's going on in the business world, and gives them ideas for career paths," AITE Principal Paul Gross said.
Kostin receives high school credit for coordinating the lectures and working at UBS after school. While several AITE students are doing independent studies, he's is the only one to launch a lecture series, Gross said.
"This is a really special event, where the student - with no motivation other than his idea - decided to put this together," Gross said. "He just saw a great opportunity to give back to his school in a very unique way, and we are very proud of
Kostin, whom the principal describes as "quite smart, quite aggressive and quite focused," is president of the school's Stock Market Club and a student council representative for the senior class. He also serves as a student ambassador, giving prospective students and their parents tours of the campus. "He's got a work ethic, and he's got a vision that's not typical of most seniors," Gross said.
Brian Bishop, a UBS executive director, said Kostin was the only high school intern invited to stay on during the school year, largely because of his expertise in building internal Web sites.
"I think it was Andrew's technical skills that led us to keep him on for the full year," Bishop said. AITE is an interdistrict magnet school that integrates technology into college-preparatory classes. The school, which had 183 students when it opened at Rippowam Middle School in 2000, has nearly 500 pupils today. It moved into a state-of-the art, $45 million building in September.
Like Kostin, about a third of the students come from outside Stamford. Students must apply and are chosen by lottery.
"Andrew is just one of the shining examples of what students from outside of our district have brought to our district," Gross said.
Kostin, who lives in Darien, attended Cushing Academy, a boarding school in Ashburnham, Mass., for his freshman year, before transferring to AITE two years ago. At the time, he was interested in a career in technology, said his mother, Susan Kostin. Her son's interest shifted to the business world after participating in the UBS internship and job-shadowing programs that took him into local businesses such as Pitney Bowes and the Marriott hotel downtown, she said.
Andrew Kostin's father was a managing partner with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Stamford who taught tax law at the University of Pennsylvania's law school and Wharton School of Business. During Andrew Kostin's sophomore year, he attended one of the last classes his father taught before he died. "Clearly, that was an influence," Susan Kostin said.
He plans to study business in college, although he has not decided which school he
will attend in the fall: the University of New Haven or Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey.
Asked whether some of his lectures are too grown-up for high school students, Kostin admitted the first presentation, on the topic of risk, went over the heads of some teens in the audience. But he said it has been a good learning experience to work with the guest speakers to develop a program suitable for his age group.
"I took the feedback I got from the students, and what I saw myself, and I said, 'Why don't you less PowerPoint presentations and just talk about what you did in college?” he said.
Kostin hopes that by giving his peers some insight into the business world, they will be inspired to seek out careers in the financial services industry.
"Through the speaker series, I am saying you can get there in life, and this how you get there," he said. | <urn:uuid:26e3f59e-8aa8-48bc-b188-fb67b329bce8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://donotblink.com/labels/UBS.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983781 | 1,083 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Harvard economist and fellow Catonian Jeff Miron suggests that the Kagan nomination will spark renewed discussion of the question: “Should judges follow the Constitution?” I hope not, because in practice those are seldom particularly useful discussions.
I tend to agree with Ronald Dworkin that there is just not that much interesting disagreement about whether judges should “follow the Constitution” or “apply” rather than “make” law. The interesting differences between judicial philosophies are about what that entails. The cases where it’s obvious what it means to “follow the Constitution” tend not to make it before the Supreme Court—though one can of course argue that in this domain or that, no plausible theory will sustain the Court’s interpretation.
To the extent that one thinks one’s own interpretive approach is the correct one, of course, it will make sense to think of divergent rulings yielded by other approaches as failing to “follow” (the correct interpretation of) the Constitution. And there’s a rhetorical advantage to framing legal disagreement this way. But it also gives you useless spectacles like Sonia Sotomayor professing that her judicial philosophy is “fidelity to the law.”
This is sort of like learning that her moral philosophy is “a theory of how one ought to behave.” It’s not totally content-free insofar as it seems to rule out various species of nihilism or non-cognitivism, and maybe even suggests a view that focuses on rules or dispositions rather than outcomes. But it doesn’t really say what one’s theory is so much as it lays out a very broad conception of what it means to have “a moral theory.”
So I don’t want to waste any hearing time learning whether Elena Kagan thinks judges ought to follow the Constitution. I’m sure she does, and will be only too happy to wax poetic on the topic. I want to know what interpretive methods she believes constitute that fidelity. Despite her own past assaults on the “vapid and shallow parade” of judicial confirmation hearings, I don’t expect her to be too forthcoming when it comes questions about the specific conclusions those methods might yield on various hot-button issues. But there’s plenty of useful probing to be done in the vast terrain between “will you uphold the Constitution?” and “would you uphold Casey?” | <urn:uuid:220c7d0a-7b07-4c58-a4f0-df31269ccc88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.juliansanchez.com/2010/05/16/on-following-the-constitution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947604 | 519 | 1.523438 | 2 |
’Theft’ :: Kickass Novel With A Heroine Who Happens To Be Gay
BK Loren is a writer who is old enough to know better and does. She lives outside of Boulder, Colorado in a town called Lafayette. According to Loren, " It is the most economically and culturally diverse place in Boulder county." Loren lives with her partner, Lisa Cech, a life skills coach, and their many dogs, cats and plants.
Loren’s new novel "Theft" is part love story, part environmental cautionary tale and part thriller. The protagonist is a character, who according to Loren, "happens to be a gay woman, but that is not the crux of the book, it is a part of the main character. I hope it is not the only thing of interest about Willa."
I can tell you it is not. "Theft" is a page-turner, a great read, one where you are absorbed by both plot and character.
Willa Robbins is a master tracker working to reintroduce the Mexican wolf, North America’s most endangered mammal, to the American Southwest. In a wicked twist, the Colorado police recruit her to find her own brother, Zeb, a fugitive who finally confessed to a murder long ago. Willa is tossed back into the past where she has to bring childhood memories to the surface. A mixture of intense love, desperate mistakes, and gentle remorse rollicks Willa as she searches for her estranged brother.
"Theft" takes us trekking through exquisite New Mexico and Colorado landscapes, where Zeb is always two steps ahead of the police. And as Willa closes in she wrangles her desire to reunite with her brother pitted against her own guilt about their violent past.
All of this is wrought in Loren’s lyrical prose. Her voice makes the wildlife and land surrounding these beautifully flawed characters vibrant, and she breathes life into the southwestern terrain she so obviously adores. Within this treacherous and mesmerizing landscape, "Theft" illustrates the struggle to piece together the fragile traces of what has been left behind. This is a story about family, about loss, and about a search for answers.
When Loren is often asked if the novel is driven by a philosophy or point of view; she responds, "I never wanted to drive a point about the issues in the book. I wanted to create a dialogue where readers come to their own conclusions. Too often readers are used to a book that wants to drive a point, either on conservation or gayness or another timely issue. I get calls from folks on both sides of issues: Animal conservation, vs. meat eating. I am not going hammer points. I am trying to tell a great story."
Woven into the texture
The same is true for the fact that Willa has "a same sex partner. She is mentioned, referred to but does not propel the actions. What I hoped to bring forward with this kind of reference is that being gay is just a part of life. I don’t mean to under play it, not say there are no differences. I want to show Willa as outside of the usual gender role we see for women, but inside the box of humanity."
When Loren finished the book and began conversations with her publisher there was a discussion as to whether the gay aspects of the characters should be, or needed to be more pronounced. Happily, the publisher, Counterpoint out of Berkeley, came to the conclusion that Loren restates as " This is a book about humanity and the gay population is a part of humanity. We are beyond making things more pronounced. They are the way they are."
Loren continues, "Most people who read ’Theft’ don’t even mention to me that the protagonist is gay until we are well into the conversation. That piece is so woven into the texture of Willa’s life. One part of a remarkable woman"
The book is clearly about family and how we form families with friends and lovers sometimes foregrounding biology. Loren opines, moving to a more political, wide angle discussion, "Imagine if all of us who feel or think we are on the edges of society realized that if we bound together we would be the majority."
"Theft" features many groups who are often found on the periphery: homosexuals, Latinos, children adopted across cultures and then there are the wolves. These are the protagonists in Loren’s riveting book. And she does know how to tell as story as teaches regularly at the Iowa Summer Writer’s Festival. " I knew I was a writer from the time I was in second grade. My teacher wanted me to change words in a short poem I had written and I refused. I knew instinctively that it didn’t scan the same way. The rhythm was off. Luckily I had a mother who backed me up. I have been owning my words ever since."
Well it is really lucky for all of us as well because we wouldn’t want to miss the chance to read Loren’s amazing "Theft." | <urn:uuid:7ab32d06-e363-4c15-a7a8-9200e38fac88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgechicago.com/entertainment/books/features/136227/%E2%80%99theft%E2%80%99_::_kickass_novel_with_a_heroine_who_happens_to_be_gay | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972455 | 1,054 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Myanmar: Violence and Threats Block Access to Medical Care in Rakhine State
Scale-Up in Provision of Medical Care Urgently Needed
AMSTERDAM/YANGON, MYANMAR, NOVEMBER 5, 2012—As medical teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) assist people affected by violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, they are unable to provide care to many people in need due to ongoing ethnic tensions and threats against MSF staff.
In addition, thousands of patients benefiting from longer-term primary health care programs are cut off from medical services as many of MSF’s activities have been suspended since June.
"That we are prevented from acting and threatened for wanting to deliver medical aid to those in need is shocking and leaves tens of thousands without the medical care they urgently need," said Joe Belliveau, MSF operations manager.
In the past few days MSF teams, working together with the government and other international and national humanitarian organizations, have assessed the medical needs of thousands of people newly displaced by violence near the city of Sittwe and the surrounding townships. These joint teams provided some food, water, and emergency health assistance, but the displaced people remain extremely vulnerable due to the loss of their homes and other resources.
MSF has run a major medical program in Rakhine state for nearly 20 years. Since 2005, MSF treated more than a million people for malaria and provided primary health care, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS treatment, and maternal health services in the state. Its patients hail from all ethnic and religious groups in Rakhine.
But since the outbreak of violence in June, MSF is operating at a fraction of its capacity due to access limitations largely stemming from threats and intimidation. Tens of thousands of long-term residents, previously receiving medical care, have gone without care for months.
Ongoing animosity, aimed partially at aid organizations like MSF, makes it increasingly difficult for MSF to support the Ministry of Health in running already-overstretched clinics and reaching out to newly displaced communities.
The disruption also extends to MSF’s longer-term activities. The opening of a health center to provide primary health care and AIDS treatment in Sittwe town was postponed last week in the face of protests. Drug supplies to MSF’s malaria treatment centers in the rural townships of Kyauk Taw, Minbya, and Paletwa are also disrupted, and if they are not resumed quickly the number of untreated malaria cases will rise rapidly as the peak of the malaria season approaches.
"MSF could do much more to assist the recently displaced, those already in temporary camps and longer-term residents who have been cut off from medical services for far too long, but antagonism from some groups prevents us from doing so," Belliveau said.
A scale-up in the provision of medical care to all people affected by violence in Rakhine state is urgently needed. MSF therefore calls for unhindered access and for tolerance of the provision of medical care to all those who need it.
MSF has worked in Myanmar's Rakhine State since 1994. Its medical activities focus on primary health care, with a specific emphasis on reproductive health, malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis. In 2011, MSF conducted 487,000 consultations. Of these nearly 75,000 were for malaria and nearly 24,000 were related to maternal health. MSF has also been providing lifesaving ART treatment to over 600 AIDS patients. MSF has around 300 employees in Rakhine, but due to the prevention of MSF's activities, job losses are inevitable. | <urn:uuid:5fd7c9e7-5de5-4add-ab8d-3d7b40354f8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=6383&cat=press-release&ref=news-index | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965466 | 782 | 1.796875 | 2 |
After losing badly to President Bush in 2004, there was plenty of soul searching in the Democratic party — but they didn’t choose compromise with the president or his agenda.
After winning re-election, Bush thought he had the “political capital” he needed to push forward major reforms. “Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it,” Bush said to reporters. “It is my style.”
But even though Bush had a substantial majority in both Houses of Congress at first, Democrats successfully blocked nearly all of his second term agenda even before their party took power in Congress in 2006.
Bush’s first item of his agenda was Social Security reform. That quickly died after Democrats whipped up a frenzied reaction, scaring most Republicans away from the issue.
Bush’s energy plan passed, but Democrats defeated one of the key components of that bill to block drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Republicans acquiesced to tax credits for clean energy and promoted ethanol.
Bush’s tax reform agenda – planning to make his 2001 tax credits permanent and repeal the estate tax – fell through the floor.
Even Bush’s nominee for the ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, failed to get a vote on the Senate floor, forcing Bush to make it a recess appointment.
Bush’s immigration effort fell short in the spring of 2006. Republicans resisted on one side, and on the other, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Democrats refused to grant him any capital on issue as the solidified their inroads with Hispanic voters.
Bush’s only major legislative success was successfully continuing the war in Iraq and reauthorizing the Patriot Act until Democrats took power in the 2006 elections. From there on, Bush was nearly impotent.
President Obama is already facing similar challenges.
Obama will tackle Republicans’ signature issue with the upcoming battle of the fiscal cliff fight. House Republicans wouldn’t survive without this major issue in their quiver, so they might push back harder than the president expects. Obama already has a hurricane cleanup — which he has handled reasonably well thus far — but needs to finish the job before he pursues any further legislation.
Democrats may feel empowered now that Obama was re-elected, but its possible that they may split with the president, if he asks them to jump off of the fiscal cliff.
On immigration, it is unlikely that Obama will pursue anything more serious than the DREAM act, which may get the support of enough nervous Republicans to pass.
Pundits will declare that the election requires some serious “soul searching” from Republicans, calling them to abandon their low-tax and limited government platform. But which is more likely to succeed? Will Republicans drop their resistance to the president’s controversial fiscal policies?
By 2006, Democrats swept into power on Bush’s ineffectiveness, the war in Iraq, and Social Security fears.
Expect Republicans to dig in on their signature issues and block the president as Democrats did. By the time the 2014 mid-terms arrive, expect the party to emerge with a principled – but re-tooled – political narrative for Obama’s second mid-term elections, in which both the Senate map and history will favor them. | <urn:uuid:76efcb79-4a96-42ba-af16-ced87980141f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/after-bush-was-re-elected-in-2004-democrats-in-congress-did-not-compromise/article/2512871 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969964 | 695 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Especially at the sea and in the mountains strong UV-rays appear which clutter the image, cause unsharpness and make colors whitish. The color-neutral UV-filter keeps out these rays, makes the image sharper, brings more contrast and is a price-reasonable lens protection. HTMC term means "High Transmission Multi Coating". Filters and lenses are coated with 4 layers on each side, which facilitates an extremely soft transmission of the light (air-glass-air). Reflections in the optical system of your camera are avoided. Result: image sharpness, contrast and color saturation are improved accordingly. Filters are made of high-quality lens glass. | <urn:uuid:602b679e-165d-4da9-bc28-ce423a690eb2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fumfie.com/accessory/24094.10/Multicoated_UV_Filter-/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932212 | 134 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Peter Hitchens (born 28 October 1951 in Sliema, Malta GC) is a British journalist, author and broadcaster. He was a reporter on the Daily Express, where he was Moscow and then Washington correspondent, leaving to join the Mail on Sunday in 2001 shortly after the Express was bought by the pornographer Richard Desmond.
A former Trotskyist, Hitchens now espouses conservative values. He advocates the restoration of capital punishment and staunchly opposes United Kingdom membership of the European Union, Prime Minister Tony Blair's constitutional reforms, and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which he regards as a 'sell-out' to the Provisional IRA. He has denounced the decline of religious faith and family life, progressive teaching methods, the influence of television on children, the 'permissive society', multiculturalism and the metrication of Britain's weights and measures. However, he has often been at odds with fellow conservatives, opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the privatisation of Britain's railways. He is frequently dismissive of the modern British Conservative Party and has spoken of his desire for a new conservative movement to take its place.
Hitchens is the author of The Abolition of Britain (1999) and A Brief History of Crime (2003), both critical of changes in British society since the 1960s. A compendium of his Daily Express columns was published under the title Monday Morning Blues in 2000. An updated edition of A Brief History of Crime, re-titled The Abolition of Liberty and featuring a new chapter on identity cards, was published in April 2004.
Christopher Hitchens, also a journalist, author and critic, is his older brother. Christopher's views on most issues are to the left of those of his brother.
- peterhitchens.com - Official site
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:7ae18e04-be2d-437a-b608-016f7f25cc39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Peter_Hitchens | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961839 | 395 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I want to connect my phone (Samsung Galaxy) to my M9, to one of the inputs. The signal from the phone is stereo. I have a few options and I'm not sure which is best. Eventually I will make a monoing cable but for now I can't and have to choose one of the other options.
1. Convert the stereo file to a mono file and use a mono cable. I don't know if it's possible that the signal will pass through the non-existing conductor so there won't be any sound?
2. Same but using a stereo cable. Is it possible that the signal will pass through the conductor that isn't sending anything to the M9? Or maybe some other problem?
3. Convert the stereo file into a stereo with both sides identical, copied from the above converted mono file. Then use a mono cable.
4. Same as (3) but using a stereo cable.
Why not just keep the signal stereo? Or are you hooking the M9 up to an amp in a mono configuration? If you want to sum both sides to a 1/4" jack, you could just get a cable like this: http://www.zzounds.com/item--HOSCMP1. It would essentially do the same thing as your first option, but you wouldn't have to create a mono audio file. Generally, it's OK to use a TRS (stereo) cable even if you're only sending a mono signal. The "ring" portion of the TRS plug won't have anything connected to it on the mono side, so that circuit simply wouldn't be closed. | <urn:uuid:a1469b1e-c2b4-403c-882c-5c8add40cef2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://line6.com/support/message/400137?tstart=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954131 | 338 | 1.71875 | 2 |
On 2001-11-15 08:11, GrapesOfWrath wrote:
Years ago, I read a kids book biography, which I remember as being about Goddard, the pioneering rocket scientist. In the book, a boy is sick and confined to his room for weeks. He experiments with constructing a device to whirl a projectile around on a string, and insert a blade to suddenly cut the string. His first attempt was in front of his parents, before an open window. Of course, he cut the string just as the projectile was in front of the window--sending the projectile violently against the ceiling.
Anybody else ever hear this story? Who was it? | <urn:uuid:cd1e8682-4cf8-4915-b316-6812545578d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?162-More-Centrifugal-Force&p=2754 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980142 | 139 | 1.539063 | 2 |
A federal judge has struck down a Federal Election Commission ruling that allowed groups to pay for advertising in the run-up to elections while keeping their donors anonymous.
The decision could force groups that air “electioneering communications” – ads broadcast close to an election that don’t expressly advocate for a federal candidate but often stop just short – to now disclose their donors.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman said on Friday that the FEC overstepped and “cannot unilaterally decide to take on a quintessentially legislative function” in ruling that corporations and others do not have to reveal who financed such ads.
The case was brought by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who sued the FEC, arguing that the nation’s 2002 campaign-finance law required full disclosure of those who contribute at least $1,000 for “electioneering communications” – ads broadcast within 30 days of a federal-office primary, or within 60 days of the general election.
After the legal victory, one of the attorneys on the case, Fred Wertheimer, president of the watchdog group Democracy 21, signaled that the legal team would seek to press the issues of disclosure further in the courts. Wertheimer said in a statement that he will consult with Van Hollen about filing a second lawsuit to take on lax disclosure requirements for independent expenditure groups, better known as super PACs. | <urn:uuid:e9ab68e4-3668-4700-84d1-442d1db2c689> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/judge-reveal-donors-behind-electioneering-ads-20120402 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95502 | 289 | 1.5625 | 2 |
University of Wisconsin graduate student Danielle Henderson was in a similar situation, struggling to remember and differentiate among numerous feminist theories. So she came up with a plan to help herself out. It all began at lunch one day when Henderson and her friends were talking about Ryan Gosling in the movie Drive.
Henderson was inspired to combine her academic struggles and her feminist lifestyle in a fun way to make difficult feminist subjects and mounting exams easier to tackle. She created a Tumblr account called “Feminist Ryan Gosling” based on “Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling“, and what she thought would remain a fun study technique among friends quickly turned into an overnight sensation. Since its creation in October 2011, the Tumblr has garnered more than 3,000,000 views a month. With her wild success rate, Henderson decided to publish a book.
Feminist Ryan Gosling: Feminist Theory as Imagined from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude includes 100+ feminist-themed quips that supposedly come out of Gosling’s mouth. After studying about 35 books during her winter break, she had collected enough feminist theory to write the book. Says Henderson,
They are all legitimately flashcards for me. It still feels really selfish because everything is based on assigned homework and my thesis. … But that doesn’t mean it’s all right. I put my opinion into what I read.
Henderson admits that she is still surprised by the success of the site. She explained that if she had known it would get so popular, she probably wouldn’t have chosen to feature someone as famous as Ryan Gosling:
All I hope is that he doesn’t completely hate it. My goal is not to out him as a feminist or put words in his mouth. … It’s just something I like to do.
Imagining Ryan Gosling talking about feminist theory is a creative way to engage and inform about sometimes hard-to-grasp topics. While it is not clear if real-life Gosling is a feminist, Henderson skilfully pairs feminist comments and Gosling’s expression in complementary settings to make each “Hey girl…” seem surprisingly realistic. Although Gosling has not commented on the Tumblr or upcoming book, he was quoted in 2010 discussing Blue Valentine’s NC-17 rating. The problems he addressed definitely support the imaginary feminist Ryan Gosling:
You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is OK supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film.
While many continue hoping that Gosling will officially call himself a feminist, for now, we can continue to be entertained by Henderson’s book. Its goal is to allow feminism to be fun and personal, says Henderson:
I’ve spent so much time as feminist feeling really alone and isolated. It’s cool that people are interested in talking about feminist in a different way. We can address difficult things in a more lighthearted way, while still being part of struggle and sisterhood.
Feminist Ryan Gosling: Feminist Theory as Imagined from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude will be available Tuesday, August 14. Until then, check out the Feminist Ryan Gosling Tumblr.
Top Photo of Ryan Gosling from Wikimedia Commons.
Bottom photos reprinted with permission from Feminist Ryan Gosling by Danielle Henderson, Running Press, 2012. | <urn:uuid:1c68ec87-4dc7-4f06-8db9-c4bfcb0ad221> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://msmagazine.com/blog/2012/08/13/ryan-gosling-feminist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970404 | 796 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Surf pounding Old Lyme beaches
Where there is weather, there are weather watchers.
Several people gathered at the end of Hartford Avenue in Old Lyme this morning to sip coffee and watch the storm come in to Sound View Beach. The surf was already churning, but had not yet breached the high tide mark.
"This isn't it yet," said Paul Gasperini, who lives at the top of Gorton Avenue. "Hawks Nest (beach) is already getting pounded. Gasperini was looking west, where the waves appeared to have already breached the sea wall.
Gasperini said he lived in Florida for 20 years before coming to Connecticut.
"My wife came up here because she wanted to get away from hurricanes," he said.
Mystic inundated with water
Monday morning's high tide inundated parts of downtown Mystic, flooding the public parking area and portions of the riverside docks and streets along the Mystic River.
Downtown shops, sand bags stacked at their entrances, were closed and the Mystic River was creeping precariously close to the drawbridge.
Outside the Tradewinds Gallery on West Main Street, John Sarpu made some last minute preparations, covering the glass entrance with plywood. Sarpu works for Jerome Properties, which owns several downtown buildings.
He said awnings have been cranked in, signs removed and along with plywood and sandbags he is using silicone to fill in some of the cracks where water can seep into the shops.
"We're basically doing as much as we can," Sarpu said. "Hopefully if the water comes up it will drain off. We'll pray and hope for the best."
On the Stonington side of the Mystic River, onlookers gathered near the flooded park to watch the water rise. Mystic resident Kathy Gauthier snapped some photos of what she said was "history in the making."
"I grew up here and I've never seen it like this," she said.
Gauthier said even her mother, who lived through the hurricane of 1938, said she was impressed by the height of the water.
Groton has issued a mandatory evacuation Sunday for those living in certain shoreline communities, such as Groton Long Point and Noank. About 60 people stayed Sunday night at the emergency shelter at Fitch Senior High School, said Joseph Sastre, the town's emergency management director. The shelter remains open and has a special section for pets.
"My major concern is people living in the low-lying areas that are not heeding the warnings," Sastre said.
Up to date information is available by visiting Groton's Emergency Management on Facebook.
Stonington flooding; bracing for evening tide
In Stonington borough this morning, where high tide was just before 9 a.m., water topped many of the docks that fringe the village. Offshore in Stonington Harbor, waves had inundated many sections of the outer breakwater which had been damaged by Tropical Storm Irene and was scheduled for repairs beginning this week. Much of Sandy Point is also now under water.
The inner breakwater is still above water but the jetty behind Stonington Commons, which cars use to be able to drive on before it was damaged in the Hurricane of 1938, is now under water as well.
The public parking lot at Wayland's Wharf is flooded as is the flood prone road around Hyde Street which the borough just rebuilt.
On East Grand Street, flood waters are threatening to refloat the massive log that washed ashore during Irene. Residents have warned over the past year that if that happens it will threaten nearby docks.
Although police have set up barriers to stop people from for going to Stonington Point, a steady stream of people walked down to the Point to take photos and watch the waves, which have begun to flood the parking lot.
Warden Paul Burgess, estimated this morning that about 30 to 40 percent of borough residents, who are under a mandatory evacuation order.
"When we get to 9 p.m. tonight that will be the real question," he said referring to the time when tide will be high again and the storm will be its strongest.
First Selectmen Ed Haberek agreed.
"Tonight is going to be a nightmare," he said as he drove to Masons Island about 10:15 a.m. to check on the causeway which was topped by water, cutting remaining residents off from the mainland. Masons Island is also under a mandatory evacuation order.
Haberek said Holmes Street along the Mystic River have also flooded as well as sections of River Road along the Pawcatuck River. He said 129 customers of Rivercrest neighborhood in Pawcatuck are without power after a transformer fire.
Twenty-six people are now at the shelter at the high school where school cooks will begin to serve food at lunch for evacuees.
Lyme residents urged to seek shelter
Lyme officials have told residents needing overnight shelter to proceed to the regional shelter at East Lyme Middle School on Society Road.
After the storm, the Lyme's Senior Center on Town Woods Road will act as a respite center with food and water, the Town stated on its Web site Monday morning.
The Hadlyme and Hamburg Fire Stations are open and can provide access to showers, water and any charging of electronic devices.
The Town Hall and Landfill will close noon. The Town has also extended the deadline for in person voter registration to 8 p.m. on Nov. 1.
Waterford residents prepare beachside homes for storm
The cottage at the end of The Strand was the focus of attention for two friends who worked this morning to remove the staircase leading from the cottage down to the beach.
The Crampton's Cottage is the only house in the small beach neighborhood that is directly in front of the breaking waves.
Eight feet of water is all it takes for the yard of the home behind and to the side of the cottage, owned by the parents of Waterford resident Guy Joseph, to be under water.
"It's worse now than it was during Irene," he said. "This is going to be bad."
Storm surges are expected to be double or even triple the size of what they were during Irene, which was three to six feet.
The other neighborhood in Sea Meadows Lane was deserted. Most are summer homes, Joseph said, but there are some year-round residents who did not want to take the chance of flooding or wind damage.
East Lyme shelter busy; roads flooding
By 9:30 this morning, about 70 people had settled in at the American Red Cross regional shelter at the middle school, along with eight dogs and a hamster.
Another 15 people came through the door at about 10:30, and shelter manager Dawn Davis expected still more guests as the day progresses. The facility is open to residents of East Lyme, Lyme, Montville, Old Lyme, Waterford and New London.
"Things have started to pick up," she said. "We're hearing that by 2 or 3 p.m., we should batten down the hatches. Hopefully everybody should be here by then."
Rose Lohne, 81, of Niantic, who remembers the Hurricane of '38, predicted that this storm wouldn't be as bad. Still, she never wants to experience the terror she felt as a 7-year-old girl living on Main Street.
"All the windows in the kitchen were rattling," she said. "Many trees were lost, especially on Pennsylvania Avenue."
As Lohne reminisced from the safety of her cot in the school gymnasium, East Lyme First Selectman Paul Formica was standing at "Ground Zero" in Cini Park, where water was already lapping over the road. The town had ordered the evacuation of all low lying areas Sunday with good reason, he said.
"We're already seeing signs that the flooding at this high tide is coming over the roads," Formica said. "The issue is going to be the fact of the sustained winds over the next 24 to 36 hours are going to keep the high tide in place and not allow it to release back."
Formica said town offices were closing at 11:45 so that all but essential employees would be off the roads. He stressed that people should stay at home.
At the shelter, kids sat cross-legged on cots, playing a game of battle ship. Pet owners tended to their animals, which are being kept in the hallway of the school's lower levels. Local residents were stopping by with donations, including one woman who had eight cheesecakes in her freezer, Davis said.
In the cafeteria, Hank and Sandy DeMazza of Old Lyme spoke with relatives by cell phone and said they were resigned to waiting out the storm at the shelter. Because Mr. DeMazza relies on oxygen tanks, they felt more comfortable here.
"It's our first time at a shelter," said Mrs. DeMazza, who said she has been teased quite a bit about her first name, Sandy, being the name of the moment.
She said the shelter workers and volunteers have thought of everything.
"Nobody should hesitate to come here," she said. "It's incredible." | <urn:uuid:a3af5e53-cf47-41a5-a4b4-2a2fa08c06e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121029/NWS01/121029677/1070&CSLoginOnly=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979693 | 1,923 | 1.625 | 2 |
Huck Finn Days
For this one I thought I would try something that I had seen several years earlier at a Camporee when I was with a Troop over in Germany. Admitedly it was a much smaller District and there were only about 70 kids there at the time but I thought it was worth a try.
After the flag raising Saturday morning, we lined all of the kids up by age in a straight line. We then went down the line handing them a sheet of paper that told them what new Patrol they were going to be in. This way it was unlikely that there would be more than two kids from the same Troop in the new Patrols. We had 250 kids at this Camporee and we divided the boys up into 32 new Patrols. As soon as all of the boys had their new Patrol forms in had we had them split into the new groups and held Patrol Leader Elections. In most cases this was the oldest boy in the new Patrol, but there were a few surprising exceptions. We gave the boys about 20 minutes to get to know each other and then sent them on their way to start the days events.
This Camporee is one that I will do again, however, this must have a couple years between it. I recieved much feedback from the boys on this one, most like it, some very much disliked it. The ones that liked it said it would be cool to do once in a long while.
New Patrol Form
Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3, Pic 4
What went good:
The splitting up the boys into new Patrols went pretty good. In a District like ours where boys might live 3 blocks from each other and still go to different Troops, different schools, and never meet each other until they get elected into the OA and then they become great friends. The reason I did this was so boys would have a chance to meet other Scouts from different Troops around the cities. I have heard that there were many good friendships borne that day.
What went not so good:
When we split the boys up into new Patrols we did not check to see that they went to the Patrol that their form told them to go to. We had numerous boys just go with thier friends. We discovered towards the end of the day that we had one Patrol with around 4 extra guys in it. Next time we will check that a little closer.
Raft building: It was COLD. Plus it rained on us. Luckily we had a bus nearby with the heater on so as soon as boys got off the water they jumped in the bus to warm up. It is hard to do water activities in Minnesota in May. Even still, in the pictures above the boys are singing a rousing chorus of "Row, row, row your boat". They still had alot of fun.
Snapper fishing: We couldn't figure a way out to reset all of the mouse traps fast enough to move the boys through the event so we changed it to a casting competition with buckets set out that the boys had to aim for. They still enjoyed it.
Back to the Camporees | <urn:uuid:f7ddca20-db8d-481a-ac58-2f7a984efe0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://troop33.net/campdir/huckfinn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991866 | 645 | 1.5625 | 2 |
“We were lost and dead in sin. We were by nature objects of God's wrath. But God Loved us That Love caused Him to do something about our situation. God is rich in mercy, so He made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. God acted on His Love for us and saved us by His Grace Grace is the result of the actions of His Love. The remarkable thing about His Grace is that He didn't ask us to do anything but believe Him. God didn't ask us to perform some great deed. He didn't demand obedience from us before He would save us. God made us alive with Christ 'even when we were dead in transgressions and sins.' God is showing the universe 'the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.' (Ephesians 27) God was Kind to us 'in' Christ because He Loved us.
Find a translation for this quote in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:c3617cff-9aa3-48c2-8b2e-1a5a56b42ddd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quotes.net/quote/15543 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983118 | 205 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Eliza Dushku is aiming to raise $30,000 by her 30th birthday later this month to build a recovery center for former child soldiers in Uganda. The "Bring It On" star is spearheading efforts to purchase land for the project, which will help rehabilitate young soldiers who were abducted by the African country's rebel army.
And she's told friends and family not to buy her gifts when she turns 30 on Thursday, December 30, requesting donations for the cause instead. Dushku tells Celebuzz.com, "My mother Judy is a professor of African politics and political science, and she has been going to Africa my whole life, and she'd take groups of students and her kids to Africa on trips... Because of her teaching, she started thinking about the Ugandan child soldiers who were eight, nine years old and what that looked like. That's how it all began."
"She and I went to Uganda and we started to get deeper and hear the stories of these kids who were abducted in the night, forced to kill their family members so they didn't have anyone to come home to... They're still always in fear of being kidnapped, and we're trying to figure out how you can recover from that... So, we're looking to build a center to help them heal through things like art therapy, film therapy... We want to create the center and really focus on the rehabilitation and reintegration into society."
"I don't have the money in my pocket to build or complete an initiative, but sharing those stories is what I can do. If I can create any kind of awareness, that's what I can do." | <urn:uuid:d55cce60-7cca-4e01-b341-e3ae6e74ed7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w0009215.html | 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 | 0.986187 | 336 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Elizabeth Chabner Thompson thought she was getting a bargain last summer when she took on three student interns for her new business, a retailer and wholesaler of recovery kits for women who've undergone breast-cancer treatments.
The interns offered to help her with social-media marketing for free in order to gain professional work experience.
But as the weeks went by, Dr. Thompson says, the young women began to lose interest in their temporary jobs. They would increasingly request time off without advance notice, and the first-time entrepreneur felt she couldn't say no since she wasn't paying them, nor were they getting school credit.
"I was depending on them to follow through, but it was hard to demand anything of them," says Dr. Thompson, adding that the interns might have been inclined to stick around longer if she had spent more time supervising them in the beginning.
Planning to hire student interns for your new venture this summer? The proposition may seem like a no-brainer if you're just starting out or you have a limited budget for recruiting talent. Interns often are willing to work for little or no pay in exchange for school credit or the opportunity to beef up their résumés.
But if interns aren't compensated in any way, or if they're poorly managed, they may not be motivated to do their jobs to the fullest, as Dr. Thompson discovered. The 45-year-old is now planning a more-organized and paid internship program for her Scarsdale, N.Y., business, BFFL, which stands for Best Friends for Life.
When crafting an internship program, make sure it complies with the U.S. Labor Department's six-factor test, says Joseph H. Harris, a partner at New York law firm White Harris PLLC. (Go to the Labor Department's site, dol.gov.) For example, the program should provide educational value and be for the benefit of the intern, not the business. Some states, including California and New Jersey, require employers to meet criteria on top of what the Labor Department demands.
Interns at Billy Van Jura's insurance consulting practice in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., are trained on how to run marketing campaigns from start to finish. They're paid $10 an hour and receive an extra $25 a week if they need to travel for an assignment. "It's stuff I can do, but I get twice the money's worth and they learn," says Mr. Van Jura, adding that he starts his interns out with tasks that aren't critical to the success of his business. "They have permission to fail."
Mr. Van Jura, 35, started recruiting interns from local colleges soon after starting Birchyard in 2011. He says while the insurance industry has a reputation for being dull, he's managed to hire some talented students by pointing out the benefits of being an entrepreneur. For instance, he can be choosy with clients, manage his own hours and work from just about any location.
When evaluating candidates for internships, don't place too much weight on the school they attend, says Olivia Scott-Perkins, principal of Omerge Alliances, a five-month-old entertainment-marketing firm. She recently hired two interns—one who had just graduated from an Ivy League university and another from a community college—and was surprised to see the latter recruit outshine the other.
"He had ideas on how to improve things," says Ms. Scott-Perkins, 39, whose business is based in New York City. "His contributions were so significant." By contrast, the intern with the more impressive pedigree required a lot of hand-holding "and some work still didn't get done," she adds.
Another lesson learned the hard way: Don't hire virtual interns, says David Simnick, 25, co-founder of SoapBox Soaps, a health and beauty brand since 2010. Last summer, the Rockville, Md., startup recruited five student interns to work remotely since the company couldn't yet afford office space.
Mr. Simnick and his partners assumed they could get by using online technology such as Skype and Google Hangout to assign and oversee tasks in areas such as charity outreach, public relations and business development. But the arrangement quickly floundered, he says. "We found that more time was spent trying to coordinate meetings and fixing technical bugs than actually getting meaningful work done."
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version said when crafting an internship, make sure it complies with the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:860c6888-ab9a-43e1-9b21-db8963c6b3ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topics.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578344112141482712.html?mod=WSJ_SmallBusiness_LEFTTopStories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972855 | 956 | 1.625 | 2 |
Welcome to the zombie Oyster’s Garter, resurrected from the blogular grave to eat your braaains. Or at least to pick your brains (which in the context of zombies sounds most distressing.). At the upcoming Science Online conference, I will be co-moderating a panel called “Talking Trash: Online Outreach from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The other panelists are freelance journalist Lindsey Hoshaw, who made news this summer by crowdsourcing her trip to the North Pacific and writing about it in the New York Times, and photographer/videographer/ocean advocate Annie Crawley, who was with me on the R/V New Horizon as a documentarian for Project Kaisei. (Bonnie Monteleone was originally going to be on the panel but unfortunately had a scheduling conflict.)
We are planning on letting our panel be largely audience-driven, but we would like to get a feel for what you are interested in. (If you are not attending Science Online, fret not – our session will be either livestreamed or recorded or both – if livestreamed you can ask questions on the web.) I can’t speak for my co-moderators, but I don’t want this session to get too hung up on specific marine debris issues – I think it would be much more interesting to talk about our experience trying to meld real-time science, nonprofit advocacy, outreach, and journalism.
Here are some preliminary questions. Please comment and tell us what you think. This is also posted at the Science Online wiki, and you are invited to comment there as well.
- Why is the media & the public so interested in trash in the ocean? Can this interest be leveraged/created for other issues?
- We are three people with different perspectives on what is important in communication: a scientist, a journalist, and a journalist-artist-filmmaker-documentarian.
- What were our disagreements? Here’s a few examples off the top of my head: I did not agree with much of Lindsey’s NYT article; Annie had a tough time getting stressed-out scientists (me included!) to work with her while at sea, SIO is an academic institution while Project Kaisei and AMRF are nonprofit advocacy groups.
- Do we as scientists/journalist/artists have a common goal? Beyond Littering Is Bad? Is loving the ocean enough?
- If we do have a common goal, what are lessons learned from this summer? What would we do differently next time?
- Can we offer advice to other scientists/journalists/artists trying to work together?
- How can scientists, journalists, and educators balance “exciting findings live from the field!” with “highly preliminary unpublished non-peer-reviewed data that our labwork might contradict”? For example, one thing that is tough with advocacy and education is the scientific emphasis on peer-reviewed publication – the timescale is waaaay too slow for good real-time communication. How can we be accurate, entertaining, and educational?
Here’s some background on our experiences in the Gyre:
- SEAPLEX outreach website
- SEAPLEX blog
- SEAPLEX Twitter
- Response to Lindsey’s NYT article
- Video of me explaining SEAPLEX, from before we went to sea
- Blog from SEAPLEX
- Videos from SEAPLEX (not all in playlist are Annie’s – look for Dive Imagination at the beginning)
- Photos from SEAPLEX
- Google map with more videos
- Dive Into Your Imagination main site | <urn:uuid:063bd172-cfcd-4097-9717-6bae818c78e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theoystersgarter.com/2010/01/03/thoughts-on-the-talking-trash-section-at-science-online/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ca22629ab2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947867 | 769 | 1.78125 | 2 |
If you enjoy crazy effects on your picture through your camera then a Nikkor 6mm F/2.8 Lens from a 1970 trade show described as see behind itself, is up for grabs. The monster fisheye lens was credited as the world’s most extreme wideangle lens to cover the 24x36mm image area when it was unveiled at the Photokina trade show at Cologne, Germany in 1970.
The lens officially went into production in 1972 and sold only as individual special orders. The massive glass dome on the front of the lens is a quarter of a metre wide, sticks out 6 inches, and weighs over 11 pounds, dwarfing your camera as you fire insane fisheye angles. Most crazy of all is the fact that the 12-elements-in-9-goups optic delivers a picture angle of 220º..
The 6mm lens was designed for an expedition to Antarctica, and was pointed straight up to capture a photo of the entire sky. It’s now used to shoot photos wide enough to use in virtual reality panoramas.
£100,000 ($160,000) price includes a built-in skylight filter, as well as medium yellow, deep yellow, orange and red filters. You’ll be glad to know your hundred grand buys you a lens cap too. We’re guessing that whoever buys this will most probably want to keep it on display rather than take it out for a shooting session, unless that particular photographer is willing to take a 40 plus year old lens with them on photoshoots, putting it at risk to potential scratches and drops.
The Fisheye-Nikkor 6mm f/2.8 lens is on sale at London Nikon specialist Grays of Westminster, which is selling the near-mint condition and ultra-rare lens. | <urn:uuid:ae368f11-7291-48fe-9777-c5d412773f78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.extravaganzi.com/a-rare-1970s-nikkor-6mm-f2-8-fisheye-lens-goes-on-sale-for-160000/ | 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 | 0.95202 | 381 | 1.828125 | 2 |
[Series] So What Do You Do? Interning at a News Library
07/01/2013 § 3 Comments
This post is part of a new series called “So What Do You Do?” in which LIS students talk about their experiences as interns. We want to showcase the wide range of things people are doing in the world of library and information science.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
My name is Emily Powers, and I am from Massachusetts. I’m about to begin my final semester as a MSLIS candidate at Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science in Boston. My undergraduate degree is in English, from UMass Boston. Before attending Simmons I worked at an art museum, a video store and lots of restaurants and cafes.
So what do you do?
Since January 2012, I have worked as an intern in the research and reference library of the Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor is an international news organization, founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy, and has evolved from a print newspaper to an online-first news site that also produces a weekly print magazine.
The library at the Monitor is small, with one full-time librarian and one intern. We assist journalists and editors with reference questions, research and fact-checking, archive photos and magazine pages in a digital asset management system, and maintain a print collection of books and periodicals. We support Monitor staff with access to subscription databases and online publications. We also assist readers and members of the public, who sometimes contact us seeking articles or other content from past issues.
Our days vary, but on a typical day, I might attend an editorial meeting, add metadata to our digital photo archive, locate content for a list story or photo gallery, check statistics cited in an op-ed, and track down data and reporting on topics like the gun industry, the birth rate or foreign aid to Africa.
Are you finding your coursework helpful in that position? In what way?
I keep the textbook from my introductory reference class on my desk (Reference and Information Services in the 21st Century, by Kay Ann Cassell and Uma Hiremath- recommended!), and refer to it for resource ideas when a question stumps me.
An understanding of metadata, from an organization of information course, is helpful for photo archiving. I use HTML, learned in a web development course, to update and maintain the library’s intranet.
What would you say are the lessons you’ve taken away from this job/internship/etc?
I’ve learned so much at this position! I’ll just name a couple of things.
I have learned to juggle multiple tasks and reevaluate their priorities on the fly- very important when you are working with many people who have varying deadlines. I have a much stronger grasp of international politics and global events- and a much more powerful news and Twitter addiction (sorry, family).
I’ve learned to work with some of the vast amount of government resources available online, which I really can’t overstate the usefulness of. (Census data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fedstats.gov…)
How do you think this will help with your career?
Unfortunately, positions in news libraries are few and far between these days. As we all know, the newspaper industry is in a time of upheaval, and the trend has been toward librarian positions being eliminated or reclassified as “researchers” or similar. So while I would love to have a career in news librarianship, I am uncertain if that is a realistic goal these days.
While I may end up working in a different type of library, I will leave this internship with better reference skills, research experience and a familiarity with web and print resources- all transferrable anywhere. I consider myself to be a much stronger job candidate than I was when I began this internship, and would encourage anyone given the same opportunity to take it.
Interested in sharing your internship experience? Contact us at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:75760e03-99c4-4f33-9cc4-4cfc8f0a2b4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hacklibschool.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/series-so-what-do-you-do-interning-at-a-news-library/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=8ef4095fcf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945516 | 841 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been hospitalised with a recurrent lung infection.
Nelson Mandela is "responding positively" to treatment after being re-admitted to hospital with a lung infection, the latest health scare for the much-loved anti-apartheid icon.
South Africa's presidency says former leader Nelson Mandela is progressing with his recuperation from illness and doctors are closely monitoring his condition.
Nelson Mandela was admitted to a hospital in Pretoria on Saturday to undergo tests and was said to be doing well, the South Africa government said.
Nelson Mandela was doing well in hospital on Saturday after being admitted in a pre-planned visit for abdominal pains, a South African presidential spokesman has said.
Nelson Mandela, the hero of South Africa's liberation struggle who spent 27 years behind bars, credited his prison time as strengthening his character.
South Africans prayed for the health of anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela on Thursday, more than 24 hours after the country's revered former leader and first black president entered hospital.
Nelson Mandela's grandchildren insist they are not after his money after launching court action over alleged irregularities in two companies owned by South Africa's ailing anti-apartheid icon.
Nick Miller Usually, when a public figure dies, even their staunchest enemies briefly suspend hostilities in respect for the dead. But with Margaret Thatcher that was never going to be the case.
Nelson Mandela's wife says the 94-year-old icon is "fine" and his health is improving after he was hospitalised more than a week ago for pneumonia, a report says.
Jean Liou Nelson Mandela is comfortable and breathing without difficulty on his third day in hospital after the anti-apartheid hero was treated for pneumonia, South Africa's presidency says.
Nelson Mandela remains in hospital for a fourth day after South African officials say he's making steady progress following treatment for a recurrence of pneumonia.
The remains of two South African youths have been exhumed, nearly 25 years after they went missing in an apartheid-era disappearance linked to Nelson Mandela's former wife Winnie.
Pretoria Oscar Pistorius put on his prosthesis, walked seven metres and fired three shots at his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a locked bathroom door, a South African prosecutor told the athlete's...
John von Radowitz, London An inherited DNA sequence may help to separate managers from minions.
Erin Conway-Smith CAPE TOWN: Nelson Mandela's wife has described how the former president's "sparkle" is gradually fading, as South African officials disclosed that he is suffering from a recurring lung infection.
Erin Conway-Smith CAPE TOWN: Nelson Mandela's wife has described how the former president's ''sparkle'' is fading, as South African officials disclosed that he is suffering from a recurring lung infection.
Nelson Mandela is in hospital, but which one?
Jon Gambrell JOHANNESBURG: South Africa's government has declined to directly address reports that anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was being treated at a different hospital than previously identified, raising...
South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela has undergone a successful procedure to remove gall stones a week after being admitted to hospital for a lung infection. | <urn:uuid:82d3be36-12b9-4a56-b79c-5c59450bffc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/People/Nelson-Mandela | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974168 | 676 | 1.828125 | 2 |
For the cause
: Stephen Waters writes an excellent editorial in the Rome (NY) Sentinal supporting free speech against the FCC. The New York Times should editorialize half as well:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has acted just as dangerously towards freedom as the Iranian mullahs who, according to Reporters Without Borders, have arrested the fifth Iranian Internet writer in two months. Following their belief of decency, mullahs can demand women cover-up with chadors or burqas the same way the FCC can demand broadcast media cover up. The FCC censors according to its beliefs, but they are poor surrogates for your own judgment. There are other tools, all of which are more certain and Constitutionally safe. And they are in your hands: Turn it off.
: Refuse to buy the sponsor’s product.
: Complain to friends and neighbors.
: Complain to the network.
: Express your distaste.
Censure is a personal choice. Under censorship, you risk damage when censors turn around on you. Censoring opens the door for the few to impose their views on everyone else. | <urn:uuid:92dc6f2d-477b-4e73-bbf5-962f70f19410> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://buzzmachine.com/2004/12/03/for-the-cause-stephen/ | 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 | 0.954488 | 235 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Emergency service agencies are eligible for a financial helping hand and, according to Warren County Public Safety Director Todd Lake, all they really need to do is reach for it.
On Sept. 5, applications for the state's Fire Company and Volunteer Ambulance Service Grant Program will open for 45 days to all fire companies and volunteer ambulance services.
This year marks a first for the program, as municipal fire departments were included in the list of agencies eligible for the grant. The grant had been limited to volunteer companies in the past.
The grant money is available for use on projects in four different areas. According to the Office of the State Fire Commissioner website, applicants can use funds for construction or renovation work of service facilities, including purchase and repair of fixtures and furnishings used to "maintain or improve the capability of the company"; for purchase or repair of equipment; for training and certification of members of an organization or for debt reduction associated with facilities work or equipment purchases. Grants may be awarded for up to two projects per-organization.
Lake said that do to the essential and broad nature of the eligible grant usages, "Essentially, if they apply, they get it."
Organizations can apply for amounts between $2,500 and $15,000 for fire departments. The maximum amount available to ambulance services is $10,000. Lake said awards have averaged approximately $9,500 per fire department and $5,600 per ambulance service.
Grant funding is supplied through an annual appropriation of $25 million from the State Gaming Fund; an additional $5 million annually was appropriated from the Property Tax Relief Reserve Fund for the program in 2012. The $30 million total and the number of eligible organizations which apply for funds will determine the actual grant sums awarded.
To be eligible, a fire department must "have actively responded to one or more fire or rescue emergencies during the previous calendar year and is officially recognized by the appropriate municipality". A volunteer ambulance service need only meet the requirements to be defined as such under law. A volunteer ambulance service is defined as "any non-profit chartered corporation, association or organization located in the Commonwealth, which is licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and is not associated or affiliated with any hospital and which is regularly engaged in the provision of emergency medical services, including basic life support or advanced life support services and advanced life support squads".
It is also possible for a company to receive more than one grant award, according to Lake. Organizations which operate both fire and ambulance services can receive awards for both. Nine fire departments in Warren County are listed as also maintaining ambulance service on the Warren County Fire Services website.
Consolidated organizations are also eligible for additional funds.
According to program guidelines, when two or more fire or ambulance service companies have, "merged/consolidated their use of equipment, (personnel) and services within five years preceding the date of the current year application submission deadline, the consolidated entity may be deemed eligible to receive a grant not to exceed the amount of the combined total for which the individual companies would have been eligible had they not consolidated."
This year also marks the first time joint projects between departments qualify for funding. Three or more organizations can apply independently for funds to be used on a joint project, but must apply for at least $5,000 each to qualify.
Despite the broad qualifications for grant projects, some organizations didn't even apply for the 2011-2012 grant program.
"Last year, three fire department and two ambulances did not apply," Lake noted.
According to Lake, Warren County Emergency Management is available to help departments with the grant application process if needed.
"If anybody needs any help we have the information here," Lake said. "We would be happy to help."
The deadline for applications for 2012-2013 grant money is 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19. | <urn:uuid:8ce5489a-9d94-4d4c-b862-98bc3dbabcf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesobserver.com/page/content.detail/id/559409/Fire-departments-encouraged-to-seek-grants.html?nav=5006 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961557 | 788 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Since 2008, IBERDROLA has participated in a pioneering educational initiative with the coordination, editing and publication of several works related to law in the engineering sector.
These publications, prepared in collaboration with the Engineers' Association of I.C.A.I., are designed to provide basic legal knowledge to engineers in any speciality in order to help them carry out their professional activity.
The first publication, launched in 2008, was the Legal Manual for Engineers, a work that has become a benchmark thanks to its overview of legal regulations, focusing on those aspects which are more useful to engineers.
Following the Manual’s excellent reception among the sector’s professionals, 2010 saw the publication of the first 4 Legal Workbooks for Engineers (I), which are designed to provide engineers in any speciality with the information on legal aspects they need to carry out their daily work. This first issue of the Journals was completed in 2011 with the Legal Workbooks for Engineers (II), four volumes focused on subjects that facilitate the activity of both companies and engineers, and in early 2012 with the Legal Workbooks for Engineers (III), five volumes on legal matters related to shareholders, investors and external agencies, minority shareholders, insolvency proceedings and the reform of the Penal Code, among others. The collection is completed with the last edition of the Legal Workbooks for Engineers (IV), with five volumes on legal issues related to compliance, regulation, procedural law, tax law and mergers and acquisitions.
The publication of these works involves a commitment to bring the world of Law to the engineers. To this end, IBERDROLA offers the e-mail address email@example.com in order to gather the opinions of the interested parties about the Legal Manual for Engineers and Legal Workbooks for Engineers and thus enable us to improve future editions. | <urn:uuid:e04ace37-6765-4e4c-ad8d-34def9f6980a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iberdrola.es/webibd/corporativa/iberdrola?IDPAG=ENWEBRESINDINIEYFDCHO&codCache=13382170875644031 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951545 | 376 | 1.78125 | 2 |
and boxing have been king when it comes to writers waxing poetic,
whether it's George Will *68, George Plimpton, or Frank Deford '61.
But Alexander Wolff '79's book, Big Game, Small World, puts
basketball on the same playing field.
"Baseball has always been the sport that intellectuals lean
towards. It shouldn't be true. Basketball is great to write about
because it's so universal," says Wolff, Sports Illustrated's
college basketball writer. "In Bosnia, one of the byproducts
of the war is a national wheelchair basketball league, It's a rural
game in places like Indiana and an urban game in city centers."
For an excerpt from Wolff's book, which
contains many memorable Princeton hardcourt moments, click here. | <urn:uuid:7931b688-8b7f-42b7-bc09-edbe41c6b458> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/web_exclusives/plus/plus_031302wolff.html | 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 | 0.933923 | 170 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has come out fighting after becoming the latest big name to be found guilty of a widespread price-fixing racket relating to liquid crystal display (LCD) panels sold in the US. The company has now been ordered by a northern California court to pay $87m in damages – $70m to consumers who bought …
Its anti profit....
....to compete with a competitor; therefor anti business.
... do I claim my share back?
Yes! I bought a LED tv in 2007 for a whopping 1.6k, so if this was fixed, can I get a refund of the difference? (Something like 1.2k's worth...)?
In December 2011, Samsung, Sharp and six others agreed to pay $388m to settle with OEMs and soon after seven more LCD makers including Samsung, Hitachi and Epson Imaging offered $553m to settle the charges.
Looks like the OEMs get all the money (extra [profits for them) and the general public will get nothing at all. The OEMs where there consumers and not the likes of you and me :(
They shouldn't waste their time appealing.
They're political fines to encourage investment in the US. It's nothing to do with fairness. It's to encourage inward investment.
They should have worked out by now, that if they want to make big money in a country, they have to employ staff there. The Chinese recently decided that a car that was basically a clone of the BMW X5, bore no resemblance. It was on Top Gear. Surely someone's learned something from that.
All countries do it. Toyota have worked it out. When faced with prosecution over brakes, they could easily have offered publically to maintain a register of faulty vehicles, but this would have been dominated by non Toyota cars, mostly US and European, and they'd have been murdered by the government for being so cheeky. Instead, they offered a sincere apology, and paid the protection money, er, "inward investment to show partnership" so the government would take the heat off.
What's the matter with companies? Are their management stupid? All countries do this. They have to, otherwise they'd be overran by the technically more advanced. You can't blame the country, the elected have to keep the electorate happy. Simply saying "Well, what do you expect? Your cars/monitors/entity of choice are crap compared to those of Japan/China/Country of choice. You deserve to be unemployed." doesn't get a politician re-elected. Engineering foreign companies' assistance in helping the locals does.
Every country does it.
- IT bloke publishes comprehensive maps of CALL CENTRE menu HELL
- Nine-year-old Opportunity Mars rover sets NASA distance record
- Prankster 'Superhero' takes on robot traffic warden AND WINS
- Analysis Who is the mystery sixth member of LulzSec?
- Comment Congress: It's not the Glass that's scary - It's the GOOGLE | <urn:uuid:18fc40eb-7547-4410-8bee-593ea01a0ce0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/07/04/toshiba_fine_lcd_price_fixing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97125 | 623 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Willing to follow the voice she hears
Unfortunately, much of the power of the Advent season can be lost, with the challenge and urgency of the message gutted by pageants and figurines retelling the story. Because what today’s story gives us is a startling picture of just what Advent is all about — the call to be prepared for the call of God.
I like to think I’d respond well to an angel asking me to do something. After all, if I know it’s really a message from God, why not? You have the power of God to assist you. But it’s rarely that easy.
Think about it: How did the messenger come to Mary? In a dream? As an apparition? A voice in her head she couldn’t ignore? How was she to know it was God, and continue to embrace that message as obstacle after obstacle comes her way?
I’ve had a lot of moments of recognition of God’s voice or presence in my life. But usually, I’m sorry to say, the will to follow that voice doesn’t last all that long. I get distracted. I doubt that it will work. I don’t want to look silly to others.
The Advent story is one of fierce, frightening fidelity to God’s call. It does not necessarily make our lives easier.
If the voice Mary hears is real, she will become pregnant before she is married. And yet she is willing to follow the voice she hears, putting at risk not just her plans for her life but her reputation in the community.
We are called to be the same. Following Jesus is not a matter of simply blessing ourselves and doing as we please. We are called to live our lives differently than others — to risk our security and even our reputations because the values of the kingdom of God are much different than the values of our societies. We are called to serve the poor, to intervene on behalf of the vulnerable, and to love our enemies.
We live in an era that is nearly defined by conflict, where the harder you resist your enemies, the more you are rewarded. It’s happening in our national politics, where elected officials are racing to be the first to be outraged by their opponents.
The Advent story is one of fierce, frightening fidelity to God’s call. It does not necessarily make our lives easier, on a material level. We are called to lives of service, of surrender, and of sacrifice. And we are promised a joy and peace and security more expansive and more lasting than anything we can imagine.
It sounds like a great deal, right? It is. It’s just difficult to live it every day when the world around us pleads with us to acquire, accumulate and acquiesce.
As Christmas arrives, and we celebrate the truth that God comes to us in human form to show us the full extent of God’s love, compassion and joy, it is important to remember that the way to access God’s generosity is by living differently. We will only know that love is better than gold if we live that way. | <urn:uuid:e288ec86-c534-4b99-87e4-7354e1af124a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://the-tidings.com/index.php/spiritualityliturgy/liturgy/2309-willing-to-follow-the-voice-she-hears?FontSize=font-large | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96756 | 656 | 1.757813 | 2 |
According to the U.S census, blacks are 12% of Ohio.
But according to the exit poll, blacks were 15% of voters in Ohio, and they voted 96% for Obama.
Romney lost Ohio by less than 2%, so the incredible get-the-blacks-to-the-polls effort by Democrats was the key.
In contrast, Hispanics were only 3% of Ohio voters, and they voted 42% for Romney, which was a pretty good showing for Romney.
Even in the highly unlikely event that Hispanic voters in Ohio voted for Romney at the same percentage as white voters in Ohio (which is 58%), Romney would still have lost Ohio.
To win Ohio, Romney needed to either suppress the black vote, or get more whites to vote for him. | <urn:uuid:b4cc3f48-160f-4111-bf80-ffe8a97d260d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.halfsigma.com/2012/11/romney-lost-ohio-because-of-high-black-turnout.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989777 | 161 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Published on Wednesday, February 22 2012 07:00
Tips To Prevent Memory Loss As You Age
(StatePoint) You may not realize it, but you can take steps to keep your brain fit and flexible as you age. In fact, some experts now say that through proper diet and routine mental health exercises, you even can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease long enough to avoid experiencing the symptoms.
“The sooner you start to protect your brain against Alzheimer’s, the sooner you will notice improvement -- not only in recall and mental focus, but also in energy level, mood, general health, and sense of well-being,” says Dr. Gary Small, M.
Published on Wednesday, February 01 2012 07:00
Published on Thursday, January 19 2012 07:00
Winter is upon us, and with it inevitably comes colds and flus. For many of us, winter is an ongoing battle with sickness. Why does this happen in winter? | <urn:uuid:a4d6686a-46c4-4859-abfe-743557040b31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lyonsrecorder.com/index.php/lifestyle/health?start=35&set_textsize=medium&set_width=narrow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947827 | 202 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Compelling Linux server slithers into the open
The Linksys NSLU2 is a cheap and compact Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with an Ethernet connection and two USB ports for connecting hard drives and/or USB flash disks to a LAN. It sports a simple web-based interface that is used to configure the device, format any attached disks, set up disk shares and so on.
It's a fairly basic interface but there's a lot of functionality locked away in the device (though the documentation leaves a lot to be desired). However, under the covers the NSLU2 runs Linux and can be made into a useful development Linux server, which is why you're reading this in Reg Developer rather than Reg Hardware.
While the official NSLU2 firmware keeps the user well away from any hint of a command line (and keeps all interactions to the web interface), there is a community of like-minded souls who've developed a range of unofficial firmware images which, to varying degrees, lift the covers and turn the NSLU2 into the Slug.
And, as a Slug, the NSLU2 is a functional, flexible, and extendible Linux server. From providing basic file services, which is what it does as a NAS, the Slug can be extended to run as a print server, media box, development machine, and more.
The starting point for all this activity is to "reflash" the firmware. As with most other areas of Linux development, there's a range of different alternatives to chose from. The best place to start, particularly for those without extensive Linux experience, is the Unslung firmware, which keeps the official Linksys web-based interface for day to day usage, but also provides a telnet server for connecting directly to the Slug.
Other alternatives include Debian Linux and a number of different versions of SlugOS. In all cases the place to look for further information and comparison of features is the NSLU2-Linux home page.
Before proceeding to reflash the official firmware, it's important to point out that Linksys does not support any of the alternatives, though the company is on record as stating that it's delighted that the product has gained such widespread acceptance. It's recommended that before going ahead you fully understand what it is you're undertaking, and that you've mastered the art of getting the NSLU2 into reset mode if things go horribly wrong (which is always a possibility). The worst-case scenario could leave you with a dead, unresponsive box of electronics that does nothing but look pretty.
For upgrading to the Unslung firmware, the process is fairly straightforward and described in meticulous detail on the NSLU2-Linux site. Once installed, the firmware copies part of its file system to an attached hard drive, which has to be present from then on. A fully Unslung Slug now sports an additional item on the admin web page, which enables telnet access to the Slug command line from any machine on your network. Once connected, it's possible to use the IPKG package manager to install and upgrade new packages on your Slug.
There's an impressively long list of packages available to run on the Slug, including many that can be used to turn it into a development server that packs a good punch. Aside from the usual set of essential Linux development tools – the GNU compiler collection, a number of emacs and vi clones, the Bash shell, Perl etc – there are also packages for CVS or Subversion for version control, Python, a couple of Java virtual machines and compilers (though not the official Sun versions), web servers (including Apache), and more.
Of course, there is also a pretty wide range of non-development packages, including some of the Unix/Linux standards – CUPS for printing, MySQL for databasing, Bit Torrent tools, Mail serving, and so on.
Thanks to the active community around it, it's possible even for somebody not especially proficient in Linux to turn the NSLU2 into a file and print server that also acts as a Subversion box, hosts web applications that can be coded in Python, PHP, Java, or just plain old fashioned CGI, as well as downloading media files in the background.
What the Slug won't do is become a production server for anything but small values of production. Although it has fairly good performance for what it's designed to do, it is seriously under-powered compared to a standard PC. However, many development activities, such as running Subversion or acting as a group print server, don't require much CPU power.
Given the compact size of the Slug (it's smaller than most of the hard disk enclosures that plug into it), the low power consumption and the range of software available, it makes for a pretty compelling little Linux server, particularly for developers. ® | <urn:uuid:a4a55151-325f-4f0c-84ee-3ad179ea9f8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/24/slug_linux_server/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939055 | 994 | 1.726563 | 2 |
I like your enthusiasm.
I tried getting into D several years ago, and one thing that always confused me was the two competing runtimes and standard libraries, Phobos and Tango. I get the feeling that that confused (and turned off) a lot of programmers because it wasn't clear which one to use. Has that split been resolved now? I think D would have caught on more by now if that split could have been avoided. Because while that confusion was going on it seems like many (but not all) of the complaints that C++ programmers had with C++ were getting fixed in C++11, which finally came out last year. It's a shame, because I do think that D is a nice language.
By the way, what is the difference between the LDC packages in the Fedora repos and the DMD compiler available here
? I see that LDC uses LLVM as the backend, so what does DMD use? Also, what happened to GDC, the GNU version? I thought it used to be in the Fedora repos, but it's definitely not there now for F17. I'd prefer to use a GCC backend instead of LLVM.
I've been playing with Rust
, another language that's advertised as an alternative/successor to C++, and it seems pretty good (though still in beta stage). It doesn't seem as fast as D, but one thing it has that I like is type safety. From what I've seen D doesn't have that, which has always been one of the complaints against C++, so in that regard D doesn't improve on C++. I'll keep playing with Rust, but I'll play with D again as well. I'm glad that there's a D mode | <urn:uuid:05cda09c-bbb8-4e35-9e7d-04ba7b27e60d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1586592 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991492 | 360 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Protect your Identity
Tips on how long to keep important financial papers
Consumer Reports’ testers fed the 19 shredders about 25,000 pages (left over from a recent printer test). Two types of shredders were tested: With a pull-out console model, you empty the device pulling out a drawer that collects the shreds; with a wastepaper-basket shredder, you lift the shredder mechanism off of a basket that holds the shreds. Each one met its claims for paper handling and destroying credit cards. The units that claimed to handle data discs (CDs and DVDs), paper clips, and staples, managed those items too.
Testers didn’t find any serious safety hazards with any of the tested shredders during testing. It would be extremely difficult for a child or an adult to put a finger into any of the shredders.
In an era when online scammers are targeting your credit-card information, Social Security number, and other important data, it’s just as important not to be lax with your paper documents.
One of the best ways to help protect your privacy is to make sure you shred important documents before you toss them. Cross-cut shredders are very effective at doing that because they slice papers horizontally and vertically.
The full review of paper shredders as well as accompanying pieces “Shredding 101: Documents to shred and those to throw away” and “How long to keep important financial papers” will be available at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/papershredders at 6 a.m. on October 19th. The review of paper shredders will also be available in the December issue of Consumer Reports magazine, on newsstands November 1st.
How to choose
If you have the room, consider one of Consumer Reports’ recommended models. They are 20 to 25 inches tall, which means that they can store more waste between emptying. You can also find desktop models, which have a smaller footprint. Keep in mind that this type might shred more slowly, and you might need to empty it more frequently than larger, more-expensive machines.
If you store your annual tax records or other important documents on data discs, make sure you choose a model that can handle them. If you’ll shred papers only occasionally, say when you sort through your monthly bills, consider a model with an “auto” button. This feature lets you keep the shredder at the ready, without the noisy motor running, until you insert papers and other items. You won’t have to turn the shredder on and off as you work.
If you frequently shred large piles of paper, consider a model like the Swingline EX100-07 Stack and Shred ($225). It lets you stack up to 100 sheets on an interior shelf and then slowly shreds while you attend to other tasks. Because you’ll want to keep tabs on the shredded paper so that the bin doesn’t get too full and possibly interfere with the shredding, look for a machine with a window for monitoring the shredded buildup. Some machines, including the GoEcoLife GXC120Ti ($200) and the Staples SPL-TXC10A ($100), lack a window but have an indicator light that lets you know when the drawer is full.
Shredding 101: Documents you should shred and those you can safely throw away
Below are listed are some of the documents CR’s experts recommend you should shred, the ones you don’t have to shred but might want to for extra security, and papers you can just toss without shredding: Shred; Monthly bills; Receipts or other papers that show your signature; Employer pay stubs.
Statements from your bank, credit-card companies, 401(k) administrator, and broker and other investment statements.
Anything that contains your Social Security number.
Expired credit cards, and prescreened credit-card offers and application.
Tax forms and tax-related documents more than seven years old.
Any documents that list a password or PIN, and anything else with personal information that you wouldn’t want a stranger to see.
All mail from your financial institution, including change-of-terms notices.
Documents from companies you’ve done business with recently, including those from recent travel. Thieves could call you masquerading as a representative from one of those businesses to try to trick you into disclosing personal information.
Toss without shredding:
Mail that contains only your name and address, if that’s public information and easy to find elsewhere. That includes items such as catalogs or flyers that aren’t from a financial institution.
Junk mail addressed to “Resident” or “Occupant.”
Source: Consumer Reports is the world’s largest independent product-testing organization. | <urn:uuid:320b8a17-d1cc-41a3-afef-726212505950> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businesslife.com/articles.php?id=2035 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943793 | 1,022 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Solar thermal energy company BrightSource Energy, Inc., announced today that Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has contributed $168 million to the financing of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
BrightSource said it has now closed the financing for the project, which includes the finalization of $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office.
Ivanpah is the world's largest solar project under construction and when completed in 2013 will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the U.S. today.
Google joins NRG Solar LLC (NYSE: NRG) and Alstom (ALO.PA) as a major equity investor in the project. In October 2010, NRG Solar LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy, announced its commitment to invest up to $300 million to become the lead investor in the project. NRG's investment commitment coincided with BrightSource's engineering partner, Bechtel, commencing construction on the project.
"The DOE's decision to support Ivanpah with a loan guarantee is proof that large scale solar projects are moving to the forefront of our nation's clean energy alternatives. Likewise, we welcome the decision of Google, as one of the foremost ‘thought leaders' in corporate America, to embrace this cutting edge clean energy technology through their equity investment in this project," said David Crane, President and CEO, NRG Energy.
"We're excited to be making our largest clean energy investment to date. With this investment, we're helping to deploy the first commercial plant of a potentially transformative solar technology able to deliver clean energy at scale," said Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google. "Ivanpah will be the largest solar power tower project in the world, able to produce clean electricity at the highest efficiency of any solar thermal plant. We hope it can serve as a proof point and spur further investment in this exciting technology."
The Ivanpah project is located on approximately 3,500 acres of federal land managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The project is a 392 gross-megawatt solar power facility consisting of three separate solar thermal power plants. When constructed, the project will produce enough clean energy to power 140,000 homes.
The power generated from these solar plants will be sold under separate contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). PG&E will purchase approximately two-thirds of the power generated at Ivanpah and SCE will purchase approximately one-third. In all, BrightSource has contracted with PG&E and SCE to deliver approximately 2,600 megawatts of electric power.
The project received its state permits from the California Energy Commission and federal permits from the BLM in September and October 2010, respectively.
BrightSource's LPT 550 solar thermal technology produces electricity the same way as traditional power plants--by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. However, instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear power to create the steam, BrightSource uses proprietary software to control thousands of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a boiler filled with water that sits atop a tower. When the sunlight hits the boiler, the water inside is heated and creates high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity.
One of Google's first renewable energy investments was in another solar thermal company--eSolar, which is licensing its modular designs to developers around the world. Google also has its own researchers working on the development of low-cost heliostats for use in solar thermal power plants. Google said in March 2010, that the heliostats could be ready within three years. | <urn:uuid:0c8104b7-f231-47b0-856c-447385d459a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/22235 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942809 | 771 | 1.625 | 2 |
Discover your Path to Recovery
Shoulder torment can have a number of unlike causes, ranging from an injury like a car fortuity, to a chronic problem like arthritis. Patients who continued shoulder pain may be surprised by the intensity and duration of the worry. The shoulder area is so highly rectified for completing many daily activities that it makes appreciation that the shoulder pain injury should have existence taken seriously and treated to keep away from worsening your condition.
Symptoms of Shoulder Pain:
Some signs that your protuberance pain might need immediate attention may take in a decreased ability to hold objects, decreased functioning of the branch, shoulder pain that persists even at the same time that at rest, shoulder pain that lasts besides than a day or two, and uncommon twinges or aches in the protuberance area.
Shoulder Pain Diagnosis:
Seeing your Family learned man or chiropractic care can be an extremely effective treatment for shoulder anguish regardless of its cause. A physician or chiropractor will often begin with an examination of the patient’s neck realm since shoulder pain can frequently subsist the result of “referred” displease from the neck area. Whether the projection pain is connected to the neck or is limited to the debase part of the shoulder, it can generally be treated with non-invasive methods of spontaneous healing such as chiropractic care.
Common Treatment options:
Care as far as concerns an injured shoulder may include close attention of heat, application of ice packs, lenient manipulation from the chiropractor to remedy the shoulder return to its cause state of functionality, and gentle stretching and roborant exercises that you can perform at home.
Category: Pain management | <urn:uuid:b57f6a8a-6210-463a-9207-e727e27d6068> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sciaticalive.com/shoulder-pain-relief-shoulder-pain-management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937707 | 344 | 1.609375 | 2 |
This is really a short post, if you are going to hide your identity on the web, remember Google Cache.
For example if you were going to run an extortion service let’s say which at best a stupid idea and at worse criminal then putting the address of your legitimate company would be stupid. However being a smart fellow you might choose to then change it to a holding address for your mail. Unfortunately Google Cache saves the original address and well your pretty much screwed at that point and look just a little silly.
Let’s take an example, who could we pick on…
Lovely site, offering to sell you a verified SEO status at just $199 a month, no wait $99 they must be having a sale. Now let’s compare two versions of their footers the current one, and this one from Google Cache
The current footer2885 Sanford Ave SW #13150 • Grandville, MI
The old one from cache1514 Southport Ste. A • Austin, TX
look they moved…
I wonder who else is at the old address well according to Merchant Circle a Mr Charles Preston, wonder if he has a site… oh look so he does!
Charles Preston SEO
What a nice chap, apparently according to his site…
His record of success speaks for itself. In the early nineties he taught himself computer programming and website development. Using only books and a burning desire to change his fortune, he became a certified and sought after adept at several website and database development programming technologies.
He invented time travel as well, this man talents show no bounds! It is of cause quite possible Charles Preston has been a very unlucky chap who just happened to work in the same office as the person trying to hide their real details, and if he is well think of the links, oh wait you didn’t get one, doh!
- Don’t upset someone enough to make them come look for you
- Don’t use your business address for your nefarious deeds
- Don’t think because you have whois-guard on mean people won’t find you
- don’t rip people off!
p.s anyone wanting to become a Verified SEO please click here for your shiny new badge! | <urn:uuid:c890fb5f-a9ec-4be2-bb72-5f659e8d53be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timnash.co.uk/03/2010/peek-a-boo-i-see-you/ | 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 | 0.960443 | 469 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Acne can leave scars that remain long after the acne has cleared up. Depending on the severity of the scars you have many options that include acne scar removal at home and with natural remedies through to fairly serious cosmetic surgery.
The scars occur either because of the severity of the acne or because the acne sufferer has been impatient with their spots and squeezed and picked them. so the number one tip is never squeeze a spot. I know you have probably heard this a thousand times before but you need to realise that squeezing or picking spots will just damage the skin and spread the bacteria, both of which may contribute towards acne scars.
It will help to reduce the spots as quickly as possible but this is best done by drying them out. my favourite methods for doing this are:
- For Individual Large Spots, you can apply a small blob of toothpaste. Apply only to the spot and keep the paste off surrounding skin. never use whitening toothpaste as this contains bleach. When you try this for the first time leave the toothpaste on for 15 minutes then wash off. if you have no adverse reaction you can build the time of the treatment and possibly leave it on overnight. It will dry out the spot and kill bacteria
- For larger areas of Acne try milk of magnesia. You can apply the lotion neat from the bottle. just allow it to dry on your skin then rinse off with warm water. again it will dry out acne, kill bacteria and tighten your skin.
If you have scarring already here are the options.
- Try exfoliating the area. by gently rubbing away dead skin cells you may reduce the appearance of the scars. You can use an exfoliating cream or make your own scrub with a handful of finely ground oatmeal, a large spoonful of honey and a teaspoon of baking soda.
- Lavender oil will moisturise the area and promote growth of new skin cells
- Vitamin E oil will do a very similar job. You can open Vitamin E capsules and gently rub the oil directly on the scarred skin.
- Rosehip seed oil has also been used effectively
- Gently rubbing the inside of orange peel on the scar is also a good way of reducing the scars.
If you have no luck treating the condition at home you may need to speak to a dermatologist or cosmetic surgeon.
The options the medical profession have are:
- Chemical Peel. A fairly harsh treatment that will remove several layers of skin. You will need a hospital stay and several weeks of recovery
- Laser Peel. again harsh with long recovery time
- Collagen injections can be used to plump up the skin and make scars disappear but you will need repeat treatments.
There are many options for you if you suffer from acne scars, of course the best way is to avoid scars in the first place but we are all human and not many can resist squeezing.
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You must be logged in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:8f3cbc21-a5fe-4965-ad1c-aa66aa332f47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dominiquesskincare.com/acne-scar-removal-the-options/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95017 | 605 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Supported by the PRT and partner organizations, the Provincial Directorate of Public Health has opened more health clinics across Helmand therefore dramatically increasing population access to healthcare. In 2009, Helmand had a total of 27 health facilities ranging from clinics to the provincial hospital in Lashkar Gah. Currently in 2012, there are 57 health facilities of which 57 are open and functioning, an 81% increase over the past 2 years in the number of functioning clinics in Helmand (I would take this out). Additionally, 78% of the population of Helmand are within a 2 hour walk to a primary healthcare location, compared to 40% in 2001.
In 2012 the PRT Health Team along with USAID is concentrating on capacity building of the Provincial Directorate of Public Health and promoting linkages to national and district level in order to build sustainable foundations for longer term development of the Public Health Sector in Helmand Province. The amalgamation of both capacity building and strengthening of national networks contributes to better decision making, management, supervision, and monitoring of health facilities and services.
By the end of 2012 all of the current 15 Comprehensive Health Centers will either be refurbished or rebuilt by the PRT. The Lashkar Gah Medical Training Facility is completed and a new midwifery school underway.
A provincial hospital, three district hospitals, 15 Comprehensive Health Clinics (CHCs), 28 Basic Health Clinics (BHCs) and 11 Sub-Health Clinics (SHCs) that cover Helmand Province . There are 27 male doctors within these health facilities and no female doctors (excluding those who work at the provincial hospital).
A PRT funded ambulance project has trained 24 ambulance technicians and donated 3 ambulances to the Helmand Provincial Health Department in September 2011.
A monthly Provincial Public Health Committee (PPHC) independently
debates and resolves detailed health-related issues. | <urn:uuid:860af161-3852-4b9f-8db4-594c729395a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.helmandprt.com/health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944192 | 375 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Six of the nine Texas Supreme Court justices approved adoption of divorce forms after months of wrangling with family lawyers who oppose them. Many family lawyers worry the forms could lead to complicated legal problems for couples down the road if they make mistakes in filing.
Pro bono and legal aid attorneys could only meet about 20 percent of the demand for their services for divorce cases last year, said Trish McAllister, the executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Commission. Most other states already have court-approved pro se divorce forms, McAllister said, and the change will make a big difference for poor Texans.
"This really will change the lives of so many people who have not been able to get help through legal aid," McAllister said. "One of the reasons it's important to get a divorce is that if you don't and you have other relationships, have kids, maybe buy a house later down the road, that creates huge complications."
Only couples without children or real estate can use the forms in lieu of seeking a divorce with the help of an attorney. The forms are simple, and using a standardized form will make the judicial part of the process more efficient, she said.
At the Travis County Law Library and Courthouse Self-Help Center, about 20 people per day who come in to seek advice might be eligible to use the forms, said Lisa Rush, the library's manager.
Not many people have used the form so far, though, because it is so new and fewer people divorce during the holiday season, said Paula Pierce, managing attorney at the Texas Legal Services Center.
A task force including lawyers, judges and other experts formed in 2011 to help create the forms along with the Texas Access to Justice Commission. But some lawyers oppose the divorce forms and argue that citizens will be unable to navigate the legal system without an attorney's help. Members of the family law section of the State Bar of Texas and other family law attorneys loudly opposed the forms throughout their creation. And in January, the State Bar voted to urge the court to suspend the work of the task force. But the court decided to move ahead.
Julian Schwartz, a San Antonio family law attorney, said that even the simplest cases can be complicated and lead to legal trouble down the road if not dealt with properly.
"You have to file the divorce in your county of residency," Schwartz said as an example. "If you fail to gain the court's jurisdiction, you could have jurisdictional issues on whether you actually got divorced or not."
Schwartz, who heads a divorce law group called the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas, said he works on few cases in which the couples do not have children or property so he does not have clients who might benefit from the forms.
McAllister said that although ideally every couple would consult with an attorney during their divorce, it's not feasible for many poor Texans.
The forms are "going to help a huge amount of people be able to move forward with their lives," she said.
The forms are currently available for use, although the results of a public comment period that lasts until February could lead to minor changes.
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/texas-courts/texas-supreme-court/new-forms-allow-couples-divorce-without-attorney/. | <urn:uuid:1427c1c4-b49a-403d-b4cf-13963d43820a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigcountryhomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=554542&nxd_237113_start=45 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970028 | 727 | 1.625 | 2 |
PEPPERELL -- The Board of Public Works held its annual water and sewer rate hearing last week, agreeing with DPW Director Kenneth Kalinowski that rates would need to increase to address significant new debt.
The board voted unanimously to increase sewer rates by 3 percent, and with one dissenting vote, agreed to increase water rates by 8 percent. For the average household, the rate increases are approximately $24 per year for sewer and $27 per year for water.
"Our realized revenue lags behind that which is both billed and that which is required to meet the requested budget," said Kalinowski, who cited the Indian Village sewer project and the Nashua Road municipal well as two major projects that contributed to the recommended rate increases.
"The Indian Village project was not bettered at 100 percent, and therefore there's a component of this debt that has been placed on the rates," said Kalinowski.
"This only exacerbated the past practices such as insufficient rate increases and the use of the betterment funds to defray the rate increases," he said.
"We've been fortunate that we've not had a catastrophic event," said Kalinowski, who said that each year the infrastructure ages, the chance of major failures increases.
Kalinowski praised the work of the water and sewer staff whose skills he said have enabled maintenance rather than replacement of some systems in the infrastructure.
"It's getting to the point where some of the system
With the town's water and sewer rates below the average of six other local towns with similar annual residential usage, the increases reflect new average annual residential bills of $815 for sewer and $416 for water.
Water and Sewer Superintendent Laurie Stevens told commissioners that water infrastructure remains a critical concern and could cost the town $2.1 million over the next 10 years.
Stevens summarized the facilities comprising the water and sewer infrastructure. The town maintains five municipal wells, three storage tanks, five pump-and-treatment facilities, a water-operations center, more than 600 hydrants, and 75 miles of water mains. The majority of those water mains are more than 100 years old.
The town also maintains 35 miles of sewer, 795 sewer manholes, 1,516 sewer services, and another 438 potential services. With Groton also on the Pepperell sewer system, that adds another 26 miles of sewer lines, 286 sewer manholes, and 470 service connections. The Wastewater Treatment Facility currently treats one million gallons of sewerage per day.
Stevens also explained to the commissioners that uncollected revenue, or late bills, totaled more than $700,000 for bills unpaid beyond 30 days with another $181,000 sent to lien for bills unpaid after two years.
The new increases go into effect Jan. 1.
The board agreed to increase Kalinowski's salary by 2 percent effective in January, raising his salary to $93,177 from $91,350. Kalinowski's salary increases have lagged behind bylaw employees by six months.
"I've been real pleased with the performance of the director over the past two years," said Commissioner Greg Rice. | <urn:uuid:e1cf8401-f604-4a97-951d-43d12f9787ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lowellsun.com/mastatehouse/ci_22175258/water-sewer-rates-rise-pepperell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957126 | 648 | 1.585938 | 2 |
There are three major categories of rugs. First, an Oriental rug is any rug that is HAND knotted. An Area rug is any rug that is MACHINE knotted and a Custom rug is any hand or machine rugs that are TUFTED pieces. Most rugs, but not all, are usually made of wool or silk and are knotted on a cotton framework. In other words, all the fibers are natural as opposed to synthetic and will therefore absorb more moisture and will stain easier. For rug cleaning, this means we must treat them differently than synthetic wall to wall rugs. So rug cleaning is different than wall to wall carpet cleaning.
Why must the rug cleaning happen at our plant and not at your house? There are many reasons but these are the most important ones:
*First, wool rugs in particular have the ability to hold a ton of dirt. In fact, we must vacuum these over and over on both sides before they are ready to be cleaned.
*We actually clean our area rugs by submerging them in water. Most people are shocked to hear that we do this. Actually, the very best way is to totally submerse these rugs to the point of saturation which insures a thorough cleaning. The danger of course is that the dyes may bleed. An inexperienced cleaner could be ruining a rug in short order if he didn't know how to first pretest the rug and then determine the correct solutions to use to keep the rug from bleeding during the wash process.
*Because of the high absorption factor in natural fibers, they take longer to dry and the faster they dry the fewer problems especially with the chance of color runs. We speed dry them after the rug cleaning, even setting up a large dehumidifier to keep the surrounding air as dry as possible.
*Most area rugs need two to three different steps to do the best job, especially if the rug has a dirty fringe.
*Stain removal of pet urine is often a huge issue and we can get the urine out but it requires another step in the process. By the way, those pet stains in wool are usually permanent. Sorry! We can lighten them sometimes but the reality of wool is that it will usually stain from urine or other organics.
So, you see we can never accomplish a thorough rug cleaning in your home. | <urn:uuid:08ea852a-43e2-48e2-b35a-3aeec9b96503> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.therugbeater.com/rug-cleaning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966943 | 483 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Mother is the closest person to us in our life. She is the one who loves us the most and even sacrifices her whole life caring for us. Mother is the only person who is always there to help us no matter what the situation is. So to honour all the mothers across the world, Mother’s Day is celebrated. This special day is celebrated on different days across the whole world. In Canada it is celebrated every year on 2nd Sunday of May.
The beauty and essence of flowers makes everyone feel happy and brighten up their face. They have always been the most appropriate gift for every occasion. On this special day named as Mother’s Day, you can gift her with a bouquet or any other flower arrangement which will put a smile on her face and make her feel special. There are many flower shops and florists in Canada who provide flower for the occasion of Mother’s Day.
Mother’s Day is the very special day to thank your mother for all the work, sacrifices and blessing she had done for you. On this day, everyone wishes her mother well and makes her feel special. Each and every person on this earth wants her mother to remain happy and keep her blessing with them. You can also select those flowers for her which she likes the most. This would also enhance her happiness. So, it is the occasion when you can surprise her by ordering flowers which might make her feel happy.
Instead of gifting your mother with roses or tulips, why not gift her with some very special and exotic flowers. Sending beautiful and rare flowers would definitely cheer her up with joy. A bouquet of lilies or Iris forms a colorful and beautiful gift. There are many different species of flower available at Toronto Florists.
Sometimes people might be in a situation when they don’t have the time to go to a florist and select flowers for their mother. There are many online options available where you can select flowers for your mother. There are many florists who facilitate ordering and sending flowers on the Internet to a particular place at a given time.
Toronto flowers have been serving Canada from many years providing flowers for every occasion. They also deliver flowers at your doorstep and are capable of handling any type of floral arrangements especially on a Mother’s day. | <urn:uuid:98035b2d-9c9a-48cf-8c5a-4a4691ad02cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://canadaroses.com/blog/graceful-mother%E2%80%99s-day-flowers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973423 | 471 | 1.75 | 2 |
Gov. John Hickenlooper delivered his second State of the State address on Thursday. While he didn’t announce any earth-shaking policy goals, he did use his annual bully pulpit in a near perfect fashion to continue to solidify his role as this state’s political leader.
WATCH VIDEO: State of the State speech
RELATED: Civil Unions, Business Emphasized During ‘State’ Speech
Hickenlooper’s speech was well crafted and hit the right tones in three areas.
Entrepreneurship – Hickenlooper understands that everyone continues to be focused on the economy. But Hickenlooper found the right angle of the economy that can appeal to people from both sides of the aisle by centering his comments on entrepreneurship in Colorado.
Entrepreneurship speaks to the spirit of Colorado and of the West. It also speaks to an area of the economy that almost everyone would like to see bolstered. When Hickenlooper drew a focus on entrepreneurs and said he wants to cut policies in government that get in the way of entrepreneurs, he likely found a great deal of support from voters and various political leaders as well. It was a great decision to focus a speech that had to be about the economy on a part of the economy that many of us can agree upon.
Bipartisanship – As he did last year, Hickenlooper did not use his speech as a way to push for many progressive policy issues. He certainly talked about a couple of issues that were important to his own Democratic party, such as encouraging the passage of a civil unions law for same gender couples, but he didn’t use the speech to alienate the Republican party.
Hickenlooper also used the opportunity to remind his colleagues of the importance of bipartisanship. Many times Hickenlooper praised his colleagues for the ability to work together as the United States Congress stays mired in gridlock on a regular basis. That praise seemed like a very distinct reminder to his colleagues that he intends to keep things balanced, even if they don’t.
TBD Colorado – Hickenlooper used his State of the State address to announce a major initiative from his office, an initiative he and his staff have dubbed, TBD, To Be Determined. TBD refers to a program that will look to get citizens’ input on where the state should be going.
While the idea may seem a bit ambiguous, by relying on citizen input on where the state should be headed, he is telling voters directly that their voices are valued. Most voters don’t necessarily need to have direct input to the future of government. But those same voters still like the idea of being asked, instead of seeing another blue ribbon committee of community leaders being asked the same thing.
While I think Hickenlooper’s State of the State speech was well crafted, I certainly understand that it is only a speech and it is unlikely that it will change the course of history in Colorado.
However, an effective State of the State can set a tone for colleagues and fuel much needed optimism. That tone and optimism are needed more than ever here in Colorado in 2012.
About The Blogger
- Dominic Dezzutti, producer of the Colorado Decides debate series, a co-production of CBS4 and Colorado Public Television, looks at the local and national political scene in his CBSDenver.com blog. Read new entries here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Dezzutti writes about federal, state and local matters and how our elected leaders are handling the issues important to Colorado. Dezzutti also produces the Emmy winning Colorado Inside Out, hosted by Raj Chohan, on Colorado Public Television. | <urn:uuid:ac8d9a47-9950-4b6c-9e84-4ed29ce5414c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://denver.cbslocal.com/2012/01/13/hickenlooper-strikes-the-right-chords/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97302 | 766 | 1.726563 | 2 |
It seems to reveal some very interesting things about America - more in a "you sort of knew it but never had anyone tell you straight out" way than in a "whoa, I didn't know that" way.
- Americans like to talk about television shows and let people know what they're watching.
- Around half of Americans are on a social network of some kind.
- Americans, on average, are playing social networking games for 15 minutes per day, or around two weeks per year.
- Americans overwhelmingly like to use social media to make product recommendations.
- Americans also like following favorite brands and companies online.
- An average 9% of Americans' social media "friends" are college buddies and 22% are from high school.
- Americans are obsessed with celebrities.
And plenty more. If you're a modern marketer of any kind, especially an internet marketer, this is all valuable information that could be used in your business.
How would you leverage information like this to make your business more productive and successful? | <urn:uuid:305f7121-044c-4add-b42d-60f9e953ba47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fellrath.com/2011_08_01_archive.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 | 0.964761 | 214 | 1.734375 | 2 |
“Create in me a clean heart, O God…” Psalm 51:10
With warmer days comes a desire to freshen up everything for spring. One day I opened the door to allow a gentle breeze in and determined it was time to get my house in order. I decided to start by getting rid of some clutter that found its way inside over the winter months. This included a pile of magazines and books I planned to read on cold winter days but never opened. I had good intentions, but where did it get me? Before I knew it, I was sitting down and reading one of the magazines.
Around me was furniture to dust and rugs that needed vacuuming. In the kitchen sink was my cereal bowl from breakfast. By the washer was a load of clothes ready to go in as soon as I put the last load in the dryer … as
soon as I took the towels out of the dryer.
Good intentions failed to get all of the tasks completed. I thought about days past when women were adamant about spring cleaning. They had good reasons as soot from coal stoves coated the interior of the house.
Spring cleaning was a ritual that marked the end of winter and ushered in an aired out, clean home.
The tradition of spring cleaning dates back centuries. The Jews practiced spring cleaning in anticipation of Passover. Observing the Jews' exodus from Egypt included making sure their homes were free from any type of leavening. This meant that every nook and corner of the home needed cleaning.
In days past when spring cleaning arrived the participants had a monumental task ahead of them and didn’t stop until they were through or sick from exhaustion. Today, it makes more sense to take on one task at a time and see it through to completion. I decided this was a better path for me to take.
Whether it is cleaning in my home or in my heart, I find if I start with a small area I am more likely to follow through until it is finished. In my home I find that there are days when all I can do is load the dishwasher and straighten up the kitchen. In my spiritual life I try to work on one area until it is no longer a chore and comes automatically.
For example, I used to have trouble with patience and hated to wait or be kept waiting. By allowing God to work through me on my attitude over and over I finally learned the virtue of patience. Now I am able to wait
While good intentions are wonderful, it takes action to bring about change. All of us desire a clean heart so we can serve God but the cobwebs, dirt, and debris of sin need removing first. Making an effort to remove one thing at a time allows us to persevere and follow through
before moving on to the next task without being sidetracked.
Debra Whittington is a longtime resident of Tucumcari. Contact her at: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:21e7ba06-8414-466d-959b-34077a1cdce7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qcsunonline.com/cms/news/story-488865.html | 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 | 0.975675 | 614 | 1.640625 | 2 |
You gotta love Jimmy Carter. Not man enough to face Fidel Castro one on one, he drags Rosalynn along to their meetings. She’s all the security he needs.
Currently Carter is happily undercutting Bush administration policy. But he’s been playing this game since at least 1981, when, bitter about losing the presidency in 1980 (evidently convinced it was stolen from him), he set out to undermine the policy of his successor. As one reporter later described his activity:
More unpleasant still was a letter Carter wrote … to members of his former cabinet and senior staff, which he made public. Carter accused Reagan of a “one-sided attitude of belligerence toward the Soviet Union” that would “severely damage our own reputation as a peaceloving people.” The leaked letter was vintage Carter: blunt, self-righteous, determined, and treacherous. He would soon follow with more of the same…
But Carter did more than snipe at Reagan from his outpost in Plains, unusual enough for an ex-president. He undertook quasi-diplomatic missions without the consent of the U.S. government, indeed often in derogation of the sitting president. Whether or not one agrees with the policies of a particular president, this is reprehensible behavior. The 1798 Logan Act, in fact, expressly proscribes private citizens from negotiating with foreign nations. Carter added insult to injury, the record shows, by deceitfully manipulating both sides in such negotiations, including his own government, and lying to the press….
There’s a lot more in the piece from which the above is taken, including insights into Carter’s travels to North Korea or Syria, his cozying up to the Sandinistas, and, perhaps most infamously, his letters “to members of the U.N. Security Council, including the Soviet Union, urging them to vote against the U.S. position on the Persian Gulf war.”
At last report, the author of the Carter story, David Brock, has not disowned this particular piece of work. Entitled “Jimmy Carter’s Return,” it ran in the December 1994 issue of The American Spectator. It was such an impressive investigation that Carter’s own biographer Douglas Brinkley sent Brock a long, detailed, multi-paged nit-picking critique in response (which he brushed aside).
Later, Brinkley would make a jackass of himself by parading as a close confidant of John F. Kennedy, Jr. after Kennedy’s death. As for Brock, he’d go on to behave not unlike the Jimmy Carter he’d described, and as such to become the target of well-deserved ridicule.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. had the last word on Carter’s presidency when in early 1981 he famously bade farewell to “the Wonderboy’s now shrunken and anile figure [as it] departs 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” Now comes Christopher Hitchens, with the last word on the current edition of David Brock, whose recent memoir left him wanting “to take an extra shower after trudging through this dismally written, pick-nose, spiteful and furtive little book.” Has any writer ever concocted a more appropriate modifier than “pick-nose”?
A friend complained that Hitchens should have written his piece months ago. I disagree. Early on it would have been lost in the shuffle. Bruce Bawer’s devastating review last March was easily counter-balanced by more favorable readings in lefty outlets. Hitchens’s piece is effective in part because it appeared in one of those outlets, the Nation, thus causing huge consternation and scurrying among those who thought the Brock matter settled. Once Hitchens steps on an anthill, it doesn’t get rebuilt.
Sure enough, the reaction of Brock’s agents at MediaWhoresOnline.com to Hitchens was panicky. They urged readers to call for Hitchens’ head in mass e-mailings to the Nation’s editor and denounced him as a drunk and purported defender of Holocaust revisionism. To paraphrase one of Hitchens’ choice observations, the defamation game is all that these creeps know.
More interestingly, Matt Drudge, who had understandably ignored Judas Brock’s book until now, broke his silence by linking to Hitchens’ piece. Good writing is always the best revenge.
For what Hitchens did was remind readers of the importance of literary imagination. Like Bawer, he saw right through Brock’s posturings, mendacity, and flimsy arguments. So he let him have it. “Who is such a sap as to take the word of such a person?” he asks. “…Referring to the anti-Semitism of a famous conservative, [Brock] cites what might be a joke in poor taste and says it was ‘one of her gentler remarks.’ What, couldn’t he have cited a more damning one?”
Hitchens is such a good writer that it’s really not fair to quote him in anything shorter than full paragraphs. But sometimes we’re also reminded that Hitchens has to write for a living. No doubt Vanity Fair, to which he contributes each month, pays him more than the Nation does. Which perhaps explains why the latest VW includes a piece under his byline that doesn’t sound like Hitchens at all. The Hotline last week had a field day quoting from Hitchens puff to John Edwards, the North Carolina presidential hopeful. Could Hitchens of all people have really suggested that Edwards at his inauguration will tell Americans to “ask not what you country can do for you…”? The article pretty much reads like a press release from Edwards’ office or from his friends at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. It’s as if Hitchens for the first time in his life wrote something without the help of his teeth:
“After only three years in the Senate, he is already one of his party’s point men on both of these crucial and popular matters…. a better comparison might be to the southern world of John Grisham, where attorneys are not small-town crusaders but big-name players in their own right….By now my wife and I have seen a certain amount of the Edwardses….Elizabeth worries that the house isn’t child-friendly enough, but it seem pretty child-friendly to me. I saw Emme Claire and John Atticus having their bath, and they are as cute and towheaded as could possibly be.”
Is this the same Hitchens who once beheaded the Windsors? And is this the same Edwards who bombed the other week on “Meet the Press,” talking out of four sides of his mouth and making it clear to all the world that he in no way can live up to his hype? The week before the New Yorker had done a profile as friendly as Hitchens’s, and a lot less curious, with nary a detail about Edwards’s Senate activity and no insight into his fabled trial-lawyer career.
About the only thing that made the New Yorker piece memorable was the sketch art on its opening page, in which the goofily grinning, toothy fellow in the drawing could easily be mistaken for … Jimmy Carter.
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
H/T to National Review Online | <urn:uuid:66fff067-7d43-45fb-8508-9fb3ff1c1a74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spectator.org/archives/2002/05/15/john-jimmy-edwards-carter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969002 | 1,758 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Muhammad Saleem, a very perceptive blogger who is also a top submitter at Digg and Netscape, has written a post that looks at the problems with “socially-driven” news sites, using as an example a fake news story that someone submitted to Digg about Sony recalling 650,000 PlayStations. The story made it to the front page of the site in only a couple of hours, and stayed there until it was apparently removed. Muhammad sees this as another example of how many people don’t read stories.
He’s right, of course. And there’s no question that the geek-heavy audience at Digg is likely to vote up stories like the PlayStation one regardless of whether it’s true or not — as appears to have happened in this case — just to take some shots at Sony. However, I’d like to point out that fake news routinely makes its way into newspapers and onto TV newscasts as well, and in those cases there are a heck of a lot more checks and balances in the system (theoretically at least) than there are at Digg.
In those cases, the fake news lingers in print and video — and in various databases — long after it has been shown to be wrong, which often gives rise to urban legends about people getting abducted so their organs can be removed, etc. At least in the Digg case, commenters on the story repeatedly pointed out how fake it was. That’s a service social media can offer that traditional media can’t (at least, not yet).
Muhammad and I have been having a discussion via IM about the fact that Digg appears to have removed the story, not just from the front page but from the site completely. He argues that this is wrong, and that Digg administrators should have removed it from the front page but left the story up and flagged it as inaccurate. As it is, it looks as though the site is trying to pretend that the incident never happened. Tony Hung says that by removing it, Digg is going against its stated principles as a social media site. What do you think? | <urn:uuid:9c57fe53-f790-40a6-bb1c-04a07fb6fc7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/11/21/social-media-gets-duped-just-like-old-media/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977997 | 447 | 1.609375 | 2 |
One of the best known bands to arrive in America during the height of the British Invasion was a Newcastle, England band called The Animals.
Their first hit record, and it was a big hit, was "The House Of The Rising Sun". Other hits followed including "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", "It's My Life", "I'm Crying", "Inside Looking Out", "The Story Of Bo Diddley", "Bring It On Home To Me" and "See See Rider".
Eric Burdon was the lead singer of The Animals and he spoke with us about his early days in music, the history of The Animals and what he's up to these days.
Q - Eric, you've lived in California since the 1960s?
A - Yeah.
Q - What do you like about California?
A - Back in the UK, the attitude is, you left the UK for the US and sold out, and that's why you'll never work in this town again. That may be true, but my basic reason for living in California is it's a desert. It's an arrid zone. I'm an asthmatic and I can breath here. In comparison to where I was born and raised, it's day and night. So, it's basically for health reasons that I live in California. It's a healthy place to live. I'm in the mountains above Palm Springs. I love it. It's wonderful.
Q - There really is no preparation for a singer to go from singing in a club to touring around the world, is there? How did you handle that success of being in a group like The Animals? Did you ever say to yourself "what's with these people? Why are they acting like this?"
A - Yeah. I found it very frustrating. I think all of the bands did. I think a couple of people revelled in it. I think Mick and The Stones revelled in it. I'm not sure the whole band did. I mean, Mick did. That's why The Stones stayed together and went on to have the popularity they have. I know The Beatles hated it. On more than one occasion, I saw Beatles gigs where John Lennon or Paul told the audience to shut up, because they wanted to sing a ballad as opposed to more up tempo songs. With The Animals, they started throwing boxes of animal crackers. They weren't into the music. The whole idea then was to go and see The Animals...see The Beatles. It was more of a visual thing. The music really didn't count that much. So therefore, I wasn't really comfortable with it.
Q - How hard is it for you today to get radio airplay on any CD you might put out?
A - Well, it's pretty much impossible. Satellite radio plays my new album. I think that's the only place that I've heard it, which is heart warming to know that at least you're reaching somebody, somewhere. I have a satellite radio in my car, and it's also exposing me to a lot of new music that I would never come across if I wasn't tuned into satellite.
Q - Are you surprised there isn't a radio station somewhere that would play the music of the British Invasion artists, then and now?
A - There's no surprises any more (laughs) The surprise has gone out of it. It's the deterioration of radio all over the world. It's become a slow moving erosion. It's a pity because it's such a great medium. My way of trying to fight back on this level is I'm taking my book and doing a CD version of my book. The format would be an old fashioned radio play, the kind of radio plays I grew up with as a kid. Only difference is it will be on a CD platter and you'll play it in your car. The first one is in the German language because it's quite a good market over there for that kind of thing. But obviously I'm going to do an English version of the same project. I personally like this medium, especially when I'm driving long distances in my car. It's really cool to put on a play or a spoken word from a book which I wouldn't have the time to consume if I was reading the book. So, it's a small market but it's a very vibrant market. The few people that do tune into that are really appreciative of it. I hate to belabor it, but satellite radio is one way to go. There's a local radio station here I rarely listen to, but because I'm doing construction on my house at the moment, I've got several construction crews here and they've got a radio going while they're working. So, I'm listening to a local classic radio station. But, there's obviously no human beings in the radio stations. It's just pre-programmed 'cause I hear the same songs every day.
Q - At the same time probably.
A - Yeah. It's just day in, day out. It's turning good strong music into just background noise. On the low end of it, the worst aspect of it is, it's not so much in the States, but in Europe, constant high speed rhythms that are going on in restaurants and public places. I get offers all the time in re-doing Animals classics with this kind of tempo, with this kind of high speed techno tempo. They'll pay massive amounts of money if you want to go there and do it. I just think it's really derogatory to get involved in such a thing.
Q - I read your book "I Used To Be An Animal, But I'm Alright Now". You also wrote another book, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". Which book is on CD? Both?
A - Could be. We don't know where it's gonna go. We're just concentrating on the opening segment at the moment. Because it's the German language, we're using a thread of my voice through the book, and then the German translator comes in. We're still working on the technological approach to it and what kind of sound effects we're gong to use, and musical links we're going to use to keep the listener interested. But, I'm writing a lot these days, not just music ideas, but working on a treatment for a screenplay at the moment for some guys in Hollywood. Some producers saw a chapter in my book "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and feel it could be do-able as a movie. So, I'm working on a treatment which will be developed into a screenplay I hope. If it doesn't make it to that stage, which is a long shot in Hollywood anyway, it'll be a format for another book, but more of a novel based on my experiences as opposed to a biography.
Q - How were you able to re-call all the times, dates, events and conversations in these books? Did you keep a running diary when you were on the road?
A - I did some of the time. Early on, I had a collection of writings and newspaper clippings and whatever else I was able to get. A lot of people borrowed it. Nina Simone borrowed it and she had it for months before she returned it to me. She told me the way she saw what I did in the music business was in the realm of music creativity, a musical journalist. That impressed me. So, I tried to uphold that. I believed in her and her music so much. She's probably one of the most heaviest, creative forces around. She was able to produce pop records as well as be very political and radical in her own way. So, I've tried to stay there. I've tried to keep that alive. It was very difficult during the years of the late 80s, through the 90s until the millennium because I became totally bored with the music world and the music business. I really didn't have anything to say. What I watched happen, with the advent of the digital world and computers and the advent of the world wide web and watch the record companies do nothing about it. Now, they're beginning to wake up to the fact that they've got to join the fray. Of course this is after millions of dollars have gone missing in bootlegs. That's what I'm writing about. The screenplay I'm working on is about encryption within the recording industry.
Q - Do you watch American Idol?
A - No. I have one reaction to that kind of television viewing...I go ouch! I really feel it for these kids that one minute are nobody and then all of a sudden, they're hit with all this publicity. I feel for them as individuals as to whether they'll be able to retain this. I don't think anyone even cares, having experienced that myself to a certain degree.
Q - My problem with the show is this premise that you have to have this wonderful voice to become a pop star...an American Idol if you will.
A - Of course not. That's why rock 'n roll is everyone's music. I would say that anybody can sing. Anybody can get a message across. You can't say an icon like Bob Dylan has a great singing voice. He doesn't, but he has impeccable timing and of course it's his writing and what he says, not particularly in the way that he says it, but is important and goes to peoples hearts. That's not to say there haven't been any great voices in the pop world. There have. But, it doesn't matter so much. That's what broke down the old world order around the time of the 1900s, when the recording system was invented. It was good-bye to the opera singers...not good-bye, but they were eclipsed somehow. The advent of electronic music where people started to play with electricity, particularly through electric guitar. It's so powerful. I call it Bone music because it goes through the skin. It goes through the actual bones. It shakes you up. That's why it's a strong element in our lives. And now I just see it as being watered down.
Q - It's so strange isn't it? Singers can't sing today. Musicians can't play. Writers can't write. What happened? Mediocrity seems to be the order of the day.
A - And yet they have everything at their disposal. All dressed up with no place to go. That's what draws me to World Beat music. Today I find myself listening to anything but what is left over on the radio. When I travel, I collect CDs, DVDs of people I can't even pronounce their name or even read the label on the record because it's in Arabic or Spanish or whatever. But, that's my source of listening these days, anything international that breaks down barriers between people. That's what music is all about anyway. With the political climate today, we're becoming very insular in this country and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.
Q - You told Sharon Lawrence of the L.A. Times back in 1970, that you formed a band in order to "entertain yourself". I don't understand. You mean there was nothing else going on in Newcastle at the time? No TV? No movies?
A - Well, that's not necessarily one hundred percent true. There was a cinema in my hometown where they showed foreign movies, imported movies which you couldn't see in the normal cinema releases. I was an art student. That actually became my own personal curriculum was to go at least twice a week and catch movies by people like Salvador Dali, all the foreign imports and great American movies too like the United Artists movies that were produced by Burt Lancaster's company and Stanislavski movies with Marlon Brando. Stuff like that. Movies had a great influence on me, probably more than music, 'cause I was exposed to movies earlier than I was exposed to music. I've always been frustrated in the fact that I've been trapped in the role of a rock 'n roll entity. I've always wanted to make film. Now with the advent of the digital world and DVD, one afford to make movies. That's why I'm working away on this screenplay project.
Q - Did you know what was going on in other parts of England when you were growing up? Were you aware of the other bands that were around?
A - It was real magical on that level. We were convinced up in Newcastle that we were the only people. I used to hitch-hike to Paris to buy imported American records. I had a guy who was in the merchant navy who was my neighbor. He would bring me back records from the States. It became like a secret little club within the art school I went to. We firmly believed that we were the only people that were doing it. Then I made friends with Alexis Koerner who was like a godfather of the British blues movement and spent time with him in London. He had a club in Ealing, just outside of London and that's where I first ran into Keith Richards, Mick, Brian Jones and several other up and coming guys like Eric Clapton and of course The Beatles out of Liverpool, and we realized that in a way, this was quite magical that guys from different towns, from different ends of the United Kingdom, at the same time all into the same thing. It grew into what was termed as the British Invasion. But, it was nothing more than English kids going out of our way to save from destruction and oblivion, the one thing we believed was America's true art form, blues, rhythm and blues and jazz.
Q - How many bands were there in just Newcastle? Any idea?
A - There was a lot of jazz going on. A lot of folk music going on. Venturing into electronic music, there was about three other bands that I know of which eventually we took members from each of those bands to formulate The Animals.
Q - Why did this musical invasion or musical explosion come from Britain? Why not France or Germany?
A - They did, but it was jazz. I was just talking to someone before about this. During the National Socialist Germany, the way of having an underground against what the belief of the stage was, people were listening to American jazz. And the same underneath the Communist countries in the Eastern countries, Poland, Czechleslovakia. But, if you were a member of an underground political organization that hated the ruling party, the Communist party or the Nazi party, strangely enough both ends of the spectrum, the people caught in-between were listening to American jazz. In particular in England because we speak the same language, sort of, and we were surrounded by US Air Force personnel. England, when I grew up, was, as a lot of people use the terminology, a permanent aircraft carrier. We were surrounded in our everyday lives by American servicemen who brought music with them. So wherever the American military was, were the dudes who created the music and they were available, and made friends with us, and that's where we were first exposed to jazz music.
Q - You actually wanted to be a set designer or an art director didn't you?
A - Not really, no. I had my heart set from the get-go to want to be involved in cinematic production. But, there wasn't anywhere in England where you could get schooling. Nearest thing you get was RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and study acting. But, there was no way you could get training as what was known as a set designer. These days, it's production designer. In a way, that's one of my regrets that I wasn't able to follow through on that because I've watched where movie production has gone to and production design in almost as important as editing is in the world of cinema these days.
Q - Irwin Stambler, the author of the Encyclopedia of Rock, Pop and Soul wrote "The Alan Price Combo became The Animals because of audience reaction to their playing. And some of the members of the band overheard onlookers agreeing that the band played like a bunch of animals." Is any of that true? Is that how you got your name?
A - No. That became an easy way to describe who we were and what we were doing. That's just a press release. In fact, the name The Animals came from a member of a gang that we were a part of. The most engaging character I found in this gang of older guys that I hung out with... his name was Animal. That was his nickname. I suggested that in the spirit of that gang, name the band after him. And eventually, we became The Animals. It was just an easier way for the press to latch onto a story by saying we behave like animals onstage.
Q - I used to think that you had the greatest job going. But, after reading your first book, I thought otherwise. You were under a lot of stress. How is it different today? Are you still under considerable stress?
A - It can be (stressful). I did a tour at the backend of last year that was one of the busiest years I've had since the 60s. Within the last two months leading up to Christmas (2004) I did a tour which took me from Mexico, Spain, Germany, Italy, Greece and back to Germany to do a major TV show and back to Greece to launch my book in Athens. At the last week in Athens, at the very last show, I totally collapsed and was admitted to the hospital due to exhaustion. That was a lesson. It really shook me. It really made me feel that I'm not above breaking down due to stress. I just recorded a blues song that says, "I've been up. I've been down, under duress I've suffered from stress and I never, ever, gave up. Don't give up blues."
Q - What did you think of Ed Sullivan?
A - Not very much. I thought he was a bit of a bore, a boorish guy, which was re-enforced by the fact that one day I was with him in the corridor at the CBS Studios during rehearsals for one of his shows. We were on the show with The Supremes. I remember he had the Supremes in tears and all crying. "You'll never work in this town again." He was an enigma. What can I tell you? You had to admire his power and how he'd gotten into that position of power was quite amazing. What did he do to get there? I have no idea, but he certainly was a force in the music industry. If you didn't get on The Ed Sullivan Show... The strange thing is, alongside my dislike for him and his personality, he must've liked us because we were on the show six times.
Q - Ed Sullivan knew what the public wanted...and he gave it to them!
A - Oh yeah, sure. He'd given them everything. Being on one of his shows was like being in a circus. You'd have a rock 'n roll act following a family balancing act from Poland. He knew exactly what he was doing. It's a no brainer once you're in that position of power...pick the best of what you feel is going to entertain people.
Q - You never did find out the reason behind his anger with The Supremes did you?
A - I have no idea. He probably invented something. I mean that's what I didn't like about him. He had to assert his power and demonstrate his power over people, just to sort of gain control and let you know that he was in charge. You don't have to do that to people. I didn't like performing on his show. It was long, hard hours of three days of rehearsal, just to get your camera angles right. Then, after three days of rehearsals, he would suddenly appear from stage left instead of stage right and bump into everybody. It was crazy.
Q - What did you do after the Sullivan shows? Go out for a drink? Go back to the hotel?
A - Every opportunity I got, I would head to the Black part of town. I'd go across the tracks and get my head into the Black clubs, the Rhythm 'n Blues clubs. When I was in New York, I spent more time up there in Harlem up there at the Apollo. I hung out there quite a lot. Took a lot of photographs...made friends with the manager, whose name was Honey Coles. I didn't find out until later that he was one of America's greatest dancers who retired and became the manager of The Apollo. I was fortunate enough to meet people like Mohammad Ali and become friends with people like Jimmy Witherspoon. It was a magical time and a great time. But, as soon as I found myself in the spotlight with The Animals, I was threatened with losing the freedom that I'd had as an art student. So, I had to make sure that I could make my getaway and make my escape. Like I said, get to the Black clubs and absorb the music that I loved so much.
Q - Did you travel with a bodyguard in those days?
A - No. Protection always makes you a target. I don't believe in security. I think it's phoney. I mean, if you look at people who use a lot of security, anybody who wants to upset you, attack or assail you, all they gotta do is watch where the security guys' go and you're there. You're in the middle of it.
Q - Except if you're Frank Sinatra.
A - Yeah. Frank had a lot of power...more than people realize.
Q - The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock 'n Roll wrote: "With their (The Animals) success, Eric Burdon took to drinking, womanizing, and shooting his mouth off." What were you saying?
A - I was always shooting my mouth off. (laughs) I don't know what that means. Does it mean I became a popular singer? I think that's what shooting your mouth off is. I don't know. I have my opinions and I try to stick to them. If I offended people in the past, maybe I should say "I apologize"...but, I don't think so.
Q - I can't recall you making any controversial comments.
A - Well, you know they gotta write something in the pop press. Just like where did the name, The Animals come from. It's all just press people re-inventing things the way they want to see it. It's not necessarily the truth. I rarely believe anything I read in the newspapers. You've got to learn to read in-between the lines. That's were the truth is. That's where I think the most important aspect of life is. It's not in the Black areas. It's not in the White areas. It's in the gray areas, in-between where the real story is.
Q - How long did The Animals stay together after you came to America?
A - Two years.
Q - Why couldn't the band have stayed together? What was the problem?
A - Well, there was a lot of...I can't call it anything else...thievery from within the structure of the band, I'm sad to say. At the end of two years of non-stop touring, exhausting work, only to find out there was no money to be had. There was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...there never is. We should have known better. I should have known better. When members of the band begin to fall off and fade away, I woke up one morning and realized that this is not what I signed up for. It's not the band I left my hometown with. So, I headed for the San Francisco scene and put a new band together and retained the name The Animals. It was a totally different band.
Q - Do you play an instrument? How do you compose your music?
A - I have played percussion in the band. I suffered a hand injury from that. My right hand in particular is precious to me. I write with it. I draw with it. I'm basically just a singing in a rock 'n roll band and a lyricist. I write from personal experience. It's like the only thing I can write about. Or, if I try to insert myself in someone else's experience, it's always based on my experience first.
Q - As you see it, what's been your contribution to pop music and what's been The Animals contribution to pop music?
A - Well, have to stand outside myself to answer that. I have an anthology out at the moment on ABCKO Records. It's re-mastered Animals' tracks. It's a good album. It was a good band. I think that we, in very simplistic terms, without any trickery in the studio, overdubs, we didn't even know how to edit music back then or overdub stuff back then, and everything was done really quickly. There were no rehearsals. I tried to retain some of that in my work today. It's still an attitude I have. Keep the tape rolling from the minute the band gets into the studio. But, anyway, listening to that anthology album, I realized that The Animals did have their place in the early days and I think what we did helped turn a lot of people onto the blues music and onto the original American blues players. That was...how can I put it...our vocation. Our job was to turn people onto the real thing, and I think we succeeded in doing that. | <urn:uuid:78409414-c201-46f1-8da1-2bc51d8dac1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.classicbands.com/EricBurdonInterview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989675 | 5,338 | 1.578125 | 2 |
On The View From Egypt, Part Four, Or, Gaza, We Have A Problem
What had been a truce between Israel and the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip seems to have abruptly come to a halt; with the Israelis blaming Hamas and Hamas blaming Israeli oppression of the displaced Palestinians for the simmering hostilities that are now boiling over into military-scale violence.
Before the recent holidays and an immoderate amount of snow buried me in things that could not be done on the computer we had been having a conversation about the strategic importance of our relationship with Egypt. Within that series of discussions we explored the influence of the political opposition, and we considered the fragility of President Mubarak’s hold on power.
We also noted the immediate proximity of Egypt to the Gaza Strip.
Today we’re going to tie all of that together—and the end result of all that tying is that we better keep a close eye on Egypt, because trouble in Gaza has spilled over into trouble in Cairo....and that’s one more Middle Eastern problem we don’t need.
If you’re looking for more details as to why Egyptian politics have been a one-party affair since the Republic’s founding, information about the opposition, or a consideration of the country’s strategic importance, have a look at Parts One, Two, or Three of this series.
So that we might put some of the background in place, here are some of the salient facts surrounding the events of the past few days:
Some attacks from Gaza into Israel have been self-attributed by Hamas (actions that they have described as responses to Israeli aggressions); and there are suggestions that forces loyal to the rival Fatah movement have also been involved in attacks. The Israeli Foreign Ministry reported 2502 rockets or mortars were fired from Gaza in the first 11 months of 2008, resulting in 17 Israeli deaths. (The ceasefire began in June of 2008.)
Over the four days since the ceasefire’s expiration at least 1100 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli airstrikes, with some airstrikes targeting tunnels that connect the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
The tunnels are important because they are used to import supplies to the region when normal commercial crossings are restricted or closed by the Israeli Defense Forces. (Truck crossings into Gaza have been reduced from 475 daily before Hamas took control of the region to 123 daily in October 2008 to none for the past eight days.)
The IDF reports that the tunnels are used to import weapons as well.
It is also reported that IDF troops are massing near the Gaza border. It is possible that an entry into Gaza by the IDF is imminent, but as of this writing that has not yet occurred...or it may have already occurred, as reported by the sometimes reliable Debka.com.
And it’s the tunnels that connect this story to Egypt.
As you may recall from our earlier conversations, there are many Egyptians who support the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist views, and there are also many Egyptians, unassociated with Islamism, who feel a sense of solidarity with Gazans and their struggles with Israel. Add to that the fact that President Mubarak’s secular but increasingly unpopular Government has been cooperative with Israel as they have worked to isolate Gaza and you have the makings of some serious trouble in the Egyptian street.
And as of today, the trouble seems to have started.
In a country with a Government that attempts to deter undesired street demonstrations with an extremely hostile internal security response, El Badeel of Cairo reports as many as 200.000 of the undeterred may have taken to the streets in demonstrations against the Government in cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, and even down the Nile in the farm country of Minya and Asyut.
The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Abul-Gheit, and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, are trading words—and Egyptian police and military border guard units are firing on Palestinians who attempt to enter Egypt through holes blown in the wall (by the bombing raids...) that would normally prevent such entries.
Now here is where it gets tricky.
Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, is essentially descended from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood—and the last thing Mr. Mubarak wants is hundreds of thousands of Hamas supporters taking up permanent residence in his country, especially if they end up forming fairly insular communities out in the Sinai Desert where the Egyptian internal security apparatus is at it’s weakest.
On the other hand, being perceived as supporting Israel is fraught with 200,000 or so of its own perils—and if the internal security apparatus can’t control the demonstrations, or uses unusually harsh methods to regain control, the internal security threat to Mr. Mubarak’s control from his own citizens will also rise dramatically.
There are those in Israel who want Egypt to take control of Gaza...and it is possible that Israel will use the blockade to create an atmosphere that will “require” Egypt to take “humanitarian” steps—something that might be popular in the Egyptian street...but something that Mr. Mubarak, as we have noted, has no desire to accept.
There are also those who would like to see the Fatah Party take over again in Gaza, removing Hamas from power—but you may recall that Hamas was able to come to power in Gaza because many ordinary Gazans perceived Fatah and Yasser Arafat to be extraordinarily corrupt and ineffectual during their time in power.
The bad news for the US?
We are perceived throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds as the blindly supportive enablers of what Israel is doing in Gaza...and we are perceived in Egypt as the country that enables Mr. Mubarak’s often highly oppressive rule.
As things go badly for the Palestinians, ironically, they get bad for us—and probably for the Israelis as well.
Why? Well, as I often say to my friends, we are making enemies faster than we can kill them. This blind support of Israel against the Gazans isn’t helping matters...but Johann Hari tells the story much better than I:
The world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm. This morning, and tomorrow morning, and every morning until this punishment beating ends, the young people of the Gaza Strip are going to be more filled with hate, and more determined to fight back, with stones or suicide vests or rockets. Israeli leaders have convinced themselves that the harder you beat the Palestinians, the softer they will become. But when this is over, the rage against Israelis will have hardened, and the same old compromises will still be waiting by the roadside of history, untended and unmade.
To understand how frightening it is to be a Gazan this morning, you need to have stood in that small slab of concrete by the Mediterranean and smelled the claustrophobia. The Gaza Strip is smaller than the Isle of Wight but it is crammed with 1.5 million people who can never leave. They live out their lives on top of each other, jobless and hungry, in vast, sagging tower blocks. From the top floor, you can often see the borders of their world: the Mediterranean, and Israeli barbed wire. When bombs begin to fall – as they are doing now with more deadly force than at any time since 1967 – there is nowhere to hide.
--From an editorial in The Independent, December 29, 2008
There is one bit of good news: if Hillary Clinton can find a way to be seen as an “honest broker”, instead of just a supporter of Israel, the incoming Obama Administration could change the atmosphere enough to allow Gazans and Israelis to again return to negotiations. Can the Obama Administration change the atmosphere enough to induce Israel to adopt a less hard-line anti-Palestinian stance? That may be the biggest question the new Secretary of State finds on her plate next month.
Another possible bit of good news: a rapid settlement and return to a semi-ceasefire status could reduce the long-term political damage. In the unfortunate event of a large-scale ground action by the IDF, it is likely the long-term damage increases. (Some suggest the Israelis chose this moment because they feel the Obama Administration will be less supportive of a hard-line policy than the Bush Administration. If this is true, the window for aggressive action may be closing sooner rather than later.)
So here we are: The Israeli actions against Gaza, intended to end the desire of Gazans to attack Israel, are likely to have exactly the opposite effect...which is spilling over the border to create all kinds of problems for the Mubarak Government in Egypt...all of which means all kinds of new bad news for us.
Hillary Clinton might have problems negotiating with all the players...but if she can overcome that obstacle, there could be a better outcome down the road than we have today.
If Israel cannot be convinced to find a way to develop a different relationship with their Palestinian neighbors—and vice versa—eight years from now President Obama will find himself just as vexed as Mr. Bush is today with his giant Middle Eastern failure...and if events cause Egypt, Pakistan, and maybe even Morocco to slide over to the Iran end of the “scale of hostile nations”, he may find himself quite a bit more vexed than he ever expected.
BlueNC is dedicated to making North Carolina a more progressive and prosperous state. If your intention is to disrupt this effort, please find somewhere else to express your opinions. | <urn:uuid:2a215ee8-749f-4661-90ee-fe130a004459> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bluenc.com/view-egypt-part-four-or-gaza-we-have-problem | 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 | 0.963688 | 1,966 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Jon Kuzmich is a painter, photographer and 2011 MFA graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Holy meticulous! Jon Kuzmich must have a lot of patience in order to produce these minutely detailed artworks. Painstakingly working dot-by-dot, scan-by-scan, or pixel-by-pixel, Kuzmich strives to reveal the distortion of our self-made belief systems (i.e. religion, science, capitalism) through complex coding, grids and patterning.
The first two works shown (Blue and Green, 2010; The Complete History of Capitalism, 2010) map a series of alternating, hand painted acrylic dots which Kuzmich applied with a needle. The Complete History of Capitalism, which is 56×56 inches, is amazingly comprised of 546,848 separate dots and took approximately 600 hours to create. The final work shown above (images #14-15), entitled Genesis, is actually part of a larger religion-based series called Logos, 2011.
In Logos, Kuzmich translates “every character in the 66 books of the King James Bible into a field of gold, silver, copper, pearl and bronze acrylic dots on square slabs of PVC. Each book of the Bible is then transcribed onto its own PVC slab that is sized according to the number of characters in each specific book. Additionally, the color assignment for each consonant, vowel, space, symbol and number is unique per book in order to create a subtle value gradient over the course of “writing” the entire Bible; with the first book (Genesis) having the lightest density culminating with the last book (Revelations) having the darkest color density.” Quite the undertaking!
Accompanying Logos under Kuzmich’s ‘religious’ umbrella is the following mesmerizing video called Ethos, 2011 – DO WATCH IT! In Ethos, Kuzmich arranged the bible passage “…Forever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” in an hour-glass structure which he then printed on a single piece of paper. That original print was then Xeroxed to produce a first copy – then that copy was Xeroxed again to produce a second copy. This process of copying the copied was repeated 2,981 times. At the end, all the copies were scanned in the order they were copied and turned into the following digital animation:
Pretty cool, eh? | <urn:uuid:b6c76926-dd54-4a5a-bcba-ef5367814984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gn8project.com/tag/conceptual/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933412 | 515 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Conversations With Kissinger, Rabin, and Sadat on the Egyptian-Israeli Agreement
(September 1, 1975)
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Hello, Mr. President
THE PRESIDENT. Henry, how are you?
SECRETARY KISSINGER. I am fine. How nice to hear from you.
THE PRESIDENT. The same to you. I have just been warned by Ron [Nessen] that I have to tell you--and later when I talk to the Prime Minister and to the President--that WHCA [White House Communications Agency] is recording this conversation. You don't have any objections, I trust?
SECRETARY KISSINGER. No, I don't have any objection.
THE PRESIDENT. I think they wanted it for historical purposes.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Right.
THE PRESIDENT. Let me say very, very deeply how very grateful I am for the tremendous effort that you have made in this last round of negotiations, but I know how long and how hard and devotedly you have spent many, many hours, not only with me but with Prime Minister Rabin and President Sadat.
I think this is a great achievement, one of the most historic, certainly of this decade and perhaps in this century. And I know that the American people will be most grateful for the successful efforts that you made. I just want to express it very strongly and very deeply for myself.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. I appreciate this very much, Mr. President, and of course, we have spent more time on the Middle East--you and I--than on almost any other problem.
THE PRESIDENT. I think if we added up the hours, it would be a good many days, and the fact that we finally made a successful conclusion, I know, gives you as well as myself and many, many others a great deal of satisfaction. It is in the best interests of not only the two countries ourselves but, in my judgment, Henry, one of the great achievements for the world at this time.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. I think it gives peace a chance in this area, and the consequences, as the U.S. pointed out repeatedly, of stalemate were simply unacceptable.
THE PRESIDENT. I am sure there will be some critics, but I think in all honesty they have to understand what the alternatives would have been.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Exactly, Mr. President. That is the problem, that the continuation of the stalemate would have had both military and economic consequences for the world that we had to do something about.
THE PRESIDENT. You are leaving very shortly, as I understand, for the actual initialing.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. I am going to see Prime Minister Rabin now, and then we are going to initial the documents.
THE PRESIDENT. Right.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Then shortly after that, I will go to Egypt to meet with President Sadat and participate in the initialing of the documents there.
THE PRESIDENT. You will actually carry the documents with you to Alexandria, then?
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Exactly, the documents and maps.
THE PRESIDENT. I am going to call the Prime Minister after talking with you, and I will express to him my appreciation, but if you will do it in person for me, I would also be very grateful.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. I will do that, Mr. President, and I look forward very much to seeing you on Thursday.
THE PRESIDENT. You are getting in Wednesday night, as I understand?
SECRETARY KISSINGER. That is right. I am getting in Wednesday night about 9 or 10 o'clock.
THE PRESIDENT. Well, I will be at the airport to meet you.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Thank you very much.
THE PRESIDENT. And it is arranged for us to have a [Congressional] bipartisan leadership meeting on Thursday morning at 8 a.m.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Good.
THE PRESIDENT. And I am sure that their reaction will be the same as mine, that this is a great achievement for not only the parties involved but for the world as a whole, and I just can't express deeply enough my appreciation for your own magnificent efforts in this area.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Mr. President, we have worked together on this, and your strong support and your leadership and your talks with Sadat and Rabin made this possible.
THE PRESIDENT. You go over there and participate with the Prime Minister, give him my best, and at the same time give Nancy my very best.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. Thank you, and the best to Betty.
THE PRESIDENT. Thank you very much, and we will see you Wednesday night.
SECRETARY KISSINGER. See you Wednesday night.
THE PRESIDENT. Okay. Thanks, Henry.
PRIME MINISTER ROBIN. Hello?
THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Prime Minister, how are you, sir?
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. I am fine, Mr. President. How are you?
THE PRESIDENT. I am excellent, thank you. I just finished talking with Henry, and I understand he is coming over to meet with you very shortly for the actual initialing. Let me congratulate you for the superb efforts that you have made under most trying circumstances.
I think your role has been one of great statesmanship under terribly difficult circumstances, and I congratulate you and compliment you on the achievement of, I think, an outstanding negotiation that has culminated in a document that will lead to great progress in the Middle East for the benefit of the world as a whole.
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. Mr. President, thank you very much for your kind words. It was not an easy decision. They were complicated negotiations, but we have decided this time to take risks--and I stress "to take risks"--for an opening for peace.
I hope that what we have decided will set a new pattern in the area, and we all hope here that the agreement will really lead to both tranquillity in the area and to bring closer the positions of at least Egypt and Israel.
I would like to thank you very much for the role that you personally, the United States, and your envoy, Dr. Kissinger, have served in the achievement of this agreement.
THE PRESIDENT. I thank you very much, Mr. Prime Minister. Let me assure you that you can count on us to continue to stand with you. We have a close relationship, and it will continue as we move forward under the basis of this outstanding agreement.
You have laid a solid foundation with this agreement, in my judgment, on which we can build for real peace efforts in the future.
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. We all hope for it here, and we really hope that it will be the beginning of something which we have not yet experienced in this area, and we hope that the other side, the Egyptian side, feels the same.
THE PRESIDENT. You can rest assured that we will work with you to make certain that the agreement is carried out, not only in the spirit but in the letter, and that we expect to continue the relationship that we have had over a good many years, your country and ours.
You have heroic people, and the American people are most sympathetic to those that you so ably represent, Mr. Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER ROBIN. Mr. President, as you are fully aware, we appreciate very much you, we appreciate very much the special relations that have been so significant in the past and the present between our two countries, and I am sure that what we have done there today will add a new dimension to the relations between our two countries.
THE PRESIDENT. Will you give my very best to Mrs. Rabin, and I hope that in the near future you can come back and see us again, sir.
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. Thank you, very much, Mr. President, and please convey our best wishes to Mrs. Ford.
THE PRESIDENT. Thank you very much, and we will see you, I hope, soon.
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. I hope so, too.
THE PRESIDENT. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER RABIN. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
[In the following transcript of President Ford's telephone conversation with President Sadat, President Sadat' s remarks are incomplete because of a poor telephone connection' with Egypt.]
PRESIDENT FORD. President Sadat?
President Sadat, I wanted to call you and congratulate you on the
great role that you played in the negotiations that have culminated
in this agreement.
PRESIDENT FORD. Unfortunately, I don't hear you too well, Mr. President. I hope that my conversation is coming through more clearly.
Let me express most emphatically on behalf of my Government the appreciation for your statesmanship, despite adversity and some criticism, the spirit with which you have approached the need for an agreement.
I am most grateful for the leadership that you have given, and I look
forward to continuing to work with you in--
PRESIDENT FORD. I know that you and I recognize that stagnation and stalemate in the Middle East would have been potentially disastrous, and your leadership in working with Secretary Kissinger and with the Israelis, all of us are most grateful for.
And as we continue to work together, personally, as well as government-to-government
PRESIDENT FORD. Yes. I can hear you, Mr. President. I hope you can
hear me, Mr. President.
PRESIDENT FORD. The connection, unfortunately, is not too good for me to hear your comments, Mr. President.
Let me say, if I might, despite the difficulties, that Mrs. Ford and I hope that Mrs. Sadat and you and your children will visit the United States sometime this fall.
Secretary Kissinger has told me of the very warm hospitality that you have extended to him and Mrs. Kissinger, and we look forward to reciprocating when you come to the United States in the fall of 1975.
I regret that I can't hear. The connection is very bad. I hope that you can hear me and my comments from the United States.
Mr. President, I understand that Secretary Kissinger is coming to Alexandria
to personally deliver the document for your initialing, and I have asked
Henry to extend to you on that occasion the gratitude and appreciation
of the American people for your patience, your leadership, and your
understanding of the need and necessity for a forward step, and important
step in the ultimate aim of total peace in the Middle East.
PRESIDENT FORD. Mr. President, I couldn't hear every word distinctly, but I got the thrust of your kind comments and your encouraging words, and I can assure you that we will work with Egypt, not only in seeing that the agreement is implemented with the spirit as well as the letter, that we will continue to develop the good relations between Egypt and the United States, working to make sure that we expand trade, tourism, and our help to the maximum degree possible and that this is the way that the United States can continue to play a constructive role in the most important area--the Middle East.
And you have my personal assurance, and I am sure the Congress will cooperate, because it is recognized in the United States that the Middle East is in a vitally important area of the world and that our participation in a constructive way is an important element in the tremendous success that has been achieved in the negotiations between your country and Israel. I wish to thank you very, very much.
I said a few moments ago, Mrs. Ford and I look forward to having Mrs. Sadat, your family, and yourself here in the United States early this fall.
PRESIDENT SADAT. Mr. President, I am looking forward to this visit with you and Mrs. Ford and your family. [Inaudible] I also assure you we accept this agreement as a further step towards a successful and peaceful conclusion. I consider it a turning point in the history of the country.
I again thank you, but it is essential, Mr. President, that we must keep the momentum of the peace process going and continue it.
PRESIDENT FORD. I can assure you, Mr. President, we are going to keep
the momentum going in the peace process. We will not tolerate stagnation
or stalemate. The momentum is on the way for a peaceful solution on
a permanent and an equitable basis, and you have my pledge that we will
make sure that that momentum keeps going.
PRESIDENT FORD. I look forward to seeing you after that wonderful
visit we had in Salzburg, and give my very best to Mrs. Sadat, if you
PRESIDENT SADAT. I think I would like to emphasize the importance of [inaudible].
PRESIDENT FORD. I, unfortunately, could not hear as well as I would like the last comments you made. The connection from here is not, apparently, as good as I hope you have there, but--
PRESIDENT SADAT. I hear you quite well.
PRESIDENT FORD. The efforts of Secretary Kissinger and myself, we feel, were completely worth what we have done, but our efforts could not have been successful without the leadership and the statesmanship by you and the equally fine actions by the Israeli Government and Prime Minister Rabin.
But as you said a moment ago, President Sadat, the momentum is moving
in the right direction, and you have my personal assurance that we will
continue that movement, because it is vital not only in the Middle East
but elsewhere for the benefit of all peoples.
PRESIDENT SADAT. We are looking forward to coming, with pleasure, and
convey my good wishes to your family.
PRESIDENT FORD. Have a good day, and Henry will be there shortly, I
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
That accursed conscience of mine has been pricking me ever since I dashed off that rather curt and off-hand letter card in answer to yours of the 18th. I had intended as a matter of fact to let you have the present coruscation as soon as I could get my secretary in the offing, but I thought I would snap your head off in the strength of your question as salutary chastisement.
I do wish you would understand that all these speculations are not only idle and senseless because you cannot possibly verify their accuracy, but a deadly You ask if we, meaning, I suppose, the English, are now reincarnating the Egyptians. When I was a boy it was the Romans, while the French undertook the same thankless office for the Greeks. I say "deadly poison;" because when you analyse you see at once that this is a device for flattering yourself. You have a great reverence for the people who produced Luxor and the Pyramids; and it makes you feel nice and comfortable inside if you think that you were running around in those days as Rameses II or a high priest in Thebes or something equally congenial.
You may say that I am myself the chief of sinners in this respect because of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, but this was not my doing. It was imposed upon me by The Book of the Law, and I do not feel particularly flattered or comforted by this identification. The only interest to me is the remarkable manner in which this is interwoven with the existence of the "Cairo working."
Your second and third questions are still worse. I should be ashamed of myself if I were to do so much as to refer to them.
That must serve for that. But your fourth question I did answer after a fashion. It has however struck me that I might have given you a more detailed instruction with advantage.
When I was up the Mindoun Chong in Burma, I started an investigation of my dreams; and the only way to catch them was to write down as much as I could remember on waking, instantly. The result of doing this is rather surprising. To begin with, I discovered, especially as the practice progressed, that I was having many more dreams than I had previously supposed. This might have come about in either of two ways.
(1) The practice might have actually increased my tendency to dream, and (2) the habit of observation may have brought dreams to the surface which would otherwise have gone unremarked. In either case the figures were quite definite.
I found almost at once, that is to say after about a month, that practically every dream that I could remember, could be quite clearly ascribed to one of two causes: (a) the events of the previous day or days, or the subjects which had interested and excited me during that period, and (b) the physical conditions of the moment. For instance, a good deal of the time of the experiment I was sleeping in what might have been euphemistically called a houseboat. It was liable to leak; and on such occasions as I woke to find water trickling down my nose, I found that the dream from which I had wakened was an adventure of some sort in connection with water. (It is quite notorious, I believe, that many asthmatic subjects are pestered by dreams of having been guillotined in a previous incarnation. Alan Bennett, I may mention, was one such.)
As the practice proceeds, you should find not only that your dreams increase in number per night, but also became very much fuller, clearer and more coherent. I assume that the reason is that the fact of your paying attention to them brings them to the surface.
I am not quite sure whether this is a complete and adequate answer to your question 4, "How can I best bring my sleeping memory into my waking hours?"
I have studied, and my secretary has studied, and we can make no head or tail of your remark about brain exercises with sketch.
Well, I must hope for the best, and leave you with my blessing.
Love is the law, love under will.
© Ordo Templi Orientis. Original key entry by W.E. Heidrick for O.T.O. HTML coding by Frater T.S. for Nu Isis Working Group. | <urn:uuid:a62f9536-0416-48e3-b81d-a3a166002348> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hermetic.com/crowley/magick-without-tears/mwt_41.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985783 | 913 | 1.59375 | 2 |
They deck offices, lobbies, and living rooms, but what are they called? A new poll shows Americans are overwhelmingly decided on whether it is a "Christmas" or "holiday" tree. Eight in ten side with "Christmas" over "holiday," according to the latest poll from Clarus Research Group. Only 12% refer to it as a holiday tree.
A tax break that has saved struggling homeowners from paying thousands of dollars to the IRS is just days away from expiring. If the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 does not get extended by Congress by the end of the year, homeowners will have to start paying income taxes on the portion of their mortgage that is forgiven in a foreclosure, short sale or principal reduction.
A weekend wedged in right before Christmas seemed like the perfect gift for procrastinators who wait until the 23rd hour for holiday shopping, or shoppers who wait for one last big sale.
U.S. stocks sank Monday as investors remain concerned that officials in Washington will fail to resolve a looming fiscal crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.4%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both lost about 0.3%. U.S. markets closed at 1 p.m. ET and will remain dark Tuesday for the Christmas holiday.
Millions of Britons are facing a bleak holiday season worried about falling incomes and how to repay debt, as economic reports raise questions about whether the country's austerity measures can restore growth.
FEATURES AND COMMENTARY
The Santa trackers at NORAD started on Christmas Eve at 6 a.m. ET, fielding questions from all over the globe and continuing a tradition that began by accident in 1955.
Immediately after my Christmas tree is decorated and the tree lights plugged in, I turn off all the other house lights and sit on the stairs, staring at my gleaming achievement. I could stare for days, hypnotized by the shiny allure of the decorations. The simple, white lights I prefer for the tree sit neatly among what has become an all-out, no-holds-barred glitter explosion.
When the holidays bring heartache instead of joy, I think they do so because they stand as an unforgiving yard stick against which we measure our losses and troubles.
Ho ho ho, here's some Christmas-themed science! The British Medical Journal's Christmas issue this month features a study about reindeer that treats a fantastical idea with some medical reality. The result is a lesson in how reindeer noses compare to the noses of humans and what purpose their underlying structures serve.
No one is immune to airline delays and cancellations, even if you're an aviation producer who just spent two days telling the story of how airlines try to keep planes flying on time.
On the Web, the "Time Has Come" for 1960s singer Lester Chambers, who has hit hard times despite his song's popularity. A Kickstarter campaign is aimed at funding a new album, giving Chambers the rights. | <urn:uuid:1668b64c-1da6-4d43-a2e6-a9393963c4f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickorlando.com/news/ADVISORY-CNN-Wire-Outlook/-/1637132/17884564/-/item/2/-/c5fiv3z/-/index.html | 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 | 0.933247 | 611 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Kocaeli TV, 18 September 2010
• When I say Turkey is a super power, people assume that I emphasize it to have a property like a printing house including tanks, bombs and planes. The reason why Turkey is a super power is its faith, moral values, determination and its being a spiritual super power. Our military power is also a reasonable one, not to be exaggerated that much. In any case, we have no will to act in any sort of military method.
• I said, Islam will prevail throughout the world and there will be an Islamic Union and Hazrat Mahdi (as) will appear. Some people considered these to be story-like. They asked, “Do you really believe this?” If I were not definitely sure, would I keep on explaining these topics with such ambition? Would I have this determination if I were not sure? As I have spent all my youth and property in the way of Allah; the existence of Allah is an absolute fact and the morals of Islam will certainly dominate the entire world insha’Allah. Moreover, developments show this progress.
• In general people have a tendancy to get accustomed to all matters. There is a need to struggle against habit. We said, “You are images in your brain,” they say, “Right, what does anything have to do with that. I know, this is a scientific fact.” You say, “You are not talking to me right now, do you know this? You are talking to the image in your brain.” And they reply, “What is the matter with it?” When they first wake up in the Hereafter, they say, “Who woke us from the place of our sleep?” There needs to be a certain effort to prevent routine habits getting hold of a person. If what is customary is penetrated, a person may have very perfect faith. Habit is the greatest trouble for a person. Also, familiarity is one of the greatest blessings. Because one may lose his mind due to the clarity of vision. If one understands that he lives in a place as big as a cubic centimeter, normally he would not be able to handle this mentally. While a person thinks he is navigating in his boat, he comprehends that the boat is in him. The majority of people cannot bear this fact. If there is no familiarity, a person cannot even get his head up. But, habit also clouds wisdom. You become aware that you live in a tiny place, and you are a spiritual being, and you are totally convinced of the Hereafter, Hell and Paradise. That person becomes fully aware of the power of Allah. We say that there is no light outside, and colors are formed inside the brain. We ask, “Don’t you find this interesting?” and he says, “Yes it is.” Then he goes on saying there is a rise in prices, and about university exams and that he needs to go there. These people are extremely disinterested, and routine habit causes this. One needs to find a balance with familiarity. People like the Prophet Jesus (pbuh), our Prophet (pbuh) and the Prophet Moses (pbuh) know how to dismantle the clouding effect of habit on the brain. The Prophet Abraham (pbuh) looks once and has faith, that is all and he does not give up in any way, whatever happens. The Prophet Jesus (pbuh) also looks once and his faith is stronger than the belief of hundreds of thousands of people. For instance they puncture the Prophet Zechariah (pbuh) inside a trunk and normally a person would shout and cry out, right? Ordinarily, one is horrified. But all he says is, “My Lord, You are Everlasting,” while being martyred. This is only possible with the strength of ones faith, and there is no other way. The companions of the Prophet (pbuh) were also the same. Normally one would stop fighting when he loses an arm, but they kept on the fight. There are the companions who lost their feet in war, but they are not even aware that they have lost their limbs, because they have aligned themselves with love of Allah. One should penetrate the customary. If one knows how to do this, then for a person who examines even the life of a bee, the bee is normally adequate for having faith. It reflects millions of times superior intelligence than human beings.
• Allah creates animals, plants and all beauties for us to inspire affection within us. Therefore animals should be present before our eyes, at least their photographs. The flowers also. Allah creates them for us to smell and cherish, just like the animals. Even butterflies behave differently when they feel they are loved. Butterflies, insects, they all know they are loved, because they all manifest the spirit of Allah. They are very gentle and adorned. There is symmetry in everything, and the golden ratio is present. There is the golden ratio in the flowers, and a great symmetry in the sequence of the leaves.
• There is a mathematical golden ratio in the creation of all living beings. They say this happened by coincidence. You look at the flower there is a golden ratio, you look at animals there is a golden ratio, the same is observed in galaxies. Darwinism cannot give an account of the symmetry. It has no explanation or anything on this matter and that is why they do not make this their agenda. What does coincidence understand about the golden ratio? There is the golden ratio in everything and they come up and say these all happened by chance. We will see if they will be able to say the same thing in the Hereafter.
• Our leftists and rightists are all greathearted. They would give their lives for their nation. Which leftist would not aspire for the Turkish – Islamic Union? Leftists do not appreciate bigotry, and I do not want that also. They are against being a bigot, and I am thousand times against that. But attacking the Qur’an is not the way to stand against bigotry. When you give opportunity to those bigots, and they would perish you. You would destroy freedom and love by opposing to the Qur’an. Qur’an and the morals of the Qur’an are assurance for freedom, love, affection and democracy. Belief in Allah is the single path of the human mind. What would you do if you have no faith? The mind leads to faith on a straight path.
• Bigotry overwhelms the ones that apply it. Nobody should ever attempt to change Allah’s plan.
• I am mentioning the impertinence of PKK night and day. The reason behind this insolence and disrespect is, they say, “We are making scientific activities and they cannot confront us with science, so they come out with weapons because they know they will be defeated.” This is what they are talking about, they are making this propaganda. They talk about this everywhere. Just let me and I will wear them down (intellectually), by Allah’s leave, give me two months and if I don’t do this then say whatever you want. I will put them down and they cannot act such heedlessly.
• We are given an incredibly short term in this world. Thanks to Allah, the morals of Islam will prevail and people’s perception of truth will increase greatly. The Prophet (saas) says this, and it will take place at a time that is mostly unexpected for people. All would have happened in the middle ages and people would say, “That took place because people lagged behind.” Morals of Islam will dominate the world at a time when technology is most advanced and science is most developed. Science supports Islam, philosophy supports Islam and technology assists Muslims. Allah will prevail Islam all over the world under the leadership of a person they mostly unexpect. Allah gives dominance to the most unexpected person, at the most unexpected time and at the most unexpected regions. This is the law of Allah. The Prophet Moses (pbuh) is the son in law of the Pharaoh, and he was the most unexpected son in law, at the most unexpected time, that devastated his rule.
• What is the benefit to unbelievers? They exalt one’s zeal and determination. What does a hypocrite do? He gives fervor, enhances adrenaline and becomes the means for a very comprehensive explanation of the Qur’an. In order to give the message of the Qur’an, we need to see hypocrites in practice. We see real, veritable hypocrites, ones who have sickness in their hearts and who are disbelievers. It is very exciting to see people we are informed of in the Qur’an. We experience true believers and true struggle against real hypocrites and unbelievers. We live through these in reality.
You who belive! DO NOT MAKE UNLAWFUL THE GOOD THINGS ALLAH HAS MADE LAWFUL FOR YOU, AND DO NOT OVERSTEP THE LIMITS. Allah does not love people who overstep the limits. (Surat Al-Ma’ida, 87)
Hypocrites make unlawful (haram) what Allah has made lawful (halal). This happens with hypocrites and ones who have sickness in their hearts. Do not invent things that you call unlawful or lawful, do not complicate religion, do not lie in the name of Allah. That is why hypocrites and idolaters always perish. Allah calls attention to this fabrication of hypocrites and idolaters in the Qur’an.
In the same way their idols have made killing their children appear good to many of the idolaters, in order to destroy them and CONFUSE THEM IN THEIR RELIGION. If Allah had willed, they would not have done it; so abandon them and what they fabricate.
They say, ‘THESE ANIMALS AND CROPS ARE SACROSANCT. NO ONE MAY EAT THEM EXCEPT THOSE WE WISH – AS THEY ALLEGE – AND ANIMALS ON WHOSE BACKS IT IS FORBIDDEN TO RIDE, and animals over which they do not mention Allah’s name, inventing falsehood against Him. He will repay them for the things they have invented. (Surat Al-An‘am, 137-138)
They act according to falsehood, fabrications and say we heard as such from our ancestors. They lie in the name of the Prophet (pbuh) and say they heard these from him. Then they charge the ones who do not carry these out with being profane. “Confuse them in their religion,” so they establish a religion full of confusion. Thousands of things made unlawful, they make religion incredibly complicated. Allah gives us examples of their techniques for inventing new unlawful (haram).
… WHO COULD DO GREATER WRONG THAN SOMEONE WHO INVENTS LIES AGAINST ALLAH THUS LEADING PEOPLE ASTRAY WITHOUT ANY KNOWLEDGE? Allah does not guide the people of the wrongdoers. (Surat Al-An‘am, 144)
"Without any knowledge": This means there aren’t any distinct commands in the Qur’an, and no sound hadith of our Prophet (pbuh). After inventing lies against Allah, then the ignorant person comes and tells a Muslim, “You do not comply with this.” The Muslim says, “Yes, I do not comply because it is fabrication.” The ignorant person asks, “I have heard such from my ancestors, on what basis are you acting?” and says, “you may become a deviator.” And goes on, “If you abide by these fabrications which are the religion of my ancestors, then you may have taqwa.” Will the ignorant person accept that, Allah forbid, if a Muslim is mistaken and does that, then this ignorant person will find another issue. This is a tactic used by hypocrites, and one that was the practice in the Masjid ad-Dirar (= Mosque of Mischief) in the time of our Prophet (saas). They invented superstitions when the religion our Prophet (saas) preached was explicit.
Among them is a group who distort the Book with their tongues so that you think it is from the Book when it is not from the Book. They say, ‘It is from Allah,’ but it is not from Allah. They tell a lie against Allah and they know it. (Surah Al ‘Imran, 78)
For instance there is a very clear command in the Qur’an about the Prophet Jesus (pbuh), but that person distorts this with his tongue and changes this totally into something else. That is not proper according to the command in the Qur’an, but they deceive you. Hypocrites know this but they lie against Allah.
Do you not see those who claim to be purified? No, Allah purifies whoever He wills. They will not be wronged by so much as the smallest speck. (Surat An-Nisa’, 49)
Hypocrites show themselves like saints. It is as if they have a sore neck and they are extremely stubborn because of egocentrism, each one is very sure of themselves as if they are a false god. They assume themselves to be like separate states, as to their own minds.
But when they see a chance of trade or entertainment they scatter off to it and leave you standing there. Say: ‘What is with Allah is better than trade or entertainment. Allah is the Best of Providers.’ (Surat Al-Jumu‘a, 11)
Hypocrites are after their interests. First, they aim for getting property, possessions and finances, they watch over those ways. They abstain from everything that would prevent him from this. When he is near the Muslims, he thinks, “These conditions would harm me,” and says, “let me run away from here.” He wants to flee even towards a cave, a house, or any place under the earth, he wants to run off in any case and there he plans his future.
Hypocrites want to get rich with possessions and children. Allah reveals “Do not let their wealth and their children impress you. Allah merely wants to punish them by that in the dunya, and for them to expire while they are kafirun.” (Surah at-Tawba, 85) A hypocrite loves his mother for inheritance, his father for inheritance, his grandfather for inheritance, his brother for property and wealth. He looks at his grandfather and if he sees no share on his part, then he finds a way to send him to a workhouse and looks for an evidence from the Qur’an.
It is very important to expose the hypocrite. We did the same to atheist masons, we exposed them and they announced that they had nothing left in secret. Darwinism was under layers of cover and they said, “We are people who walk in the deepest passages of science, we are people in the depths of science where others cannot come by.” They claimed, “Ordinary people cannot attain our knowledge, we once in a while give them brief information and that is adequate for them.” Those ordinary people made them cry this way. They were under 70 layers of cover, but we tore all those covers down (intellectually).
Their leaders went off saying, ‘Carry on as you are! Hold fast to your gods. This is clearly something planned.
We have not heard of this in the old religion. This is merely something contrived. (Surat Sâd, 6-7)
One characteristic of hypocrites is they always consider themselves to be pioneers, they all have internet websites. Not one likes the other, not one abides by the other or holds him in esteem. They carry on as though they are in their old religion, but until when? Allah reveals they do not give up “until their hearts are cut to shreds” (Surat at-Tawba, 110). It is not because they love this, but they know that bigotry and zealotry are the best methods as an internal blow to religion. It is easy to destroy a castle from within, and hypocrites turn what is halal (lawful) into haram (unlawful) and they take all precautions to remove joy and love. People turn into such a state that their minds get frozen, their brains are stuck and they say they cannot live by that religion. This is the method of satan, it attacks in a way to turn things into an impasse and tries to strike from inside.
How is it that you have become two parties regarding the hypocrites, when Allah has returned them to disbelief for what they did? Do you desire to guide people Allah has misguided? When Allah misguides someone, you will find no way for him. (Surat An-Nisa’, 88)
Since hypocrites always talk by using logic, sometimes ignorant or pure Muslims may really be affected. They use by distorting the truth in the Qur’an. Allah informs in the Qur’an, “If they speak you listen” (Surat Al-Munafiqun, 4), they may also seem to be rich and imposing. Allah draws attention to this also in the Qur’an. It is seen that the real purpose of the hypocrite is wealth, but Allah always turns them upside down. Allah informs they would not find guidance even if you strive hard.
They would like you to be unbelievers as they are unbelievers so that you will all be the same… (Surat An-Nisa’, 89)
Every hypocrite is alone. He throws himself from wall to wall because of sorrow and therefore wants others to be deviated like himself. But he does not directly tell others to become irreligious. If he tells this, everyone knows what response he will get. He does not say so in the Qur’an also. He pulls them into convoluted labyrinths and suffocates them in those labyrinths as if that is the true religion. One then says, “I cannot do this” and he says, “Did you see how it is not possible to live by religion?” He says, you’re talking, laughing, walking and everything is haram and claims Allah commands this. If that person is weak, because he either selects the weak or one that is self-interested, he suffocates that person and then pulls back. This is how satan acts, what does it do, satan says, “I called you and you responded to me,” (Surah Ibrahim, 22). This is how hypocrites are.
Maraş Aksu TV
The Mahdi's luminous community will repair the destruction of the innovative regime of the secret society of the Sufyan, and will restore the Prophet's glorious Sunna. That is to say, the secret society of the Sufyan will try to destroy the Shari'a of Muhammad (PBUH) in the World of Islam with the intention of denying his Prophethood, and will be killed and routed by the miraculous immaterial sword of the Mahdi's community. (Letters / Twenty - Ninth Letter - Seventh Section - p.516)
They bring innovation and make up things that are not in the Qur’an. This means he does not only destroy but also distorts the system. Hazrat Mahdi (as) shuts down the hypocrites and the bigots. He encourages Turkish-Islamic Union and enhances love. This way people start loving one another, and he repairs. He will carry on the sunnah of our Prophet (pbuh) just as in the time of the Golden Age. The committee of the Sufyan that attempted to bring the system of fitnah (corruption) and mischief in place of friendship, love and amity will be scattered by means of the spiritual sword of the community of Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). Because there is no blood with Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). What happened to the alleged Ergenekon Organization? It is completely dissolved.
Moreover, in the world of humanity, the secret society of the Dajjal will overturn civilization and subvert all mankind's sacred matters, with the intention of denying the Godhead. A zealous and self-sacrificing community known as a Christian community but worthy of being called "Muslim Christians," will establish the reality of Islam, and will kill and rout that society of the dajjal (antichrist), thus saving humanity from atheism. (Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Letters / Twenty - Ninth Letter - Seventh Section, p. 516)
The committee of the antichrist is Abdullah Ocalan, Darwin, Lenin, Troçki and all. They perished humanity, if you go to China you will see that people are dead, but only their bodies are alive. The true religion of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is Islam. “A zealous and self-sacrificing community known as a Christian community.” They are so much similar to Muslims that you suppose they are Muslims. But, they are a hidden community. Not the Mormons, because they also name Prophet Jesus (pbuh) as Allah. Bediuzzaman says, Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) will do this and the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will be involved on the political side. The Prophet Jesus (pbuh) leaves intellectual struggle to Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). The way of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is entirely different, he employs a completely different method that cannot be sensed.
• There is one and only remedy for disbelief, anarchy and materialism, which is the greatest threat now in this time. It is to embrace the truth in the Qur’an. Otherwise that scourge that turned huge China into communism in a short period of time would not be silenced by political and material forces. What only silences it is the truth of the Qur’an.
People consider communism to be state socialism. Europe is also communist right now. Otherwise, the state may call out, “Everyone should bring their properties and we will distribute all from one centre.” Being away from Allah, and away from good morals. Communism is equal to immorality and being without a Book.
A tyrannical current born of Naturalist and Materialist philosophy will gradually become strong and spread at the end of time by means of materialist philosophy, reaching such a degree that it denies God. (Letters, p. 79)
Like a Nimrod, this is the Nimrodism in the End Times. There is Nimrodism in the time of the Prophet Abraham (pbuh) and Nimrodism in the End Times. They are developing within the essence of dialectical philosophy all over the world and they are in rejection very openly in a widespread manner all over the world as it is currently seen. This is based on Darwinist materialist philosophy.
So those who come to lead the school of naturalists and materialists, imagine in themselves a sort of lordship proportionate to their power, and to demonstrate their power, make their subjects bow down worshipfully before themselves and their statues, and incline their heads. (The Rays / The Fifth Ray - Second Station - p.105 )
There is a narration: “The Sufyan will be an eminent scholar; he will fall into misguidance through his learning. Numerous other scholars will follow him.” (The Rays / The Fifth Ray - Second Station - p.106)
Hafez Al-Assad is one of the people who knows Darwinist philosophy very well. The head of the separatists (Abdullah Ocalan) is the same. They have all swallowed guerilla methods and lives of Che and Ho Chi Minh. He is an antichrist also, as well as Hafez Al-Assad. They possess great knowledge but that is a kind of satanic understanding. They do not act in response from the side of Ar-Rahman, but this should be done. Let me do this.
There was a despicable person living at the time of the Prophet Moses (pbuh), Qarun. He said, “May Allah grant me lots of wealth and I will spend in His path.” Then Allah gave him all and when he gained that wealth, he said “I earned this, so I will spend it for my own needs.” Then Allah devastated his property. If one is determined to spend in the cause of Allah, then he earns plenty. But if he attempts to play a trick against Allah, then Allah destroys that person.
He to whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. (Surat Al-Furqan, 2)
Allah has ordained by using the golden ratio. There is a measure everywhere; there is a mathematical ratio in all.
They say, ‘What is the matter with this Messenger, that he eats food and walks in the market-place? Why has an angel not been sent down to him so that it can be a warner along with him? (Surat Al-Furqan, 7)
"Why has treasure not been showered down on him? Why does he not have a garden to give him food?’ The wrongdoers say, ‘You are merely following a man who is bewitched.’." (Surat Al-Furqan, 8)
Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh) will not be rich also. They get down in that also, they want him to have gardens and orchards.
The Romans have been defeated. (Surat Ar-Rum, 2)
Romans were defeated. What was Istanbul called then? It was the Land of the Romans. This verse indicates a sign for the conquer of Istanbul by Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh). What is the numerical (gematrical) value? 1980, it is exactly 1400 (Hegira style) and Romans was directly used for Istanbul. Even more those lands are called Rumelia (Land of Romans).
In a few years’ time. The affair is Allah’s from beginning to end. On that day, the muminun will rejoice. (Surat Ar-Rum, 4)
The numerical value of this verse gives year 2010. | <urn:uuid:2affca8d-c3b3-40cd-b98b-1efc607642fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harunyahya.com/en/works/33548/Highlights-from-Adnan-Oktars-interview-dated-18-September-2010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967632 | 5,571 | 1.523438 | 2 |
A recent Yahoo! Finance report prominently featured Alice Lloyd College in a fantastic study that highlighted ways in which students could obtain a more affordable education. The findings presented stated: “On the country’s shortlist of colleges and universities offering free tuition, there’s Alice Lloyd College in Kentucky, Curtis Institute of Music in Pennsylvania, Deep Springs College in California and St. Louis Christian College in Missouri.” This news item has generated even more interest in the College; in fact, visits to our website on the day of the story’s release increased by nearly 1,000 hits.
The idea of the College having “free tuition” arises from the fact that we offer a tuition guarantee to students from our 108-county service area. As one of the nation’s 7 work colleges, ALC requires all of its students to work on campus, which directly aids the students in paying off some of the financial costs. The tuition guarantee (also called the ALC Scholarship), which is only available to students living within our 108-county service area, covers 100 percent of a student’s undergraduate tuition fees. Students must pay for room and board (if the student lives on campus) and for all necessary textbooks, which might require some financial aid; however, the overall amount owed will be far less than what most undergraduate students face elsewhere.
You can find the original Yahoo! report here. | <urn:uuid:23356f5a-485b-4a9a-83c7-1ed99e4bf9b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alc.edu/2012/08/alc-receives-national-attention/?yr=2013&month=2&dy=&cid=mini | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947516 | 290 | 1.5625 | 2 |
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes. For more information, visit www.emmadonoghue.com.
"Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. Room is a book to read in one sitting. When it's over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days."
-Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry
"I loved Room. Such incredible imagination, and dazzling use of language. And with all this, an entirely credible, endearing little boy. It's unlike anything I've ever read before."
-Anita Shreve, author of The Pilot's Wife and A Change in Altitude | <urn:uuid:01d95232-e32f-4b2e-9926-865a2fa17f26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordbrooklyn.com/book/9780316120579 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974819 | 528 | 1.625 | 2 |
Criminal immigrants held in British jails cost the taxpayer £283 million per year, new figures have revealed.
This means that the annual total cost of immigration to the British taxpayer is now set at just over £13 billion per year.
According to official figures revealed in Parliament, the bill for keeping foreign prisoners in British jails has been £3.4 billion since 1997.
This equates to £283 million per year.
According to figures compiled earlier by Oxford Professor of Demography, David Coleman, and released by independent think tank Migrationwatch, immigration already costs the British taxpayer some £12.8 billion per year.
This figure does not include the cost of housing and feeding foreign prisoners generated by the imprisonment of 11,350 foreign convicts in Britain’s overcrowded jails.
Foreign prisoners have taken up 48 percent of all new jail cells built since 1999, the parliamentary figures also revealed.
Some 12,549 new jail cells have been built in the last ten years, while the foreign inmate population grew by 5,962 over the same period.
When the foreign inmate cost is added to Professor Coleman’s figures, the total cost per year ramps up to the £13 billion figure.
This is ten times the National Health Service Deficit and 40 percent more than the foreign aid budget.
The number of foreign criminals has increased by over 110 percent since 1999, compared to an increase of 20 percent in UK offenders. Of the latter number, statistics show further that large numbers are from first or second generation immigrants.
According to figures from the Office of National Statistics, immigrants also send home about £4 billion a year in remittances back to their home countries.
The £4 billion figure is thought to be an underestimate, as it does not include money sent from Britain by unofficial banking channels.
In contrast, just £2.3 billion a year flows into the country from British ex-pats working overseas.
A House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs last year found “no evidence” to show that net immigration generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population.
The latest set of figures show even this to be somewhat of an understatement.
Source BNP main website http://www.bnp.org.uk/ | <urn:uuid:c21b440e-32e8-4d01-acfa-56b7e43ee2e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cllrkevinedwards.blogspot.com/2009/11/13-billion-year-cost-of-immigration-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944953 | 462 | 1.632813 | 2 |
SACRAMENTO -- The sale of California's first pollution permits will generate less money than expected for the state budget.
Gov. Jerry Brown and state lawmakers projected that the nation's largest carbon marketplace would raise $1 billion during the fiscal year that ends in June, with about half the proceeds going to close the state's budget deficit.
But the first sale last week raised only $289 million, with most earmarked for utilities and ratepayers. That leaves the state about $56 million.
Two more auctions are planned in February and May. But the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that the state may gain only about $140 million if the trend holds.
Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer told The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday that the governor's January budget could reflect the lower projections. | <urn:uuid:49abb58d-8511-4599-930f-05a30f1e0ee1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidebayarea.com/my-town/ci_22048735/money-from-california-carbon-auction-less-than-expected | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937442 | 163 | 1.6875 | 2 |
SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(invited to apply. Successful outcomes of these trials will result in a broader commercial release of the closure to the market in early 2011.)--Today, Tim Keller, CEO, announced opening of applications to participate in beta tests of VinPerfect closures in August 2010. The company has created an oxygen-regulating screw cap liner that provides consistent, low levels of oxygen to wines in the bottle. Interested wine producers are
“Everyone we’ve talked to in the wine industry has offered nothing but encouragement. This is something that winemakers, like me, have wanted for a long time. I expect the built-up demand will mean explosive growth for the screw cap segment in wine.”
The VinPerfect closure was borne of Tim’s intense frustration with corks and alternative wine bottle closures during his 12 years as a winemaker.
“Close to 1,000,000 wine drinkers every day open bottles of wine ruined by the closure. There is no reason to tolerate such a high defect rate. I started VinPerfect to give winemakers a better option.” — Tim Keller, CEO
But the story is much deeper. Wines are alive. All will consume oxygen in the bottle; different wine varieties and winemaking styles need very different amounts of oxygen. This is true even for wines that spend less than a year in the bottle. Unfortunately, most closures deliver either too much or too little oxygen. Too much and the wine oxidizes, ruining it permanently. Too little oxygen robs wine of its vibrancy and makes it susceptible to reductive defects. If the cork is contaminated as well, the wine will smell like wet, moldy socks.
Ideally, a wine closure should be defect-free and deliver a known amount of oxygen over a specific period of time. While current screw caps are a higher-quality alternative to corks, they lack adequate oxygen transmission, a deficiency that has made winemakers hesitant to use them on most red wines. Unique among all wine closures, the VinPerfect screw cap delivers predictable rates of oxygen to the wine.
“Testing of our oxygen regulation system has shown great results. We have shown an ability to select a given amount of oxygen and produce a liner that delivers it consistently.” — Tim Keller, CEO
Winemakers will be offered a choice of oxygen rates, each suited to the style of wine they make. Additionally, VinPerfect will provide direct technical support for customers, working with bottling line mechanics to certify proper cap application.
“Everyone we’ve talked to in the wine industry has offered nothing but encouragement. This is something that winemakers, like me, have wanted for a long time. I expect the built-up demand will mean explosive growth for the screw cap segment in wine.” — Tim Keller, CEO
Worldwide wine production exceeds 18 billion bottles annually. Only 10% are closed with screw caps, and those are mostly light white wines with very low demand for in-bottle oxygen. While many have focused on the aesthetics of the cork versus the cap, consumer acceptance is not the issue. The days of “cheap wine in screw caps” are long gone. Solving the “oxygen problem” means that VinPerfect screw caps will replace corks as the preferred, highest-quality closure for all styles of wine in the very near future.
“After being involved in innovative product development and introductions for more than two decades, this is the first time I have seen a technical product introduced to a market where literally everyone in the industry understands it immediately, and has been waiting for it.” — Jim Olson, President
Tim Keller Tim is a UC Davis trained winemaker with over 12 years experience in the California wine industry. He has served as a winemaker in the Stag’s Leap District of Napa and Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, among others. In addition to leading the VinPerfect team, he serves as a winemaking consultant for Alta Ridge Vineyards. Tim invented the VinPerfect screw cap during his MBA studies at UC Davis in 2007, and led his team to victory in the 2008 Big Bang! business plan competition. Tim graduated with his MBA that same year.
Jim Olson is a veteran entrepreneur who raised over $80 million in venture capital for his company Skystream Networks, which he led successfully through the steepest technology spending downturn in history. Skystream was sold to Tandberg Television in 2006; Tandberg was subsequently sold to Ericsson for $1.4 billion. He has also served in executive positions for two Fortune 500 companies, Hewlett-Packard and 3Com Corporation.
Jim brings seasoned executive leadership to the VinPerfect team, in addition to an appreciation of wine and a passion for building great companies. | <urn:uuid:334b4db2-b2dc-4296-a95d-a76257d1759f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100526006623&newsLang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967109 | 1,000 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Girls' Night In
This is an event we plan for either a day-long retreat or an after school evening where the sisters can get together to participate in an activity which we do not have the time for during a regular weekly meeting. Last year, a day-long retreat was conducted at the BCSD district office. Half of the day was spent doing "get to know you" activities. During our afternoon, four speakers were present. Ms. Megan Whalen, from the Crime Victims Department, spent time talking with the young ladies about relationships, dress, attitude and many other subjects. Then Mr. Eudes Clarke, Mr. Andre and Mr. Glen McIver spoke about many of the same topics from a man's perspective.
In the past, Mr. Paul Harger, a pastry chef, came to BHS to teach the girls how to make truffles, turtles, bark, smores and a concoction out of the left-over ingredients. They also learned the correct way to eat a truffle to enjoy the taste and bring out the flavors of the treat. Each girl was able to take at least one sample of each treat home with them. This is a fun evening of learning and conversations - as well as enjoying the pastries and ice cream sundaes which were also made to go with the candies. | <urn:uuid:d6eedbad-e1be-4c4d-9e2c-30e0691dbf29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.binghamtonschools.org/education/components/album/default.php?sectiondetailid=13377 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979726 | 274 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Tourists Spent a Record $71.8 Billion in Florida in 2012
According to Visit Florida, 90 million people visited Florida last year. That includes 10.2 million overseas visitors and 3.6 million Canadians, don't ya know. All in all, the tourists spent a combined 500 million vacation nights in the state.
Tourists spent $67.2 million in Florida in 2011. Before then, the last record-setting year was in 2007, when tourists spent $65.5 billion. Tourism dollars fell during the recession but are once again improving.
"Florida's tourism industry is critical to Florida families as it serves as a vital source of revenue to the state and a key driver of employment -- and that's why our Florida Families First Budget commits $75 million to Visit Florida, so we can better grow jobs and opportunities for Florida families," Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes. | <urn:uuid:e4fd5cee-767b-4a3a-a56a-24fc590fb78f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/03/tourists_spent_a_record_718_bi.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937955 | 196 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Tablet, e-reader program July 10
Tablets and e-readers are growing in popularity, and new devices hit the market all the time. They’re wonderful, but they can be confusing to new users.
How to Use Tablets and E-readers will help clear up the confusion at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 10, at the library. The session will co-presented by staff members from the Fond du Lac Best Buy store and by library staff.
The presentation will cover the basic functions and capabilities of tablets and e-readers, the differences between the various types and how to download apps, games and books, including how to download free e-books using your Fond du Lac Library card. Additionally, Best Buy staff will review accessories and talk about using the devices on the go (Wi-Fi vs. broadband card). There will be time for Q&A.
Best Buy will bring a variety of popular devices to sample. Participants will receive handouts from the library on downloading e-books as well as an exclusive coupon from Best Buy.
The program is free; registration is not required. | <urn:uuid:a9f99f93-76a0-45cc-8a9b-bd59d8c983c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fdlpl.org/blog/2012/06/tablet-e-reader-program-july-10?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945756 | 236 | 1.53125 | 2 |
This is an extremely interesting document that everyone should read. A BBC article wrote this about the document (these are excerpts that I found especially poignant),
The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.
“Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience,” it reads.
“Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public,” it goes on.
“Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will ‘fight the net’ as it would an enemy weapons system,” it reads.
In closing the author wrote,
And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to “provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum”.
US forces should be able to “disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum”.
Consider that for a moment.
The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.
Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?
The fact that the “Information Operations Roadmap” is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.
And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military’s ambitions for it.
Now read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
Department of Defense Information Operations Roadmap Full PDF | <urn:uuid:b36a5361-c656-4664-b246-55b701710861> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://endthelie.com/books-and-reading-material/resources/declassified-government-documents/department-of-defense-information-warfare-manual/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937087 | 386 | 1.5 | 2 |
On June 19, 2000, about 2000 Pacific daylight time, a Piper PA-28-180, N32322, collided with terrain following a loss of engine power during cruise flight near Selma, California. The private pilot, the owner and operator of the airplane, and his passenger were not injured. The airplane sustained substantial damage during the forced landing and subsequent impact with grapevines and a fence. The flight was operated under 14 CFR Part 91 and was destined for Ontario, California. The pilot did not file a flight plan but was receiving flight following when the engine lost power. The personal cross-country flight had departed from Eugene, Oregon, approximately 1600. Use your browsers 'back' function to return to synopsisReturn to Query Page
According to the pilot, he was originally going to stop in Merced, California, and found there was no fuel available. He then headed for Visalia, California, and was about 2 miles south of Selma when the engine lost power.
In his report, the pilot stated that the engine quit while he was in cruise flight. He stated he completed the emergency engine restart procedure without success. He then attempted to reach the nearest airport, Selma, and force landed in a vineyard.
At the time of the engine power loss, the pilot was in contact with Fresno TRACON. He reported to the controller that he had exhausted the fuel.
An inspector from the Federal Aviation Administration Fresno Flight Standards District Office examined the airplane on June 20, 2000. Upon arrival at the accident site the inspector checked the airplane's fuel tanks. He stated he did not find any fuel in either fuel tank, and that there was no evidence of fuel spillage or fuel tank rupture.
A copy of a fuel receipt indicated that the airplane had been fueled with 37 gallons of 100LL fuel at Eugene, at 1332, on the day of the accident. | <urn:uuid:4ff361f2-2453-4ea4-90cc-b75bf5803f46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/brief2.aspx?ev_id=20001212X21272&ntsbno=LAX00LA235&akey=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978506 | 382 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Everybody's aware of the pain caused by a recession: Companies lay off workers, jobs become hard to find, and those who remain employed often have their wages and benefits frozen, or even cut. General anxiety leads millions of consumers to hunker down and stop spending, which slows the economy even more.
But recessions always end, and in most downturns, the majority of consumers actually fare OK. For people with secure jobs, ample savings, or a strong financial safety net, lean economic times can even represent an opportunity to snap up bargains and exploit newfound leverage in a buyer's market.
As with all financial decisions, trying to time the market and guess where the bottom is can be risky. But with a bit of luck, smart consumers, abiding by the usual prudent caveats, can turn a downturn to their advantage, whether seeking fire sales on electronics, negotiating more responsibility at work, or buying a home. Here's how:
Call the shots when buying a house. Prices in many markets are falling, of course, and while buyers need to be as careful as ever about speculating, those in for the long haul can find some great buys. It's critical to research sales of comparable homes, remodeling records, and other data available at sites like zillow.com and trulia.com. In addition to falling prices, buyers may be surprised to find that with activity drying up, they suddenly have the power to dictate the terms of a deal: Agents may be willing to cut commissions, sellers may agree to cover repairs or other costs they would have dismissed just a year ago, and contractors eager for work might lower their fees for additions or other home improvements.
Buy a distressed property. As an unfortunate outcome of the housing bust, more than a million foreclosed and distressed homes are likely to hit the market this year. It's obviously unpleasant when families lose their homes—but somebody needs to buy them, sometimes at deeply discounted prices. Buyers of distressed homes usually end up dealing with the bank that has repossessed the home, not with the original owners. If you wait for such properties to show up in traditional listing services, you'll probably miss out. Better places to look: the websites for banks and county offices that would know about foreclosures. Real-estate agents plugged into local happenings should also know.
Foreclosure deals are riskier than other real-estate transactions. Properties offered at public auctions often sell for more than they're worth, so buyers can't just assume that if it's up for auction, it's a steal. Buyers may not have time to conduct a thorough inspection or do other due diligence. Insiders may grab the best deals before they ever become public. But for careful buyers who do their homework, there may be plenty of opportunities.
Borrow cheap. True, banks have reined in loans to riskier borrowers, but rates are still historically low, and they might go lower still this year if the Fed continues its rate-cutting ways. So for people with good credit, it's a great time to borrow. That goes for mortgages, obviously, but also for loans people can use to buy a car, ramp up a small business, or remodel their current home.
Refresh your wheels. Automakers are going to need your business in 2008 and will increasingly offer deals to lure buyers into showrooms. Default rates on auto loans have been rising just as they have for mortgages, which means lenders are shunning risky borrowers but wooing those with good credit. And with overall sales slipping, automakers have already started upping rebates and other deals, even on popular models like the Toyota Sienna minivan, the Lexus RX350 SUV, and most pickup trucks. Incentives should continue to improve, predicts Jesse Toprak of Edmunds.com. And cleverly designed vehicles like the Kia Rio5, Nissan Altima, and Hyundai Santa Fe offer a mix of quality, thriftiness, and fun that make them great cars for lean times.
Boost your value to your employer. There's probably little you can do to prevent layoffs at your company. But if they happen, and you're one of the survivors, there are several steps you can take to enhance your standing with the boss. Many times, after layoffs, there's a kind of ghoulish scavenging for the spoils: newly vacant offices, stylish furniture, even phones and staplers. Don't be so crass—or narrow-minded. Instead, figure out what your company may have lost in the ax-wielding, and step in to provide it.
If the sales force has been reduced, for example, there might be key accounts that need to be salvaged. Ask if you can take them over. Many times, during layoffs, companies get rid of specialists who were nice to have during flush times but too costly when it comes to pinching pennies. Can you replace part of the skill set that just went out the door? If so, it might not bring rewards right away. But if you enhance your value to the company, you'll be at the head of the line for a raise or promotion when things improve.
If you do end up out of work, there are more opportunities than ever to start a business as a consultant, find flexible part-time work, or set up a Web operation. Yes, it's easy to talk about "rebranding" yourself and starting a second or third career. But the fact is, trends like telecommuting and flextime have made companies—and customers—more open than ever to creative work arrangements. Take advantage of it.
Pick up some cheap electronics. Fire sales by bankrupt retailers are the obvious place to look, but with rising home foreclosures, expect a flood of used appliances and electronics on craigslist and other secondary marketplaces. Buying somebody else's TV or iPod can be tricky, needless to say, since there's often no way to measure mileage or tell if there's damage to internal components. Here are some rules of thumb:
A used plasma or LCD television ought to be a pretty safe buy; if there's a problem, most likely you'll know just from the picture quality. Desktop PCs and Blu-ray DVD players might be worth buying if they're substantially discounted, less than a year old, and bear a decent brand name. For laptops, don't buy anything more than three months old. Flash-based iPods and MP3 players are pretty durable; just check that the LCD screen is intact, the USB port is clear—and the device works.
Avoid projection TVs, most computers, digital cameras and camcorders, standard DVD players, and MP3 players that rely on a hard drive for storage. In general, these types of devices have lots of moving parts that can easily wear out, or they rely on machinery that's costly to repair if it breaks, and not worth it. Also, skip newer DVD players in the HD DVD format, which Toshiba has just announced it plans to stop developing. Times are tough enough. Don't make it worse by investing in obsolescence. | <urn:uuid:474da2c9-3c39-455b-96e7-7c54044b9c94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2008/02/20/6-ways-to-thrive-during-a-recession_print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968286 | 1,456 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Peoria, Illinois-based battery technology company Firefly Energy will equip a public transit fleet for the first time with its advanced technology battery. CityLink, the mass transit provider for the greater Peoria area, has signed on as the company’s first public transportation customer.
In its initial roll-out, CityLink has purchased 36 of Firefly’s patented microcell foam Group 31 batteries, known as the Oasis. The batteries will equip nine CityLink buses, replacing traditional batteries that have a much shorter life on the new technologically-sophisticated buses that CityLink employs in its fleet.
“CityLink is excited to be the first bus company in the nation to experience the advantages of the new Firefly Oasis battery,” said Tom Lucek, CityLink general manager. “Like modern automobiles and trucks, our newer buses have many more onboard electronic systems which are increasingly putting stress on our traditionally-utilized batteries. Keeping our buses running optimally is imperative in serving our riders, and so is saving on maintenance costs. We’re looking forward to powering-up our buses with Firefly” Lucek concluded.
Firefly’s advanced battery technology comprises the use of lightweight, non-corroding and non-sulfating microcell foam plates to replace the heavy non-conductive lead metal plates typical of traditional lead acid batteries. The result is that the Oasis battery’s performance and reliability rise dramatically, making these advanced batteries more attractive in terms of total cost-of-ownership compared to the more frequent costs incurred in replacing traditional lead acid batteries, according to company officials.
The wide-ranging hot and cold weather in Central Illinois presents challenges to all modes of ground transportation, including CityLink’s bus lines. Battery life is severely reduced, and when the temperature dips below zero, this leads to more frequent no-starts. Firefly’s battery has a much higher tolerance for weather extremes, making transportation more reliable.
CityLink also employs many more electronics on its bus line, compared to buses previously operated. This is taxing on traditional batteries because the many onboard electronics keeps batteries in a constant partial state-of-charge. This leads to sulfation or “memory,” which is detrimental to a battery - causing decreased battery run times, and dramatically reducing its lifespan. The Oasis battery, with its microcell foam technology, eliminates this sulfation problem, hence providing ample reserve power and much longer cycle life. | <urn:uuid:9fbd2ff0-8a8a-4083-9999-de5f875c7193> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metro-magazine.com/news/story/2009/03/firefly-equips-public-transit-fleet-with-micro-cell-battery.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938437 | 511 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Each year the Legislative Yuan shall hold two sessions of its own accord during the following Constitution regulated periods: from February to the end of May, and from September to the end of December. Whenever necessary, the sessions may be prolonged as decreed by the law. The members report to the Legislative Yuan on February 1and September 1each year for the sessions. The opening date of each session shall be decided through negotiations of all party caucuses. Incase of re-election due to the State President's dissolution of the Legislative Yuan, members shall report to the Yuan starting from the 3rd day after the election results have been officially confirmed and they shall assemble on the 10th day. Should anything of great importance come up during the recess, the Legislative Yuan may resume its session upon the request of no less than one-fourth of its members. In addition, an extra session may also be held either upon the request of the State President or upon the request of no less than 1/4 of the Legislative Yuan members.
If the Legislative Yuan is dissolved, an election for new members shall be held within 60 days, according to the Additional Articles of the Constitution. After the official confirmation of election results, the newly elected members shall assemble within 10days.
Should the Executive Yuan request the Legislative Yuan to reconsider the passage of a bill when the Legislative Yuan is in recess, the Legislative Yuan shall convene of its own accord within seven days. Following the dissolution of the Legislative Yuan by the State President but prior to the inauguration of new members, the Legislative Yuan shall be regarded as in recess.
However, should the State President issue an emergency decree after dissolving the Legislative Yuan, it shall convene of its own accord within three days. | <urn:uuid:3aaef6c2-5546-45b5-8879-72a846d50a55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ly.gov.tw/en/01_introduce/introView.action?id=5 | 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 | 0.967039 | 347 | 1.625 | 2 |
Lebanon fears Syria uprising may spill across border
Gunfire and rocket propelled-grenades were used in the fighting that erupted over the weekend between the Alawite neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen and the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, in the city of Tripoli.
The recent clashes that have raged in northern Lebanon, pitting loyalists against opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have raised concerns that the 11-month unrest in Syria might spill over into its smaller neighbor.
"This situation requires decisive stances from the (Lebanese) president and various political leaders," Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told the Lebanese broadcaster New TV on Saturday.
Gunfire and rocket propelled-grenades were used in the fighting that erupted on Friday and Saturday between the predominantly Alawite neighbourhood of Jabal Mohsen and the mainly Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh, in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.
Witnesses say the fighting started when hundreds of people staged a protest against the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on the opposition.
Two people were killed and 19 others injured in the clashes, according to Lebanese medical sources.
Tripoli is dominated by Sunni Muslims, but it is also home to members of al-Assad's Alawite minority sect.
Tensions have been mounting between the two districts since the outbreak of the pro-democracy uprising in Syria in March, and at least two people were killed in infighting between the two neighborhoods in June.
A high-ranking military source told the Lebanese newspaper As Safir on Saturday that he feared the Tripoli clashes might be part of attempts to trigger unrest in Lebanon.
"The timing is suspicious and we hope this may not be an attempt to distract the army's attention from other affairs," the unnamed source said, without elaborating.
Lebanon's political scene is polarized between al-Assad's supporters, spearheaded by Hezbollah, and his opponents, led by the pro-Western March 14 Gathering.
"This division was inevitably going to be reflected on the vulnerable streets of Lebanon," said Shafik al Masri, a political analyst.
Mustafa Allouch, a Tripoli lawmaker who is also a member of the March 14 Gathering, told dpa: "The Syrian regime's loyalists are trying to destabilize northern Lebanon to divert attention away from what is happening in the nearby (Syrian) province of Homs."
Homs has been the target of a relentless clampdown by the Syrian government since the uprising started, according to the opposition.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman promptly called on the Lebanese army to intervene to stop the Tripoli clashes, and Lebanese army troops deployed across the tense areas on Saturday managed to break a truce between the sides, according to media reports.
However, residents living in both districts were seen Saturday leaving their houses, taking advantage of the fragile lull.
"I'm leaving because I could feel tension is still there. I want to protect my family," said Mohammed Shabaan, a resident of the Bab al-Tabbneh district in northern Lebanon.
"It is just unsafe to stay in the area any more," he added. | <urn:uuid:b337708e-af50-4699-b9c1-ba021ae3d753> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/lebanon-fears-syria-uprising-may-spill-across-border-1.412331 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976499 | 648 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Jewel in Its Crown
Jewel in Its Crown
Almost four years ago, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) closed its jewelry rooms for a multimillion-pound renovation and expansion to accommodate more of its extraordinary collection of some 3,500 jewels. The museum hadn’t updated the galleries in more than 30 years, and their old display cases, cumbersome security turnstiles and poor lighting kept them somewhat obscured within the famous London institution. That will change when the new space, named for the project’s donors, Judith and William Bollinger, opens on May 24.
The redone display comprises mostly European pieces from the past 800 years, although some of the items in the museum’s collection date to as far back as ancient Rome and Egypt. The trove includes ornaments and crowns from British and Continental royals, including Catherine the Great, of Russia, and Empress Josephine, of France; opulent Fabergé creations; and archetypal designs by such great 20th-century jewelry houses as Cartier, Lalique and Tiffany & Co. Among the most jaw-dropping works are a turn-of-the-19th-century garland-style diamond-studded tiara designed by Cartier and worn by Consuelo, the duchess of Marlborough; three brilliant-cut-diamond bow ornaments from the Russian royal collection, donated to the museum by Lady Cory in 1951; and a gold Chaumet bangle, made in Paris in the 1930s, with a cluster of rubies and diamonds.
“This isn’t a temporary exhibition of just 200 or 300 objects. We’re creating a gallery of more than 3,000 objects that’s meant to last for decades,” says Richard Edgcumbe, the V&A’s senior curator of metalwork, silver and jewelry. “People don’t want to have just 100 items beautifully explained; they want to see all of it. So we are exhibiting every object with some kind of depth.” Each of the pieces is briefly described on an accompanying label, and visitors can use computer terminals to call up one of about 8,000 detailed photographs of the jewels.
A former Goldman Sachs oil analyst and the founder of the London-based hedge fund Egerton Capital, William Bollinger, and his wife, Judith, donated more than £7 million (about $14 million) to the renovation project and to establish “the first-ever endowment to maintain the gallery at the highest standard,” says a V&A spokesperson, Henrietta Sitwell. The transformation has been dramatic: Fluorescent lamps have been replaced with more-subdued fiber-optic lighting; the turnstiles have been removed; and a glass spiral staircase leads to a new mezzanine level where the V&A’s collection of watches and gold boxes is housed. For the main floor, the architect, Eva Jiricna, and the museum’s curators have created a series of freestanding curved vitrines, known as “star cases” because of the prized jewels they contain. Additional objects and more extensive histories are in cases along the walls. “If you had a half hour and you wanted to whiz down the series of star cases, you’d see 50 or 60 pieces through the chronology,” says Edgcumbe. “But if you want to see more, you can also linger and learn more about the ones [elsewhere in the gallery] that caught your eye.”
The stargazing begins with a 700 B.C. Celtic gold gorget, or breast ornament, an example of Late Bronze Age high craftsmanship discovered sometime before 1783 in Shannongrove, Ireland. Among other blockbuster items: the Beauharnais Emeralds, a parure, or matching set, of briolette and step-cut emerald drops in diamond settings given by Napoleon to his adopted daughter, Stéphanie de Beauharnais, in 1806, on the occasion of her marriage to the heir of the grand duke of Baden; Lady Louis Mountbattens Tutti-Frutti bandeau, a multicolored Art Deco headband that can also be worn as two bracelets, made of diamonds, Indian rubies, sapphires and emeralds in the shape of a sinuous creeping plant; and, farther along, a few contemporary pieces, including the English jewelry designer Cynthia Cousenss experimental “Winter” series, patinated silver necklaces she created in 1996 based on her pencil sketches of the South Downs, in England.
But the focus of the exhibit, according to Edgcumbe, is on the human story behind each object rather than on the object itself. “We want to get across the story of people—the people who sold it, the people who wore it, the people who collected it,” he says. One item prized for its colorful history is a stopwatch from the 18th century, valued then at about £20, which was stolen at Enfield racecourse in 1790 by a famous British pickpocket, George Barrington. Barrington was sentenced for the theft to exile in Australia and later reformed, becoming a chief constable in Parramatta, New South Wales.
Another, sadder story attaches to a gold ring from 1801–02, which is inscribed with a curious set of enamel numbers and letters: “md Agd 16, sb Agd 12, wb Agd 10, eb Agd 9, tb Agd 7, rb Agd 5, cd Agd 2” on the outside and, on the inside, “Died from the 16th to the 23rd Feby 1801.”
The band, Edgcumbe explains, was made to commemorate the deaths of seven children from the same family who passed away in a single week, probably during an epidemic of a disease such as smallpox.
“That’s one level of emotion that the jewelry brings to you,” says Edgcumbe. “At the other end, there’s the sheer wonder at the diamonds.”
"Jewel in Its Crown" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents. | <urn:uuid:7d398a4c-3967-46bb-a2a1-57ecfda1e263> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/27358/jewel-in-its-crown/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94843 | 1,359 | 1.71875 | 2 |
By Ben Cohen: The culture you grow up in usually has a significant effect on the values you hold. If you have moved to another country you become keenly aware of this fact as you are able to contrast the values of your own society against that of your host’s.
When people are brought up in a tolerant, cooperative society that values things like community, education and art, more often than not, they embody a least a good proportion of those values in their everyday lives. If they were brought up in a violent, intolerant society that valued war, misogyny and greed, there’s a good bet they’d instinctively behave in a way that reflected those values. This is of course an extreme comparison – culture is complicated and the more I have traveled, the more I understand that when it comes to assessing whether a culture is ‘good’, ‘bad’, or ‘better’, it’s usually a matter of taste and opinion.
There are certain aspects of America that I find enormously attractive as a Brit – the openness and friendliness of the people, their generosity, incredible optimism and dynamic entrepreneurialism, and the lack of a stifling European style class system. It’s a great country to live in and in general, I’m very happy here.
However, there is a side to America that I find extremely unsettling – the relentless fixation on money, the deeply corrupt political system, lack of public health care, and the massive extremes in wealth inequality to name a few. There seems to me to be a very dangerous combination of cultural, political and economic factors that make greed and corruption a staple of American life. And sadly, I think that America is a country so beholden to the interests of the wealthy that I don’t hold a huge amount of hope that anything significant can, or will happen to change the status quo.
The roots of the problem are, I believe, cultural. America was founded on the ethos of rugged individualism – the notion that you could move to the new world, work hard and become whoever you wanted to be. This in itself is no bad thing, but combined with a political system open to the influence of money, it has become positively toxic. The current monetary system, often referred to as ‘selfish capitalism’ is a ruthless economic paradigm designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few and keep the rest of the population in a constant state of insecurity so that they often have to work two to three jobs just to stay alive. This system has been sold to the public as the ultimate expression of rugged individualism – the very definition of the American way, and the only option other than communism. Of course it isn’t, but when the corporate media system owned by the same financial interests that control the political system reinforces that notion day in day out, it’s hard for the public to imagine an alternative.
There is an implied notion behind the theory of free market capitalism that human beings are inherently selfish. This has roots in Darwinian biology, and is therefore seen as a logical extension of human nature. Selfish capitalism is natural, and therefore right.
This every man for himself attitude seeps into everything we do – from who we vote for and how we treat our fellow citizens. In many countries around the world, homelessness and severe mental illness is seen as a reflection of their society and therefore unacceptable. In America, there is a disassociation and disregard for the unfortunate – just walk around any major city and you’ll see hundreds, if not thousands of mentally ill and homeless people begging for money on the streets. In the selfish capitalist paradigm, they are as responsible for their own misfortune as the self made millionaire is responsible for his success. Because America is a country of individuals, the poor and mentally ill are separate from us and can be ignored.
However, for every action there is a reaction, and despite America’s brutal treatment of its poor, there is an undercurrent of extreme generosity that I have personally not seen in any other country. Americans give an astonishing amount of their own money to charities, more so as a percentage of GDP than in any other country in the world. On a personal level, there is a culture of kindness and understanding that is not manifested on a societal level – a strange contradiction that could have some interesting outcomes.
Movements like ‘Occupy Wall St’, the explosion of non-profits, and the deep mistrust of the political classes reflect the growing disenchantment with the selfish capitalism model – a sign that culture in America could be changing. And if the roots of America’s problems are cultural, a significant shift in culture could go a long way in changing the political system.
It is in the interests of the wealthy to perpetuate the selfish capitalist model. It works for them, so maintaining the status quo is a primary objective. They will continue to buy politicians, rig legislation to give themselves tax breaks and access to public money. They will continue to ensure the media doesn’t report on anything of value by focusing on ratings and profit over reporting, and they will smear anyone who suggests otherwise. But the funny thing is, the harder they try, the harder the reaction will be.
And we’re seeing it now – a sign that America’s generosity could be more powerful than its greed. | <urn:uuid:f8dbe403-d6c3-474b-9717-03e9df1c0189> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedailybanter.com/tag/culture-of-the-united-states/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956995 | 1,105 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Baillieu government has redrawn the boundaries of the Alpine National Park to allow the Falls Creek resort to expand.
On Thursday morning Environment Minister Ryan Smith announced the government would excise almost 10 hectares of land from the national park and add it to the adjoining Falls Creek Alpine Resort area.
The boundary change follows numerous requests from the Falls Creek resort to expand its operations. The resort wants to develop non-winter tourism activities and a high-altitude training camp for athletes.
The changes mean the resort will now be allowed to expand down to the shore of the Rock Valley Storage lake.
In exchange, the government will add almost 12 hectares of land on the slopes of Mount McKay to the park, which Mr Smith said contained snow gum woodland.
“Victoria’s alpine resorts make significant contributions to their local economies and to tourism in the state,’’ Mr Smith said.
‘‘This amendment is part of a long-term strategy to increase visitation, including in the non-winter months and ensure all Victorians can access and enjoy their natural environment,’’ he said.
“We want to encourage more altitude training, lake events, road cycling and mountain biking.’’
Mr Smith said the proposed amendments were part of Baillieu government’s plan to enable new ‘‘environmentally appropriate investments’’ on public land, including national parks, forests and alpine resorts.
In August the government decided to open up Victorian national parks to private tourism development following recommendations by the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission.
Guidelines to deem what development will be allowed in parks are still being finalised by Mr Smith, who will have final say over what projects would go ahead.
The decision to redraw the Alpine National Park boundaries to allow an expansion of the Falls Creek resort is separate to the August decision.
The Victorian National Parks Association’s Philip Ingamells said the process to redraw the Alpine National Park boundaries had been secretive.
“The government seems to think that if someone wants a development in a national park, they can simply excise that area from the park without any public consultation,’’ he said.
‘‘Management of our finest natural areas should be transparent, honest and based on the best scientific advice. We need to know what other developments they are planning for our magnificent national parks.”
Comment was being sought from Falls Creek Alpine Resort management.
The Alpine National Park was the site of the Baillieu government’s controversial cattle grazing trial, which was blocked by the Commonwealth under national environment law.
Falls Creek chief executive David Herman said the redrawn boundaries were a win for the environment and the resort.
He said the almost 10 hectares of national park given to the resort was of ‘‘poor conservation value’’ and contained a man-made lake and debris left over from the construction of the Snowy Hydro Electricity Scheme.
But Mr Herman said the land being added to the national park was of considerable environmental value.
He said the resort wanted to use its newly acquired land for a high-altitude training program.
‘‘It will enhance the tourism potential of what is a unique piece of the alpine landscape.’’
He said he could not put a value on the alpine land added to the resort.
‘‘You would have to take into account a whole range of things including the degraded land and what we use it for.’’
Des Burkitt, a consultant valuer to Valuer-General Victoria also said it was impossible to estimate the value of the land without knowing what it was permitted to be used for.
‘‘It could be a greenfield site where no buildings could be constructed. The use of the land is a fairly important factor in terms of its value. Any valuer putting a figure on it would have to wait and see what the government would allow to take place on that land.’’ | <urn:uuid:3e6e1d14-7d52-4654-8415-3e5ad007edd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.queanbeyanage.com.au/story/1317087/national-park-boundary-redrawn-for-resort/?cs=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951132 | 835 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Mitt Romney campaign was suffering an acute bout of electoral vertigo yesterday after the leaking of a video showing the candidate disdaining almost half the country as lay-about loafers he cannot "worry about" and writing off the search for Middle East peace as a fool's errand.
Coming at the end of a difficult stretch that has seen President Barack Obama pulling away in some polls, the video clips, first released by the left-leaning magazine Mother Jones, triggered an uproar that could inflict long-lasting damage on Mr Romney's presidential hopes.
He apparently made the remarks at a $50,000-a-plate dinner at a donor's home in Boca Raton, Florida, in May. A 70-minute video made surreptitiously at the event was passed to Mother Jones; the middle man in the transaction was a grandson of former president Jimmy Carter.
At one moment, Mr Romney is heard to gripe: "There are 47 per cent of the people who will vote for the President no matter what. There are 47 per cent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it."
The comments veered into even more perilous territory perhaps when Mr Romney explained that 47 per cent of Americans pay no federal income tax. It was his job, he averred bluntly, "not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives".
While the assertion that nearly half of adult Americans do not pay federal income tax may be broadly correct, the full picture is more complicated. Many of those people pay other forms of taxes, including payroll, sales and property taxes. Some are excused from federal income tax because they are elderly and draw benefits from programmes into which they have paid taxes all their lives. And many may be Republicans.
No time was wasted by the Obama camp to use the clips to paint their opponent once again as cold and out of touch with ordinary Americans. "When you are president of the United States, you are president of all the people, not just the people who voted for you," said Jay Carney, the President's spokesman.
"The man who spoke these words – who demonstrates such disgust and disdain for half of our fellow Americans – is the other side's choice for president of the United States," a mocking fundraising email sent last night to supporters of Mr Obama proclaimed. "He wants to lead our country." The comments on foreign policy may also spell trouble for the former governor of Massachusetts.
Most notable was a suggestion that Middle East peace was unattainable because the Palestinians are "committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel".
Dealing with the fall-out from the videos may be the biggest challenge yet faced by the Romney campaign. A statement was put out soon after the first video footage became public and then, with only 15 minutes' warning, reporters travelling with him in California were summoned to a 10pm press conference. He had no campaign events yesterday but was due later to make an appearance on Fox TV.
"It's not elegantly stated, let me put it that way," he said at the press conference in reference to the 47-per-cent remark. "I was speaking off the cuff in response to a question. And I'm sure I could state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that.
"Of course I want to help all Americans. All Americans have a bright and prosperous future."
While Mr Romney may have stumbled by conflating those receiving benefits or paying no tax with people who support Mr Obama – and by insulting them – the issue he raises is at the core of the ideological clash in this race, with Republicans arguing that, under Democrats, government is smothering America.
What Romney said...
On 'the 47 per cent' There are 47 per cent of the people who vote for the President no matter what… who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it… These are people who pay no income tax... So our message of low taxes doesn't connect… And so my job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take responsibility and care for their lives...
On the Middle East Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and... the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that, ultimately, something will happen and resolve it. | <urn:uuid:b3cebc26-f6ed-4f18-a5a2-331a35ee95b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/mitt-romney-video-leak-first-it-was-welfare-claimants-now-palestinians-28864902.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980499 | 993 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Here's the word.
If you use an iPhone, now you can experience the organizing power of OneNote right there. Starting today, you can download Microsoft OneNote Mobile for iPhone from the iTunes App Store, and it's free for a limited time.
In case you haven't experienced the unsung hero of Office, OneNote is a digital notebook that lets you put everything you need to remember in one electronic place and then easily find it wherever you are. I use it every day. Think of it as a digital file cabinet for all the random bits of information that are too hard to keep track of in your head. According to comScore, 78 million PCs in the U.S. have OneNote - more than a third of all the PCs in the country.
OneNote Mobile for the iPhone lets you capture and review notes and lists on your phone. Notes are automatically backed up and synced with free Windows Live SkyDrive online storage, so that you can access them from virtually anywhere - your PC, phone, and browser. Collecting thoughts and ideas on the go is what OneNote was made for.
OneNote Mobile for iPhone is available now and it's free for a limited time, so why not try it? | <urn:uuid:1f150148-847b-45b5-b0ef-2d3b53fe417c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://winsupersite.com/blog/supersite-blog-39/news2/microsoft-announces-onenote-mobile-for-iphone-139320 | 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 | 0.94142 | 251 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Replaying the Classics
Owners and architects restore modern houses with state-of-the-art amenities
Ralph Haverkate and Bettina Waldraff hired architect Lance O’Donnell to remodel a home designed by Donald Wexler. Though they added a master suite to increase living space from 1,900 to 2,500 square feet, they maintained the original architecture and combined modern and vintage accents.
Whether it’s in Palm Desert, Palm Springs, or Rancho Mirage, a midcentury modern house feels the love.
Architecture enthusiasts recognize the good bones of structures built in the desert in the 1950s and 1960s — even when the structures have lost their luster cosmetically or been misguidedly altered.
When Ralph Haverkate, a real estate broker specializing in midcentury modern residences, came across an abandoned house in south Palm Desert that was facing a short sale, he called his wife, Bettina Waldraff.
“He wanted me to see the inside of the house with the true midcentury modern beam ceiling and big back yard, which our two Entlebucher Swiss mountain dogs would love,” Waldraff says. “We both saw right away the potential this property could have.”
The couple turned to architect Lance O’Donnell, who had worked with midcentury modern icon Donald Wexler. They gutted the house to the studs and concrete floor and added a master suite with its roof tilted in the opposite direction of the existing roofline to give it the “butterfly” effect employed by Wexler. They also added amenities in the kitchen that bring 21st century living into focus: a Miele dishwasher, built-in espresso machine, 150-bottle Subzero wine cooler, and an induction glass cooktop.
Chris Menrad, who also works in real estate, purchased a William Krisel-designed house in Twin Palms in 1999 and renovated and landscaped it five years ago in consultation with the architect. Then Menrad partnered with his friend, architect J.R. Roberts (who restored and lives in E. Stewart Williams’ Edris House), to purchase and restore other late ’50s Twin Palms houses. In December, they completed one house and began work on a second.
The two have the benefit of Krisel’s original plans held by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles — access coming by way of Krisel. The midcentury modernist is working closely with Menrad and Roberts (who hold the positions of president and vice president, respectively, of Palm Springs Modern Committee) on stripping away years of modifications to return original integrity to the houses, including colors and landscaping.
“[Krisel] is doing it all pro bono just because he is excited about what we’re doing,” Roberts says. “He wants to see his work shown in the best possible light,” Menrad adds. In conjunction with the screening of a movie on Krisel during Modernism Week, Menrad will host a reception (with Krisel in attendance) and unveil the plaque designating his house as a Palm Springs Class 1 Historical Site.
While the renovations make the most of the midcentury aesthetic, they incorporate new mechanical systems for today’s lifestyle.
One doesn’t have to be in the real estate business to find an architectural gem. Dermatologist Timothy Jochen and Lee Erwin planned to restore and then “flip” a 1967-built house in Rancho Mirage. But they decided to keep it.
“The house was so architecturally stunning with beautiful lines. It was unaltered from its original design and in such great shape that it just needed to be freshened up,” Jochen says. “We fell in love with the house and realized it was our dream house after the renovations were complete and we had been living there a few months.”
The City of Rancho Mirage has designated as a Historical Resource the house designed by Finnish architect C.H. Barland to combine the simplicity of the desert modern style with the luxe formalism of international style.
Knowing that film companies “appreciate nice architectural lines,” Jochen says he listed his residence with two location companies — one in Palm Springs and one in Beverly Hills. It has since been the site for more than 20 photo shoots, including Trina Turk swimwear, English fashion company Next Directory, French fashion catalog Wenz, Volkswagen, European car maker Skoda, and Hewlett Packard. | <urn:uuid:1bd94217-6a35-4d49-b623-2b96237248f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Springs-Life/February-2012/Replaying-the-Classics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952197 | 956 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Not sure if this post is too deep to be interesting to more than a few of you, but thought I’d at least point to it. If you’ve ever asked yourself “How do I capture an image of a compute node which has been customized so that I can use it as the ‘master’ for deploying to the rest of the nodes?” on a Windows-based system, ask no more. Well you can ask this one last time and I’ll point you here.
My response has been to send an email with a link to the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK), and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). While these kits include the necessary tools and techniques, it is very much like looking for a needle in a haystack because of the volume of information which does not pertain to the HPC environment. The HPC Cluster Manager already leverages most of the tools described in the links above when it is provisioning new nodes from bare metal. Having sifted through all of the extraneous material, the intent of this post is to describe a simple process for creating a master image and then deploying it using customized Node Templates.
Helpful “how to” post for those just diving in to HPC with Windows. | <urn:uuid:bbe753a4-2a26-49f5-a7f8-6ea3bcc3cd6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://insidehpc.com/2009/04/06/capturing-a-master-node-with-ms-hpc-cluster-manager/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94663 | 267 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Britain's oldest surviving war veteran has celebrated his 110th birthday at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne.
The chancellor gave Mr Allingham a bottle of House of Commons whisky
Henry Allingham was presented with a letter of good wishes from the Queen by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown at the five-star seafront hotel.
Mr Allingham is the last remaining RAF founder member and the only remaining survivor of the Battle of Jutland.
In the past he has put the key to his old age down to "cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women".
He joined the Royal Naval Air Service in September 1915, transferring to the RAF in 1918.
His military honours include the British War Medal, Victory Medal and the Legion D'Honneur - France's highest military accolade.
The party in East Sussex included Veterans' Minister Tom Watson and about 15 members of Mr Allingham's family.
He wore a navy blue suit and his military medals.
Asked how he had survived to such a grand age, Mr Allingham said he had "just lived day to day".
"I just have a good day and never think about what tomorrow will bring," he added.
In her letter to Mr Allingham, the Queen sent "warm congratulations" and said she hoped the day would be "happy and memorable".
The veteran has recently moved from his home in Eastbourne to St Dunstan's care home for ex-servicemen and women in Ovingdean, near Brighton.
As the celebrations got under way, Mr Allingham said he was profoundly honoured to receive the congratulations which included a letter from Chief of Defence Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup.
And he told Mr Brown: "Thank you for coming to see me."
The chancellor told Mr Allingham that British people were immensely grateful for his service to the nation during World War I.
Mr Brown said: "You are a very modest man and you deserve it."
Mr Allingham's birthday present from the chancellor was a bottle of House of Commons whisky and a copy of the budget statement delivered in the year he was born, 1896.
As the gifts were handed over, Mr Brown joked: "I think the tax on whisky was a bit lower then."
At the celebrations, Mr Brown revealed events scheduled for the first national Veterans Day on 27 June this year.
Mr Allingham is the last British survivor of the Battle of Jutland
Plans for the new annual day, to ensure the sacrifices of the Armed Forces were never forgotten, were announced in February.
Events this year include a royal visit to the Royal Hospital in London, a visit by Mr Brown to the Imperial War Museum, archives being established in schools, a parade in Staffordshire and a service at Westminster Abbey.
Mr Brown said: "We must never forget the debt we owe to Henry and the millions of other British servicemen and women who have risked their lives in the defence of our country."
Mr Allingham has five grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.
In March, he was given the freedom of Eastbourne, where he had lived since the 1960s. | <urn:uuid:283bc5ad-0378-47e6-b728-980527737d08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/southern_counties/5052152.stm | 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 | 0.981429 | 642 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The U.S. Postal Service, in its latest bid to save a few billion bucks, plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays.
It's not enough.
The ugly truth is that the Postal Service's commitment to universal mail service is no longer financially viable in the age of email, text messages, Facebook and Twitter. As currently configured, it will never again be able to meet its legal obligation to pay its own way.
To survive, the Postal Service will need to reinvent itself for the digital age. I have a few ideas on how to do that, which I'll get back to in a moment.
First, let's look briefly at how we got into this mess.
A big part of the problem is a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to pay about $5.5 billion a year into a health-benefit fund for retirees. No other government agency faces such a requirement.
Then again, the Postal Service isn't like any other government agency. Many people might not know it, but the Postal Service isn't supported by tax dollars. It has to cover its own nut, yet is unable to do anything without Congress' say-so.
Until now, the agency was able to scrape by because it was allowed by federal law to borrow up to $3 billion a year from the Treasury Department. But its debt couldn't top $15 billion, and the Postal Service maxed out its credit card last year.
That caused it to default for the first time on its payments into the retiree fund and caused the agency to start racking up losses of nearly $36 million a day. The Postal Service's net loss for last year hit a staggering $15.6 billion.
By 2016, if things continue as they're going, the service estimates its annual losses will reach about $21 billion.
Even Pets.com did better than that.
So here we are. On Wednesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said that Saturday delivery of letters would stop in August, though weekend delivery of packages will continue. This would save about $2 billion a year.
Meanwhile, the Postal Service will continue a massive restructuring that aims to cut its workforce by 193,000, or 28%, and consolidate more than 200 mail processing locations.
"The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation," Donahoe said.
"The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. mail," he said.
I don't care how many packages stream through post offices. It'll never be enough to cover the huge expense of meeting a federal obligation to deliver mail to every home in the country.
Here's the bottom line: The total volume of first-class mail plunged to 73.5 billion pieces of mail in 2011 from about 102 billion in 2002. That's a 28% decrease.
Video killed the radio star. The Internet is killing letters.
Privatizing mail delivery isn't realistic. I've spoken with both FedEx and UPS. They say they're open to dropping off people's letters and catalogs and stuff, but they don't want the responsibility of having to deliver everywhere.
So what's the solution? In an earlier column I floated the idea of forgoing mail delivery to some rural areas, restoring the old-fashioned notion of people coming to the post office for their deliveries.
Here's another idea: Capitalize on the Postal Service's commitment to communication and have it spearhead efforts for universal access to high-speed Internet service. The Federal Communications Commission already has declared this a national priority, so let's put the Postal Service in the driver's seat.
America's broadband infrastructure now relies primarily on the whims of private telecom companies such as AT&T and Verizon. They decide the reach of their networks and how much people have to pay to go online.
As a result, the United States ranks 12th worldwide in broadband adoption and ninth in broadband speed, according to a recent report from the tech company Akamai. Who's No. 1 in both categories? South Korea.
It's no secret how the Koreans do it. On the one hand, the nation's dense population makes it more economically feasible for companies to roll out broadband services. But the government also keeps a firm regulatory hand on the tiller.
Korean telecom companies may be required to extend their networks to certain communities. Competition is also promoted by requiring bigger telecom providers to make their networks available to smaller rivals.
So how about the Postal Service engineering a nationwide broadband network? Think of it as the public option for high-speed Internet access.
The Postal Service could build and run broadband lines reaching communities now bypassed by the big telecom firms. Phone and cable companies would be required to extend their high-speed service to these outlying areas using the agency's network — and paying the Postal Service for use of its system.
The agency also could run lines into cities and lease them to smaller rivals looking to compete with the bigger players. In an emergency, its lines also would form a backbone that would keep government offices, police departments, hospitals and schools online.
Meanwhile, let's overhaul our antiquated post offices.
Follow the Starbucks example. Convert them into coffee shops that allow people to go online whenever they please. Sure, you could still mail a package or buy stamps. But you could also get a decent cup of government-brewed java and kick back with your tablet or laptop.
In the 21st century, "going postal" shouldn't be pejorative. It should be cool.
It's not such a farfetched idea.
David Lazarus' column runs Tuesdays and Fridays (and occasionally in between). He also can be seen daily on KTLA-TV Channel 5 and followed on Twitter @Davidlaz. Send your tips or feedback to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:ed7a6aa5-a96a-4b74-afa3-02eca8945de6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wask.com/waskfm/news/nationworld/la-fi-lazarus-20130207,0,7067755,full.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96299 | 1,227 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A few years ago, I finally figured out the system. The prescribed times for fall conferences only offered enough time to run through a brief summary of initial classroom evaluations and current projects; if there were other issues to be discussed, I had to get the teacher's attention well before conference time. For the most part, those summary conferences have been sufficient. Occasionally, though, I've had bigger concerns that these short meetings can't address.
Establish communication early
Round about open house time in the first couple weeks of the school year, I find out the method of communication preferred by my child's teacher - then I use it. I introduce myself, briefly mention any on-going concerns - and ask to meet with the teacher sooner rather than later. Some teachers are completely open to this communication, and some aren't.
When a teacher is open - well, phew! But when a teacher isn't, I usually have to do some reassuring about why I want to meet with her, and insist that we do so. Then I am careful to work around the teacher's schedule and keep the meeting as to-the-point as possible.
Usually, after this first meeting, when the teacher doesn't have another parent waiting already and realizes that I'm trying to do my best for my child - and not being a helicopter parent just for the sake of it - the ice is broken and I find the teacher and I can work together for the benefit of my child.
After the first meeting, I try to keep communication with the teacher at an appropriate level - not too much and not too little. Depending on the concern, once every week or so has been about right. Unless another big issue comes up, this is usually fine. It's also a two-way street! If I want the teacher to respond to me in a timely manner, I must also respond to the teacher in a timely manner. I respect the teacher's time and that she has many children to look out for; in trying to help my child, I can't monopolize her time to the detriment of the other children.
Because of my efforts for a first, less pressured meeting and subsequent communication, I find that the official conference time a few weeks later is less stressful, and more a check-in in how things are going. And the meeting is usually shorter than the allotted time, allowing the teacher a breather before that next parent comes in. We're already something of a known quantity with one another.
From that point on, I try to keep communication with the teacher and goals for my child focused on what is age, grade, and individually appropriate. The teacher also knows they can count on me to follow-through with school-related tasks. Usually I'll ask for one or two follow-up meetings later in the year (again, scheduled around the teacher and kept to the point) to keep everything on track. So far, so good - my children's teachers and I have made good teams in getting my kids what they need in the classroom.
Say thank you
I find an important part of this increased communication is saying thank you to the teacher. Every once in a while, I make a point of sending a brief note or email to the teacher to let him or her know that I appreciate the communication and the consideration. At the end of the year, I also try to let the principal of the school know that the teacher has been good about communicating and working with me. These little tidbits of acknowledgment and appreciation can smooth future interactions - and it's just plain the right thing to do. Everyone likes to be appreciated, after all.
Regardless of whether there are educational concerns or issues for your child or not, establishing and maintaining open positive communication with the school is important. Since figuring out this level of communication with the school, I feel far more comfortable with what and how my kids are learning. | <urn:uuid:e12b19c6-0b5b-4c9f-802b-4bbc6117b711> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/806557/working-with-your-kids-teachers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976987 | 790 | 1.570313 | 2 |
212 Addison to Commonwealth Government
Cablegram D1537 LONDON, 24 August 1945, 2.12 p.m.
IMMEDIATE TOP SECRET
My telegram 17th August D. No. 1482 control of Japan.
The United States Ambassador has communicated proposal of the United States Government for early establishment of a Far Eastern Advisory Commission to be composed of the United Kingdom, United States, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and China as the four major Allies who signed the Moscow declaration together with such other of United Nations in the Far East or having territories therein as major Allies might agree upon.
2. The United States Government propose that these additional participants should be Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, the Netherlands and the Philippines.
3. The text of the terms of reference proposed by the United States Government for the Far Eastern Advisory Commission is contained in my immediately following telegram.
4. The United States Government have made communications in similar terms to the Soviet and Chinese Governments.
5. We are urgently considering this communication and will telegraph further as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:5100d1bb-1a13-4f61-a01f-7194000cf3a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/historical/volume-08/historical-document-08-212.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937603 | 226 | 1.640625 | 2 |
While you can never predict how baseball trades will turn out, the weekend blockbuster that has New England fans buzzing looks at least like a great business deal for the Boston Red Sox.
The Old Towne Team sent Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Nick Punto to the Los Angeles Dodgers for some decent young players and the chance to unload about $250 million in salary over the next several years. This will allow management to rebuild a team that, for some reason, came undone late last year.
The team was in need of major overhaul; it wasn't going to play its way out of its malaise, and so credit the organization for cleaning the Stygian stables. It's somewhat ironic that a big-spending team like the Sox must now rely on journeymen and callow youth, but perhaps there's something to that. The fans sent a message over the weekend when they cheered heartily for the younger, scrappy, lesser-known players the Sox now have on the field. Perhaps the future should be a little more Tampa Bay and a little less Yankees. A team that runs out ground balls, a team modeled on the play of Dustin Pedroia.
If Mr. Gonzalez puts up the Ruthian numbers of which he is capable, the trade may help the well-heeled Dodgers win this year. If not, the deal could become a Harvard Business School case study.
The trade, hailed as one of the team's most significant since owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1919, had an immediate impact: It seemed to lift a dreary weight off the team and change the attitude toward it. Which may have been how Yankee fans felt in 1919. | <urn:uuid:7d228bfd-1b34-40df-ac18-12232dc362df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.courant.com/2012-08-28/news/hc-ed-redsox-trade-20120827_1_yankee-fans-ruthian-numbers-babe-ruth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964641 | 348 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Israel's current standing in the United Nations is the worst it has been in nearly forty years, said Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, in an interview with Army Radio on Sunday.
"Our situation in recent months can be compared to the 1970s, when Zionism was being called racism," said Shalev.RELATED:Analysis: Blockade-busting backfiresRace heats up to succeed ShalevUN Geneva, NY battle over flotilla probe
Shalev added in the interview that as far as she knew the Libyan backed aid ship
, the Almathea
, which originally planned to sail to Gaza, "has left Greece and is headed for [Egyptian Port] El-Arish.
The ambassador stated that she had sent a letter to UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon and spoken to him personally about the Gaza-bound ship,
telling him it was "a provocation, especially in light of the easing of
the Gaza blockade."
Shalev said that Ban is still planning on forming an international
panel, which would include Turks and Israelis, to investigate the May 31
raid of the Mavi Marmara in which nine Turkish activists were killed by
Shalev, who announced her
last month, said that she will return to Israel at the
end of summer when her time as ambassador is scheduled to end officially
on September 1. She added that she still has no idea who will replace
her as UN ambassador. | <urn:uuid:2964bdb0-3e70-450c-a48f-f2ccaae9c74f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=181055 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979192 | 309 | 1.804688 | 2 |
When our three county commissioners were elected, it was supposed to be for the people.
I remember reading that they would have to attend classes dealing with their behavior. They should pay for that out of their own pockets, not from taxpayers’ funds.
What have the majority-party commissioners, William McCarrier and Dale Pinkerton, done for the people, besides spending money and voting to raise taxes?
Why can’t the three commissioners get along, instead of making fools of one another? I think they should step back and take a long, hard look at how foolish they have been.
One of the commissioners instigates everything. One commissioner follows him, mimicking whatever he does and says. The third commissioner, no matter what he says or does, always is wrong, and the others attack.
McCarrier has a long record of governmental service and is well respected; I’m surprised at him.
I consider Pinkerton the ringleader. What is wrong?
Pinkerton was a businessman. I’m sure he didn’t tolerate this behavior from his own people.
The economy is bad. People have lost jobs. Some have exhausted their unemployment benefits, can’t afford health care coverage, but still have utility bills to pay, as well as car payments and paying for vehicle and home upkeep.
There even are homeless people.
Do the commissioners think of the everyday people who have worked all their lives but still are at risk of losing everything? Do they care?
They sit there on the fifth floor of the county Government Center, being protected by a sheriff’s deputy.
Rather than raise taxes, the county should impose spending cuts and reduce taxes.
The commissioners should not spend money that the county doesn’t have. | <urn:uuid:6b8bd0cd-9dd9-44b3-a41d-607a636d1179> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.butlereagle.com/article/20130122/EDITORIAL02/130129770/0/Business03 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98055 | 368 | 1.695313 | 2 |
For decades, parents have worried about dangerous substances being put into what their children receive while Trick or Treating.
On Friday evening, HBO's Bill Maher actually called for people to "put drugs in the Halloween candy" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL MAHER: New rule, this Halloween stop fretting that some stranger's going to put drugs in your kid's candy and put the drugs in there yourself. Come on, this is America. Acid will be the healthiest thing they eat all day. Do it, put drugs in the Halloween candy. Now I know what you're thinking: Bill Maher, what a thing to say. We all know that too much of any drug can cause permanent damage. Just look at Rush Limbaugh. You can't just decide to give a bunch of innocent, drug-free kids some sort of psychedelic. What if it interacts badly with their Wellbutrin, their Abilify, their Adderall, their Ritalin, and their monster energy drink?
The kids are on drugs, all right. The problem is they're on the wrong drugs. They're on a combination of processed sugar so they can be mini coke fiends and mind narrowing pharmaceutical crap like Ritalin that doesn't open up their minds. It levels and controls them. These drugs are all about keeping bratty children in check, or as we used to call it. parenting. Oh, see now you have to think about it.
Adderall is the drug of choice these days on campus. Oh, what fun. I don't know what I would enjoy more, the extremely focused parties or the highly detail oriented sex. But here's the thing, when Steve Jobs was young, the drug of choice was acid and Jobs told his biographer that dropping acid as a young man was one of the best things he ever did because when he took it with his girlfriend, the wheat field started playing Bach. Which is pretty unbelievable – a computer nerd had a girlfriend?
Now, maybe there's not a connection between LSD and genius, but it's something no great American ever said about a Kit-Kat bar. If it weren't for acid, you might not have an iPod and you definitely wouldn't have some of the best music in your iPod. Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA while on acid. The Beatles made “Sergeant Pepper” while on acid. I made “D.C. Cab” while on acid, and the list goes on and on.
And it's not just anecdotal. In a study from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine last month, scientists found that a single dose of psilocybin, which is the drug in mushrooms, created a quote “long-term positive personality change in most patients.” People improved in the areas of sensitivity, imagination, and broad-minded tolerance of others. In pharmaceutical speak, psilocybin is known as an asshole inhibitor. And couldn’t we use a little more of that? Have you seen a Republican debate lately? If ever there was a group who could stand to take a sensitivity pill and employ broad-minded tolerance of others, it's these people. This nation faces enormous challenges and the biggest idea we've heard from them so far is let's build a fence that electrocutes Mexicans.
Steve Jobs literally learned to think different. And if he can get that, that insight from LSD or mushrooms or for that matter from licking a toad, then bring me Kermit the Frog and I'll stick my tongue right down his throat.
To begin with, Crick admitted to taking a variety of drugs, but it's at this point an urban myth that he was actually on LSD when he discovered the structure of DNA.
As for this Johns Hopkins study, it found the "psychedelic drug in magic mushrooms may have lasting medical and spiritual benefits." Since this is a new study, it's way too soon to conclude this is long-term.
But most importantly, it is preposterous for a man to be advocating on national television people put drugs into Halloween candy three days before October 31.
Regardless of the comedic intent or the point Maher was trying to make about the supposed benefits of hallucinogens, it is totally irresponsible to do so days before millions of America's children will be knocking on doors taking candy from relative strangers.
If one child anywhere in this nation falls prey to this Monday, I sincerely hope Maher and HBO are held responsible. | <urn:uuid:7a66a7a8-a476-4b82-a09c-8c4ff949f0e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsbusters.org/print/51397 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973143 | 919 | 1.773438 | 2 |
A ticket is an arrest without being taken into custody. And the City of San Francisco plans to arrest many more residents via more tickets in order to cover its projected deficit.
The new fiscal year doesn’t even begin until July 1, but the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget for the next two years is already in the red. And the city plans to issue more parking tickets to help close that deficit.
The agency, which controls Muni, parking and traffic, faces a $19.8 million deficit over the next two years.
The deficit is due in large part to labor negotiations that failed to yield the concessions that had been projected when the budget was passed in April.
Instead of wringing $14.6 million in savings out of five unions representing maintenance, clerical and management workers, the agency will spend about $3 million over two years.
If it’s too expensive then penalize the people.
Get mad people. JAJ48@aol.com | <urn:uuid:37a5922c-03bd-4132-b50c-d1141056a2b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freedomok.net/2012/06/firenze-sage-give-ticket-union-san-francisco-parking-tickets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96258 | 204 | 1.507813 | 2 |
A New Year brings new hype – and top of the shop right now is Quora, “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organised by everyone who uses it” (so says the ‘about’ page of its web site).
Founded by ex-Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo and colleague Charlie Cheever, Quora was started in 2009 and has been open to the public since mid-2010. Its popularity, at least in terms of media attention, soared over the holiday period. So, what’s all the fuss about?
Dip in now and you’ll quickly connect to your Twitter and Facebook colleagues. Depending on your preferences, you’ll find yourself presented with information that might be of interest to you. This information, like in the ever-childish Yahoo! Answers, is presented in a sort of question and answer format. Where Quora differs from Yahoo! Answers is it’s concentration – in my feed, anyway – on the professional.
My interests mean that my feed is full of questions about social media, technology, CIOs and business. Which is great, if you can find something you need. But at the minute, Quora seems donimated by a few voices that have something to “sell”. This something might be ephemeral expertise, like a so-called ‘guru’ telling you how to make the most of Twitter (for the record, that is easy – you log-in, you follow people, you engage and you learn stuff).
So, what do you think? Are you on Quora yet? Do you think Quora will be the major social media platform of 2011, helping the business engage with its contacts and customers? Or – like the worst excesses of Twitter and LinkedIn – will Quora just be another platform to help ‘gurus’ evangelise? | <urn:uuid:8c1faaf4-9d95-4879-9d3c-b2b26cf0089f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://careerisover.com/2011/01/is-quora-yet-another-platform-to-help-the-gurus-evangelise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954217 | 396 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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Computerworld UK - SQL, C#, .NET and Linux are four skill areas that have seen a rising trend in demand, according to a new report from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
The Technology Demand and Supply Q4 2009 report, produced for REC by sector skills council e-skills UK, found that these were the only skill areas where demand increased for two consecutive quarters.
There were a total 82,000 advertised vacancies for IT staff, and 71,000 staff looking for new or additional jobs in Q4 2009 (a 42 percent quarterly increase), according REC's report.
In the skills area, advertisements for staff with SQL skills were the most prominent, with 20,000 adverts counted in the period. There were 10,600 adverts for workers with C#, 9,500 for .NET and 5,300 for Linux skills.
Demand for nearly all skills fell in the period compared with Q4 2008. Only demand for PHP and AJAX skills grew in Q4 2009 compared with the same period in 2008, 17 percent and six percent, respectively.
In terms of occupation, the highest demand was for system developers in Q4 2009. There were 24,900 vacancies advertised during this period, followed by systems administrator (4,600 vacancies).
Systems developer was one of six job categories, out of a total of 20, to see an increase in demand over two consecutive quarters. Other positions that saw a rise in demand included projects manager, senior systems developer, business analyst, PC support analyst and senior test analyst.
Demand for web designers dropped the most compared with Q3 2009, falling 18 percent.
The report highlighted C#, systems developers, senior systems developers and senior test analysts as areas that would be "relatively difficult" for recruiters over the near term due to skills shortages.
Over the three quarters to the end of 2009, permanent staff with Fireworks or Foxpro skills were being increasingly sought-after. Demand also continually grew for permanent ICT managers and directors.
Among contractors, different skills and positions were in demand. Those with DB2, OLAP, Sybase, C++ and Swing skills rose for two consecutive quarters, as did demand for senior business analysts and operators.
Jeff Brooks, Chair of REC Technology, said: "Our members are showing increasing confidence in the sector and many of them are looking to hire more recruiters as a result.
"It is very encouraging to see that companies will still invest in technology to develop their businesses even when there is a tough economic landscape."
Last week, trade body Intellect launched a technology manifesto calling for the government to create tax incentives to encourage the IT sector in the UK to grow and make 250,000 new IT jobs available over the next 10 years. | <urn:uuid:03ef0b9c-34f3-4a98-9f15-3b06c82a7f44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/032210-demand-grows-for-sql-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960794 | 619 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Inherent Desire to Connect
Darren Williger Keynotes - Promoting the positive aspects of social media and the power behind it, keynotes by Darren Williger...
Dilliger provides his audience with a brief history of social media, explaining how humans, since the beginning of time, have always wanted to connect with one another and be social. Businesses that are able to recognize the value and advantages of social media today -- in both a personal and professional sense -- will be able to adapt. The businesses that use social media to plan for beyond the present will not only adapt, but they will also become industry leaders. | <urn:uuid:cddf1cfc-127f-4a7b-964c-a05331188f21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trendhunter.com/keynote/social-media-keynote-speech | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944551 | 127 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Memphis International Airport is eight miles south-east of Downtown Memphis, a 20-minute cab ride. One of the world's major cargo airports, Memphis Airport's single terminal also handles more than 10 million passengers a year.
Distance from city centre
8 miles (12km) south-east of Memphis.
Memphis Airport has a three-storey undercover garage with both short- and long-term parking. There are additional open-air long-term car parks, connected to the terminal by a free 24-hour shuttle service. Whether short- or long-term, the first 30 minutes' parking is free. Reserve your parking space online.
Specific airport features
If you need any assistance during your visit to Memphis International Airport, ask the helpful Blue Suede Service customer service team. The team members are easy to spot in their blue and khaki uniforms.
Airport telephone number
+1 (901) 922 8000
These are useful guidelines only – always check in advance to find out which concourse your flight departs from. If you make a mistake, it only takes 10 minutes to travel between concourses by walkway.
No. of terminals
One main terminal with Concourses A, B and C.
Transport between terminal areas
The three concourses and main terminal are connected by walkways. Allow ten minutes to walk between Concourses A, B and C.
Memphis International Airport has one main terminal, with domestic and international flights operating from Concourse B, and domestic flights using Concourses A and C. | <urn:uuid:2e9d2b11-e015-4f40-a428-1b2e3a5f2983> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.klm.com/destinationguide/qa_en/airline-ticket/north-america/united-states/memphis/airports.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931449 | 318 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Delta Farmers Oppose Governor's Twin Tunnel Proposal
Friday, January 25, 2013
In his State of the State address the Governor said his tunnel project to send Delta water south would serve California for hundreds of years.
But Delta farmers say it would only serve water interests in the south.
Governor Brown said his proposed twin tunnel plan would avert a disaster in the Delta by ensuring a reliable water supply to the south.
But Delta growers and politicians say they intend to fight the governor.
Dante Nomellini with the Central Delta Water Agency says the governor's proposal robs Peter to pay Paul.
Nomellini: "The state is set for the stealing or grabbing of water from the North by hook or by crook for the development of the South."
Nomellini says the $14 billion dollar price tag will be shared by all taxpayers not just the southern water users who will be the only ones who benefit.
Nomellini: "We believe it will result in the total destruction of the environment of the Bay-Delta Estuary including the economy."
About two out of every three Californians depend upon the Delta for some of their water supply. | <urn:uuid:a12469fc-47f5-4dc0-9e17-e5cf8fffb3da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capradio.org/MArticle?id=182873 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960979 | 243 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Among the Federal Reserve Board’s (FED’s) responsibilities is implementation of the Bank Holding Company Act (BHCA) (12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.). The BHCA’s principal purposes are to ensure the safe and sound operation of bank holding companies (BHCs), to promote competition within the banking industry, and to separate banking from commerce.
Under the BHCA, the FED has also been authorized to determine the extent to which BHCs may engage in “non-banking” activities in the parent BHC and in non-bank subsidiaries. Because the banking industry has undergone rapid changes in the face of new technologies, the line between banking and other financial activities has been blurred.
Under section 3 of the BHCA, the FED receives applications for the formation of or acquisition of banks by BHCs. The statutory factors which the Board must apply in acting on section 3 applications include an evaluation of the competitive impact of the transaction, the convenience and needs of the community to be served, and the financial and managerial resources of the applicant.
Under section 4(c)(8) of the Act, the FED receives applications by BHCs to acquire non-banking interests. Such applications are to be approved only when the activities involved are “closely related” to and a “proper incident” to banking. These questions have become of particular significance most recently in applications involving proposed securities and insurance activities of BHCs.
Applications under both sections are generally resolved without the need for an evidentiary hearing, although informal hearings and meetings are sometimes held. Both sections do, however, provide for an overall 91-day time limit on the FED’s action on individual applications “beginning on the date of submission to the Board of the complete record on the application.” The FED routinely processes well over 90 percent of the applications received by the FED within 60 days of “acceptance” of the application by the Reserve Bank (the Bank is permitted to request information, but otherwise must adhere to a short deadline in accepting the application and forwarding it to the FED). The FED’s regulations specifically provide that, in every case in which an application has not been considered by the FED within 60 days of acceptance, the applicant will be notified and provided a written explanation for the delay.
In its regulations, the FED defines when the record on a particular application is complete for purposes of determining when the statutory 91-day period has begun. Under the FED’s regulations, the 91-day period begins on the latest of four dates: (1) The date of acceptance of the application; (2) the last day of the public comment period (which is usually after acceptance of the application, and is the date upon which the 91-day period begins in the majority of cases); (3) the date of receipt of any relevant material information regarding the application; and (4) the date of completion of any hearing or other proceeding regarding the application.
Because the statute provides that the 91-day period does not begin until the complete record has been submitted to the FED, the courts have determined the 91-day period may be tolled or retriggered after the close of the public comment period if new material information is submitted during the processing of the application. Examples of this type of information include comments or protests from interested parties, changes in the financial condition of the applicant, proposed efforts by the applicant to raise additional capital, or proposed divestiture plans to accommodate competitive problems.
Because there is always the possibility that submission of additional material information may toll or retrigger the 91-day period, the 91-day period is rendered rather uncertain in practice. Therefore, the Conference suggests the FED’s regulations on this issue ensure there is a point in the application process at which the FED will declare that the applicant’s file is deemed to be informationally complete, thus triggering the 91-day rule, unless additional information of a highly significant nature relating to the application is received.
The nature of the regulatory process established under the BHCA encourages a participatory approach to decisionmaking on the part of applicants and the FED. Various kinds of conditional order are used by the FED to tailor its regulatory decisions to the specific applicant before it. These regulatory conditions appear or are referenced in the FED’s final order, and such conditions are subject to judicial review. Other decisions, however, reflect voluntary commitments made by the applicant. Such commitments often are the result of a decision by the applicant to expedite processing of a particular application by committing to resolve questions that might otherwise result in denial of the application. These commitments usually do not appear in the FED’s order and, while reviewed by the Board in every case, are not subject to judicial review at the instance of the applicant.
The Conference believes that conditions and commitments are important regulatory tools used by the FED that, for the most part, add flexibility to and encourage efficiency in the consideration of applications to individual cases, providing a wide range of regulatory choices between unconditional approval and complete denial of an application.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System should take the following actions with respect to the FED’s handling of applications under the Bank Holding Company Act.
1. Clarification of the 91-day rule. When acting on such applications, the Federal Reserve Board should by regulation provide that only receipt of information of a highly significant nature pertaining to the application will be deemed to warrant reopening an applicant’s file, thereby deferring the date by which the Fed must act finally on the application.
2. Conditions and Voluntary Commitments. Conditions established by the FED regarding applications and voluntary commitments offered by applicants should be unambiguous and reasonably related to an articulated policy of the Federal Reserve Board. Voluntary commitments, when offered by applicants, should, consistent with the Freedom of Information Act, ordinarily be made part of final orders of the Board. Moreover, the Board should, from time to time, summarize the thrust of these commitments and publish and disseminate these summaries.
53 FR 26028 (July 11, 1988)
__ FR _____ (2011)
1988 ACUS 14 | <urn:uuid:a67e2a88-137e-4703-bd66-2d955566e342> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://acus.gov/recommendation/federal-reserve-boards-handling-applications-under-bank-holding-company-act | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941175 | 1,296 | 1.820313 | 2 |
IS it possible? I want to play with the output of streaming radios. Specifically i'm talking about something like Spin (streaming app) and Traktor or djay (DJ app). And yeah I'm on a Mac.
I am trying to set up DJ equipment for small/medium sized rooms (See previous question for background). My equipment is going to be as follows: Laptop(s), iPad(s) playing music (No CDs No Vinyl) ...
Say, I record a live mix I am doing at home for practice, using tracks which I have purchased. I would like to share this mix legally on the Internet. What are the copyright issues involved and how ...
I want to play music from my MacBook or Thinkpad. I have high quality mp3s that I can play. I imagine, I need the following equipment: DJ Software Mixer Speakers Can I make this work, or will I ... | <urn:uuid:a9773802-9494-4bc5-98ee-d8fcec2be1ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/dj?sort=faq&pagesize=50 | 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 | 0.943882 | 190 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Somewhere in the steamy northern Philippines, the elaborately embalmed body of notorious former dictator Ferdinand Marcos lies on view in a glass casket. He has been dead since 1989, but his widow, Imelda Marcos -- now a favorite model for drag queen impersonations in the nightclubs of Manila, the capital-- is waiting for him to be buried with full state honors.
If these surreal snapshots seem drawn from literary magic realism, they're actually scenes from the life of the former first lady of Philippine dictatorship, whose reputation as a global queen of camp is cemented in a new documentary, "Imelda."
It would have been easy for Filipino American director Ramona Diaz to caricature Marcos, who is perhaps most known for flaunting her supposed collection of 3,000 designer shoes at a time her impoverished compatriots were drinking the bitter dregs of the family dictatorship.
It would be easy to vilify Marcos as a cohort to her strongman husband, who ruled with an iron fist for 20 years until he was forced to decamp for Hawaii during a military-backed popular uprising in 1986.
Instead, Diaz created a nuanced psychological profile of the now-75-year-old Marcos.
It is so intimate that at times, Marcos almost seems to be talking to herself as she muses aloud theatrically in one of her long soliloquies in the documentary. Marcos still wasn't pleased by it: She succeeded in halting the premiere of the film in the Philippines, until a judge lifted the 20-day stay in mid-July.
"She's unrepentant," said Diaz, a Philippine-born filmmaker who worked on the TV series "Remington Steele" in Los Angeles for four years in the early 1980s. "And I think that's one of the most interesting things about her. She does not believe she did anything wrong. If she got dressed to the hilt and was extravagant, it was to show the Western world, and to inspire the poor, who she said lived vicariously through her. She rationalizes it. Does she believe it? I believe she does."
In fact, Marcos has become the self-appointed guardian of the family reputation. This is no easy task in a country where her husband declared martial law, held more than 17,000 political prisoners and was believed by U.S. officials to have been complicit in the assassination of a famous pro-democratic activist.
Not that Marcos admitted anything to be ashamed of: "Thank God when they opened my closet, they found shoes, not skeletons," she said in the documentary.
"Shutting (the film) up had the opposite effect," Diaz said. "There's so much hype now it's almost like 'The Passion of Christ.' She's such a polarizing figure."
Like "Fahrenheit 9/11's" Michael Moore, Diaz prevailed with the help of free worldwide publicity, when Philippine Judge Maria Cristina Cornejo denied Marcos an injunction in mid-July, opening the floodgates for a torrent of geopolitical dish about Marcos. By early August, "Imelda" had grossed $220,000. Diaz goes back to Marcos' roots. You see Imelda Romualdez spend her early years as a beauty queen, becoming Miss Manila in 1950. When Marcos first saw the film, Diaz said, she liked it. Then something changed.
"Somebody probably whispered in her ear that she didn't look good," Diaz said. | <urn:uuid:20ec141b-c45b-471b-b2f5-a57789e59032> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://staugustine.com/stories/082004/com_2521962.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982016 | 716 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Democrat Tammy Duckworth made it to Congress on her second try, defeating freshman Republican Rep. Joe Walsh six years after losing to now-6th District Rep. Peter Roskam, also a Republican. A double-amputee veteran of the Iraq war, Duckworth was given prominent speaking slots at the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and again in 2012 to tell her unusual life story.
The daughter of a Vietnam War veteran father and a Thai mother, Duckworth spent much of her early life abroad, moving with her father’s jobs at the United Nations and, later, at international companies. Born in Bangkok, she lived with her family in Singapore and Indonesia before settling in Hawaii when she was 16. “Thank God for the food stamps, public education, and Pell Grants that helped me finish high school and college,” she said in her 2012 convention speech.
Duckworth studied marine biology at the University of Hawaii. After graduation, she came to Washington to pursue a master’s degree at George Washington University and to work at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History. Her interest in Southeast Asian history, culture, and politics led her to doctoral work at Northern Illinois University, the same school where Burmese opposition activist Aung San Suu Kyi sent her sons to study.
In 1990, Duckworth joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at George Washington. Two years later, she became a commissioned officer, and during her training, met her future husband, Bryan Bowlsbey. Although she later said she opposed President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, she felt it was her duty to complete her military service.
Duckworth became one of the first Army women to fly combat missions in Iraq. She was copiloting a Black Hawk helicopter when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the lower half of her body; she lost both legs and suffered serious damage to her right arm. “They should have left me behind,” she recalled. While recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, she met then-Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who eventually called her to testify in front of his Senate committee.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, asked Duckworth to run for the House in 2006. After narrowly losing to Roskam—she says now she wasn’t fully recovered from her injuries at the time—she spent five years in state and federal government before giving elected office another try.
In 2011, she left her post as the assistant secretary of public and intergovernmental affairs in the Veterans Affairs Department to run again for Congress. During redistricting, the 8th Congressional District in Illinois was redrawn to lean Democratic. With a primary endorsement from Durbin, Duckworth coasted to a victory over lawyer Raja Krishnamoorthi, winning 66 percent to 34 percent in the March 2012 primary.
Walsh, her general-election opponent, came to the House in 2010 on the national tea party wave and earned a reputation for outspokenness but also for gaffes. He made headlines for failing to make child-support payments to his ex-wife and for a tirade at a constituent meeting. In July, Walsh criticized Duckworth for using her military service as a political tool. “She is a hero, and that demands our respect, but it doesn’t demand our vote,” he told CNN, although he later softened his comments. The same month, National Journal ranked Walsh as the most vulnerable GOP incumbent; Democrats enlisted rock singer Joe Walsh to denounce his political namesake. | <urn:uuid:dfc80a35-0c4d-4eb3-9ce0-9127c9acf255> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress-legacy/illinois-8th-house-district-20121101 | 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 | 0.973189 | 737 | 1.546875 | 2 |
SpaceX company fixes Dragon capsule problem
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A commercial craft carrying a ton of supplies for the International Space Station ran into thruster trouble shortly after liftoff Friday. Flight controllers managed to gain control, but were forced to delay its arrival at the orbiting lab.
The earliest the Dragon capsule could show up is Sunday, a full day late, said top officials for NASA and the private company SpaceX.
"We're definitely not going to rush it," said SpaceX's billionaire founder Elon Musk. "We want to make sure first and foremost that things are safe before proceeding."
|The article you requested is no longer available on BostonHerald.com.| | <urn:uuid:854a4669-afab-4903-b076-fb17a2d1678b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/national/2013/03/spacex_company_fixes_dragon_capsule_problem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945614 | 143 | 1.648438 | 2 |
I was in Paris this past weekend, and went to the Louvre, where somehow I’d never been. Of course I had to see the Mona Lisa, which turns out to be three art pieces, all happening at the same time, layered on top of each other.
The first, of course, is the painting itself, which is more impressive — it has more presence, for one thing — than I’d guessed from reproductions. I wish it were displayed with other Leonardos, especially if its smile is one of its attractions. Other faces in other Leonardos at the Louvre also have sly, surprising smiles.
The second art piece is the crowd around the painting, like nothing I’ve ever seen in any gallery or museum. People pressing forward to see the great attraction, cameras and cell phones raised above their heads to take photos of it. God help anyone who wants to see the art displayed next to the Mona Lisa; there’s no way to look at it in piece, nowhere even to stand where anyone could see it clearly. But the crowd is fascinating, a performance piece in itself, or rather people creating a performance piece they’re unaware of. (On April 5, the Mona Lisa is moving to a new location. That will free the art around it now, and, with any luck, supply an even better stage for the crowd performance.)
And the third piece — the most intriguing of the three (especially since there’s no way to look very hard at Leonardo’s work) — is created by the camera flashes. They’re reflected in the glass that protects the painting. You see both the flashes, and the red warning lights that sometimes tell you that a flash is about to go off. Some flashes are long, some are short. Some are single flares; some are repeated bursts. You see them flaring up at the corners of the painting, in the center, in every quadrant of it, no two in the same place. Sometimes you see just little points of light.
I stood there, watching all these flashes for minutes on end. I’d love to make a film of them — just the reflected flashes, not the cameras, the cell phones, or the people in the crowd (though I imagine the film would show faint echoes of the people). If I made this film, the camera wouldn’t move. It would be like some of Andy Warhol’s films, especially Empire, in which, for just over eight hours, an unmoving camera simply shows us a nighttime view of the Empire State Building from a window many blocks away. I haven’t seen all of it (I doubt it’s made for that), but in the portion I did see, I was drawn to windows in the other buildings visible in the unchanging shot, whose lights at long, uncertain intervals might wink on or off.
My film would be a lot more active; the flashes (for whatever length the film might last, perhaps whatever hours the Louvre’s open to the public, on an average day) would never stop. I’d find them fascinating. (This follows, I think, from the kind of attention John Cage’s 4’33″ creates in anyone who takes it seriously. I don’t mean to toot my horn in saying that, or to praise people who like Cage’s silent piece, over those who don’t get it. I’m only suggesting that it can open us to many things we might not otherwise notice.) | <urn:uuid:6dcf1b9d-f052-4406-b68c-c12bc2b18984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2005/02/mona_lisa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964034 | 742 | 1.71875 | 2 |
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