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ENHANCEMENT OF FRUIT AND FRUIT PRODUCT FLAVOR QUALITY USING ANALYTICAL/SENSORY METHODS
Location: Quality Improvement in Citrus and Subtropical Products Res
Title: Flavor evaluation of fresh tangerine hybrids
Submitted to: Subtropical Technology Conference Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: October 1, 2008
Publication Date: October 16, 2008
Citation: Miyazaki, T., Plotto, A., Baldwin, E.A., Gmitter, F. 2008. Flavor evaluation of fresh tangerine hybrids. Subtropical Technology Conference Proceedings. 59:20-21.
This report describes on-going research on the quality evaluation of tangerines from the CREC breeding program begun in 2006-2007. Twelve of the 43 tangerine hybrids evaluated in 2007 were selected for re-evaluation in 2008, with 9 named commercial cultivars as references, and 8 new hybrids. Fruit were harvested monthly, washed, juiced and frozen. A 15-member panel was trained for fourteen 90-min sessions to describe aroma and flavor of tangerine juice. Nine of the panelists had previously participated in the previous year's panel. A multivariate statistical analysis showed that 'Sanguinelli', 'Temple', 'Ortanique', an LB8-9 x Valencia hybrid, and a Fallglo x Fairchild hybrid had high orange and floral aromas. Two Clementine x Minneola hybrids, two Fallglo x Fairchild hybrids and an LB8-9 x Murcott hybrid, Fallglo and Murcott, had high tangerine aroma, with some woody-spicy and sulfury aroma. In addition, the two Fallglo x Fairchild hybrids and the LB8-9 x Murcott hybrids had stronger woody-spicy and sulfury aroma notes. Flavor descriptors divided the flavor space into fresh and sour, sweet and "fruity-non-citrus", orange and floral, and grapefruit, bitter, sulfury and woody/spicy descriptors. Tangerine defined a third dimension by itself. As in 2007, an LB8-9 x Valencia hybrid, 'Temple', 'Sanguinelli', and two Clementine x Minneola hybrids were characterized by fresh and sour flavor. In 2007, multiple harvests of the two Clementine x Minneola hybrids changed their characteristics from "sour" to "sweet" and "fruity-non-citrus" with increasing harvest date; in 2008, while harvest dates were chosen at the optimum based on 2007 data, these two hybrids remained with descriptors "sour" and "fresh", indicating the seasonal effect on fruit quality. The new Fortune x Murcott and Robinson x Fairchild hybrids were also described as "sour" and "fresh", with a hint of "grapefruit" flavor. In 2008, 'Ortanique' was characterized by orange and floral flavor. As in 2007, 'Murcott' and 'Fallglo' were characterized as bitter and woody/spicy, and both Robinson x US119 hybrids were rated with the highest sweet and "fruity-non-citrus" flavors. "Pumpkin/fatty" was added as an aroma and flavor descriptor in 2008, based on consensus under the "other" descriptors used in 2007. The Robinson x Fairchild hybrid that had an "other" flavor in 2007, was more specifically characterized with a "pumpkin/fatty" flavor in 2008, in addition to being "sweet" with "fruity-non-citrus". Finally, two of the LB8-9 x Murcott hybrids that were characterized as "sweet" and "fruity-non citrus" in 2007 were described as "sour" in 2008, indicating a seasonal effect. The weather during the 2008 season had been particularly warm, imparting some stress on citrus fruit and resulting in a lower quality in general.
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LONDON (AP) -- The English Football Association kicked off its 150th anniversary celebrations Wednesday, striving to shift the focus from the domestic and international troubles that have afflicted the country in recent years.
The Premier League's reputation has been diminished by racial abuse cases involving fans and high-profile players, while the FA has endured a fraught relationship within FIFA as the world's oldest soccer federation's influence has declined.
But leading world soccer figures united in London on Wednesday to launch the FA's landmark year, with FIFA President Sepp Blatter telling the audience by video that "it is called the FA, because it is the No. 1 in FIFA."
Blatter's warm words were a far cry from 2010, when he decried English "arrogance" following its failed bid for the 2010 World Cup.
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From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick
I had a list of books I wanted to read aloud to my daughter when she was a 10-year-old. The Invention of Hugo Cabret was the first one we shared together and she wouldn’t let me put it down. I recommended this tale to my friend’s son who is more of a nonfiction reader and he became instantly hooked as well.
So what about this 526-page book makes it so appealing to children? Author-illustrator Brian Selznick’s unique approach to storytelling combines words and pictures (284 illustrations to be exact) in a truly original fashion, making it an engaging experience for readers of all ages.
Much of children’s literature is borne out of wondering “what if.” Selznick’s groundbreaking presentation of a novel, which tackles that question in the form of a visual narrative, not only earned him the Caldecott Medal for Children’s Book Illustration in 2008, but helped him win a place in the hearts of kids as well.
Now, an exhibition of Selznick’s original artwork is on display at The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, featuring over 100 pencil illustrations, pen and ink drawings, acrylics, and models from his 17 books. The exhibit coincides with the release of his new book, Wonderstruck, and the film adaptation of Hugo, a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese.
In addition, Brian Selznick is also the author of The Robot King, The Boy of A Thousand Faces, The Houdini Box, and has illustrated books for Andrew Clements, Ann M. Martin, and Pam Munoz Ryan.
With the exhibit’s opening in Memphis, I spoke with Brian Selznick to find out about his journey as a children’s book author-illustrator.
Memphis Parent: Winning the Caldecott Medal means the book, in addition to being available for kids to read at libraries and bookstores, increases the chances for being adapted for a video/stage/movie. With the release of the movie Hugo, how do you feel about your novel taking this new dimension?
Brian Selznick: I got a chance to see the movie in a rough cut and it’s incredibly beautiful and very faithful to my book. People who know the book are going to fall in love with the movie. The boy who plays Hugo, Asa Butterfield, is brilliant.
MP: You wrote and illustrated your first book, The Houdini Box, while working at Eeyore’s Books for Children in Manhattan. How did the job at Eeyore’s help shape your dream to become a children’s book illustrator?
Selznick: My boss at Eeyore’s, Steve Geck, took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew about children’s books. I also painted windows for different holidays and different book events. That taught me how to think about book covers because store windows and book covers have a lot in common — they have to look good from far away, they have to look good from close up, and they have to draw you in.
MP: Among the children’s authors, you were particularly drawn to the works of Richard Egielski. Did you decide to follow his footsteps when creating the pencil illustrations for The Doll People — starting the story in pictures before the text?
Selznick: Richard Egielski and Arthur Yorinks made some really wonderful books together. Richard was the first illustrator I ever saw who began the pictures before the words. Sometimes on endpapers or on the title page he would begin drawing elements of the story that were not in the text. That was very influential on me as well. So when dealing with books like The Doll People, I followed Richard Egielski’s example.
MP: You presented The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley in full color and the book won a Caldecott Honor in 2002. How did visiting the Crystal Palace Park in south London help with this recognition?
Selznick: When I went to the Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham in England, I wanted the book to feel like you were alive with Waterhouse Hawkins, which is why I wanted to do it in color. Often, black and white can represent something from the past, but if you actually go back in time, of course, everything would be in full color. So visiting the real place and being able to touch the dinosaurs Waterhouse built for Dinosaur Island was incredibly helpful to get across all of the information accurately.
MP: How did you feel about winning the Caldecott Medal in 2008 for The Invention of Hugo Cabret? What did you like most about creating this book?
Selznick: Nothing can really prepare you for a phone call telling that you actually won the Caldecott Medal. That was a huge thrill and incredibly surprising especially because the book is 526 pages, and most books that win the Caldecott Medal are picture books that are much shorter.
Everything I loved, everything I thought about, and everything I had learned in every other book I ever made went into making The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I spent two-and-a-half years working on the book — traveling to Paris three times to do research, talking to friends who were very good writers, and working closely with my editor Tracy Mack at Scholastic. By the time I finished, I wanted to try to make the book feel like an old-fashioned black-and-white silent movie, which is why I have long sequences of pictures in the book that help tell the story.
I was happy with what I had done but I had no idea if anyone was going to read it. It is a book for children about a French silent movie maker which isn’t really a guaranteed best seller! Once the book was published, I realized very quickly that children loved it and that they really understood how to read it, how to go back and forth between words and pictures. I was very happy that they were responding so positively to the book. So when I see the medals on my books, I feel very proud and sort of surprised by it all.
MP: Why did you decide to become a children’s writer as opposed to writing for adults? I know you have partnered with Andrew Clements in illustrating a number of his books. How do you see yourself — as an illustrator or a writer?
Selznick: I love writing for kids. I think kids are the best audiences in the world, they are the most interesting and the most open. I generally work on stories that I like to write, and it so happens that people who most like what I do are 10- to 12-year-olds.
I was trained as an artist. So drawing definitely comes much easier to me. But I also think of myself as a writer now. I like writing and making up stories. Writing and illustrating are not really that different — both tell stories, and both have a narrative structure. That is important to me.
MP: What do you want children to come away with when they visit the exhibit and read your books? What advice do you give those who want to grow up to become a writer and illustrator?
Selznick: The show, which began at the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, Texas, covers pretty much every single book I have done from The Houdini Box to The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The exhibit includes the finished art in the books, sketches, and little dummies that I make to test how the pages are going to turn. You can see the original artwork that I had in my desk when I was working and compare it to the printed book, and see what’s changed, see what’s the same, and see the process.
I have always loved the idea of getting good books into people’s hands. Kids will see some books that they didn’t know about and then hopefully they will want to go to the library or the book store and read them. It would be thrilling for me if people come away wanting to read more books.
My advice to kids who want to write is to read as many books as possible, keep writing about things you love, and don't be afraid to ask for help. When I am working on a book, I ask lots of people for help. I have an editor who helps me make my story better. I talk to friends who are writers, to bounce ideas off of them. I also call up experts in different topics to help me learn more about the different parts of my story. Sometimes people think you are supposed to do everything by yourself. But everything that I make is a collaboration.
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More on Morocco
Thanks for "No man's land" (July 22). I lived in Morocco for 30 years, and it seems that this is the only issue that united every Moroccan and every political party. If Algeria wanted this problem to be solved, it would be solved in a matter of days. That's why the U.S. government needs to put more pressure on the Algerian government. Morocco did a wonderful job in its southern provinces, and people from Tindouf need to see how their brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters live. This way they may rethink their philosophy and stop the madness.
-Taoufik Guerouate; Portland, Ore.
The remarkable story in the Western Sahara is that over 100,000 Sahrawis would rather live in the desert as a free people than under Moroccan authority. The Sahrawis have placed their hope and trust in the United Nations' commitment and the international community's promise of their right to vote for self-determination. Mindy Belz implies the refugee camps are a breeding ground for terrorism when in fact the Sahrawis living in the refugee camps represent everything we hope to instill in the Muslim world-a Muslim democratic people.
-Suzanne Scholte, Chairman, U.S. Western Sahara Foundation; Falls Church, Va.
I am disappointed with the article on the Western Sahara. While the Polisario is far from faultless, perhaps you should have mentioned issues in its favor, such as the fact that the war began with a Moroccan invasion. Before we take Morocco's side of this conflict, let us deeply consider her own faults and hypocrisies and call her to fulfill her end of the deal to allow religious freedom.
-Jerrid Stelter; New Auburn, Wis.
Blunt or brutal?
Coulter is telling the truth. Her analysis of the mental and religious state of mind behind the hard-left thought stronghold is refreshingly and shockingly insightful. We do not need WORLD, one of the few rational, brave, and Christian voices, to knock her work just because she speaks bluntly, or perhaps even brutally frankly.
-Gretel Haglin; Hawk Point, Mo.
Your review of Ann Coulter's Godless (Bestselling Books, July 22) illustrates that we on the right still do not know how to fight. You concentrate on her name-calling, but 40 years of the liberal agenda certainly merit name-calling and much, much more.
-Jim Norton; Huntsville, Ala.
The normally marvelous Susan Olasky missed when she charged that Coulter "dehumanizes opponents." Rather, Coulter allows her opponents to dehumanize themselves. The Jersey Girls (the four 9/11 widows) have suggested that the fact that they lost loved ones leaves their left-wing political statements immune from criticism, in effect using their loved ones as human shields. So, who's dehumanizing whom?
-Richard L. Centner; Arlington, Texas
Women next door
Thank you for "Flesh for sale" (July 22). Too often, we Christians seem more concerned about whether a woman should have her head covered in church than about the plight of women forced into prostitution. Each day, women are trafficked from countries all over the world and some of them end up, not only in Third World countries, but in Canada and the United States. They are very often the women next door; we just don't realize it.
-Katie Bourckel; Parkville, Md.
What people want
I liked Joel Belz's column, "Tender toughness" (July 22). I had never thought about government like that. God definitely has the corner on how to rule. Perhaps He has provided all this variety of human governments during this wicked age as a contrast for the day when all rule and authority will be abolished and He will be all in all.
-Jeff Bohlender; San Simon, Ariz.
Something that left a deep impression on me years ago: "People need to be regulated because they can't regulate themselves." What people really want is to do whatever they like and have the government regulate everybody else.
-Curt Brown; Trenton, N.J.
Dead men's choices
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ("The eyes have it," July 22) does err in excess of action; however, the movie tells a strong story containing a constant character battle of honor and self-sacrifice against selfishness and slavery. Also, consider the choice Davey Jones offers to the sailors hanging on the edge of death: Do they stave off the final judgment, though it means serving evil, or choose immediate death? Do they fear death and choose slavery or do they trust in something beyond death, as shown by the sailor who denied Jones while clutching a cross? These are the kind of moral questions so often lacking in Hollywood films, and I applaud this movie for presenting good as good and evil as evil.
-Ryan Alderfer; Lansdale, Pa.
Grace in giving
Mark Bergin's July 22 article ("Golden Gates") was an insightful and accurate analysis of the philanthropic ramifications of Warren Buffett's decision to donate $31 billion to the Gates Foundation. Too often Christians underestimate the importance of high-net-worth philanthropy, and consequently fail to see the danger of certain things and the missed opportunities of others. The challenge for Christians who do not have $31 billion is not to sit and bemoan the fact that unbelievers have this money, but to pray that by God's common grace the Gates Foundation will do His will.
-David L. Bahnsen; Newport Beach, Calif.
Buffett said, "There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way." Someone should tell him that good works will not get the job done.
-James H. Abney; Rosharon, Texas
Had Joel Belz called me ("Relativism at Fuller," July 1/8), I would have pointed out that our position at Fuller Theological Seminary is that the Bible clearly teaches that genital intimacy between persons of the same sex is not in accord with either God's creating or redeeming purposes for human beings. This is for us a non-negotiable point of theology and ethics. We have made it clear, though, that we will expose our students in psychology to guest lecturers who represent opposing viewpoints. The class Belz described also had presentations from several ministries that encourage celibacy and change for homosexual persons. For WORLD to apply the label of relativism to a practice of combining fidelity to biblical teaching with pastoral flexibility does not help those of us seeking to be faithful to the gospel in difficult times.
-Richard J. Mouw, President, Fuller Theological Seminary; Pasadena, Calif.
What, me worry?
Was the very befitting Alfred E. Newman-style grin on the face of Episcopal bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori ("Katie can't bar the door," July 15) just a lucky click of the camera shutter, or did the photographer have to work to capture that smile that so articulately tells the tale? And how did you resist quoting Jeremiah: "'Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!' declares the Lord"?
-Stuart Hoarn; Excelsior, Minn.
I agree with Joel Belz about the state of education ("Sick tree, rotten fruit," July 15). Why does the educational bureaucracy attract folks who support the foolishness that the "public" education system has become? Could there be greed, job security, pride, and the Peter Principle at work? Perhaps the biggest problem is in the financing; the system is just another government program that has outlived its usefulness.
-John Poe; Bridgeville, Del.
You have dealt with many controversial issues ranging from homosexual marriages to illegal aliens; your honesty and boldness are great assets to the Christian community. Thank you.
-John Mureiko; Dallas, Texas
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August 2001 Diary
Friday 3rd. August westerly 2 - sunny and warm
A ‘flying visit’ to the fire-pool near the entrance to the plantation in search of Black Darter dragonflies proved
successful. There was one male sat on a log out in the middle of the pool and a female ovipositing along the reedy
shoreline. This is the only known site for the species on the island and, due to it’s small size, affords really excellent views of the
insects it attracts. Other species regularly seen here include Common Hawker, Common Darter, Large Red Damselfly and
the comical ‘Whirligig Beetle’.
Saturday 10th. August southwesterly - 3 hot and sunny
Leaving Ramsey mid-morning, we drove through the heaviest rainstorm I’ve ever experienced. Fortunately it was very localised and, on arrival at Smeale 10 minutes later, we were bathed in glorious sunshine. We had a look at the plantation in the hope of locating the Long-eared Owls but, as is often the case with these birds, we were unsuccessful.
On the heath, the heather was in full bloom and the air was thick with the buzzing of a myriad of insects collecting pollen – unfortunately there were also hundreds of Horseflies/Clegs on the wing and we did very well to avoid being bitten. Other insects on the wing were Grayling, Dark-Green Fritillary, Common Blue, Small Heath, Peacock and Meadow Brown butterflies.
Interesting plants of note were Isle of Man Cabbage and Grass of Parnassus (the former is pushing it a bit, describing it as interesting!).
Tuesday 14th. August southwesterly 6 - cloudy but bright
Dreswick Point, Langness
A two-hour seawatch from just east of the lighthouse produced hundreds of Manx Shearwaters moving west along with at least 10 Storm Petrels, 20+ Gannets, 10+ Kittiwakes and a single Grey Heron! Unfortunately, only 10 minutes after I departed, a Sooty Shearwater moved through with a party of 'manxies' and a Bonxie loitered, with intent, just offshore.
Once again, as it has been for the last couple of weeks, there was nothing of note - not even a Dunlin - on the main dubh.
Saturday 18th.August southeasterly 2 - cloudy and warm with prolonged showers later.
Lots of butterflies feeding on the buddleia bush in the front garden despite the cloudy weather conditions. These included; Small Tortoiseshell (4), Red Admiral (2), Peacock (3), Green-veined White (2), Large White (1) and a stunning Painted Lady - my first this year and an indication of the possibility of a few migrants arriving from the continent.
Point of Ayre Lighthouse
A brief walk around the area of the lighthouse walled garden produced at least 20 Wheatear on passage along
with a superb male Black Redstart (finally, after all the searching I did for the reported ones in the south of the
island in January), although not as black as a spring bird (there was a distinct brown cast on the wings and mantle)
it's white wing-flashes and forehead being quite obvious over a reasonable distance. Only when the bird flew a
short way was the brick-red tail seen.
Out to sea there was very little of note apart from the usual auks, Cormorants, Shags and Gannets - although a
couple of Harbour Porpoises were seen in the distance
Sunday 19th.August northeasterly 3 - foggy and wet, but warm
Point of Ayre and 'north-east corner'
Following yesterday's 'fall' of migrants I decided to return to 'the point' for first light. The conditions could not have
been better for migrants - offshore northeasterly wind, fog and rain. What did I get? Nowt! Just one bedraggled
Wheatear at the point and about 40 Manx Shearwaters offshore. Down at The Phurt, there was a decent sized flock
of over 200 House Sparrows amongst which were approximately 30 Tree Sparrows. Back to bed then!
Tuesday 21st.August southerly 6 gusting 7 or 8 - cloudy with occasional showers
Dreswick Point, Langness
A seawatch from 9.30am to 4pm produced up to 15,000 Manx Shearwaters, at least 3 Balearic (Mediterranean) Shearwaters and at 11.15am, a fabulous, juvenile Sabine's Gull. Also a male Merlin hunting by the 'Stinky Dubh'.
Thursday 23rd. & Friday 24th. August. Calm - hot and sunny then cloudy and wet
North to South
A fall of over 200 Meadow Pipits was overshadowed by a huge, hunting, female Goshawk at the Point of Ayre. Across at Smeale there were 140+ Sandwich Terns on the beach and several harbour Porpoises out to sea.
Down at South Barrule the Black Darters were performing well as were the 12 or so Common Hawkers. But the major surprise was the family part of Spotted Flycatchers that was accompanied by 2 juvenile Pied Flycatchers.
The high tide at Langness was also very good with Common Sandpiper, male Hen Harrier, 200+ Curlew, 1 Whimbrel and a superb Greenshank. A passerine that flew over and was calling constantly was possibly a Richard's Pipit. Although we didn't get good views the fact that it was a pipit sp. and the call, which was similar in intonation to a House Sparrow, meant that it couldn't have been anything else.
A stunning day's birding.
The following day we repeated the early morning start at the Point of Ayre and were rewarded with a juvenile Whinchat, similar numbers of Meadow Pipits, and lots more Harbour Porpoise. Down at Port Lewaigue there were several phylloscopus warblers and a skulking, Garden Warbler. There was a second Garden Warbler at Port Mooar and, again, dozens of phylloscs. Up at Maughold churchyard there were even more phylloscs and a Spotted Flycatcher briefly. These last two days definitely constituted 'viz. mig.' - to use the parlance! Unfortunately we failed to see the Monarch butterfly which spent 15 minutes in a garden at the Dhoon Glen.
A SELECTION OF RAPTORS SEEN IN AUGUST
Saturday 25th.August easterly 2 - cloudy then very wet
Another early morning start in search of migrants was a little disappointing after the last couple of days. However there were still
plenty of Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs in the area and a 'fall' of over 40 Goldcrests provided a pleasant diversion as I trawled through
them looking for something that bit different I was pleasantly rewarded by a juvenile/female Redstart that was keeping low in the sallow bushes.
Also amongst this noisy flock of birds was a Treecreeper and at least 2 Coal Tits, the latter were very pale in plumage - possibly of the
A Greenshank was flying around the rocky outcrop, below the carpark, in typically noisy fashion.
On returning home, the strange Crow that has been frequenting the local gardens was again on a neighbours front lawn.
Sunday 26th.August. westerly 2 - sunny and warm
A return visit to what has been a very productive site in the last few days provided me with one of my favourite birds - Wryneck. The bird was located in a dead tree that had brambles and bindweed climbing up it. It gave stunning views for 15 minutes before diving into deep cover not to be seen again. At one stage the bird was joined by a Garden Warbler, causing the Wryneck to raise it's crown feathers in display. Judging from the amount of buff-yellow on the head and upper-breast and the very 'fresh' state of the plumage overall, I would say that the bird was a juvenile.
Wednesday 29th. August westerly 2 hot and sunny
Dhoon Glen, Maughold
A short detour on my way home to see a moth that had been caught at Callan Farm in the Dhoon Glen - a second generation, male Oak Hooktip and new to the Isle of Man. Apparently, it was quite fortunate that this insect had been caught, as it was not actually in the moth trap but 'languishing' on the outside and caught the trapper 'napping'. Luckily the insect stayed in situ while he fumbled around in his bag to get a catching pot (in a state of blind panic).
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WASHINGTON — A new book says President Barack Obama hoped to put Osama bin Laden on trial, showing the U.S. commitment to due process under law, if the al-Qaida leader had surrendered during a U.S. raid in Pakistan last year.
In "The Finish," journalist Mark Bowden quotes the president as saying he thought he would be in a strong political position to argue in favor of giving bin Laden the full rights of a criminal defendant if bin Laden went on trial for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks.
But Bowden says Obama expected bin Laden to go down fighting. A team of Navy commandos, known as SEALs, raided bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011 and killed the terrorist leader.
The Associated Press purchased a copy of "The Finish," which is due to come out Oct. 16, a few weeks before the presidential election. The revelation that Obama hoped to capture bin Laden may provide political fodder for Republicans who have criticized the Obama administration for trying to bring terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and overseas to trials in U.S. courts.
"Frankly, my belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaida, in preventing him from appearing as a martyr," Obama is quoted saying in an interview with Bowden.
Obama believed that affording terrorists "the full rights of criminal defendants would showcase America's commitment to justice for even the worst of the worst," Bowden writes.
Obama had expressed similar views as a presidential candidate.
Congressman Peter King said he would have been "totally opposed" to a trial.
"To give him a forum and all the constitutional protections that a U.S. citizen would receive when he was clearly a war criminal is part of the defensive and apologetic attitude" of the Obama administration, the Republican said Wednesday.
U.S. officials have said the Navy team was ordered to capture bin Laden if he surrendered or kill him if he threatened them. Bowden asserts that the SEALs could have taken bin Laden alive but had no intention of doing so.
In a separate account of the raid that was published last month, one member of the Navy team, Matt Bissonnette, wrote that the SEALS climbed a stairway inside the compound and opened fire when bin Laden poked his head around a doorway. Bissonnette wrote that bin Laden's hands were concealed and the SEALS presumed he was armed, so they shot him.
Bowden's extensive access to top figures, including the president and high-ranking officials in the Pentagon and CIA, may revive criticism from Republicans that the White House allegedly leaks about the raid to burnish its foreign policy record during an election year.
Bowden, known for the book "Black Hawk Down" about a 1993 U.S. military operation in Somalia, details how the White House planned the mission and explains that the specific American team was chosen because it had "already successfully conducted about a dozen secret missions inside Pakistan."
The recounting of the raid matches most previous versions. But Bowden also offers new insights in what sounds like the first-person perspective of the officer who commanded it on the ground, Adm. Bill McRaven. Scott Manning, a spokesman for the publisher, says "McRaven is not identified as a source in the book."
McRaven was able to monitor all Pakistani communications during the raid from his command post at a base in Afghanistan, according to Bowden. The account shows that Pakistani authorities were unaware of the raid as it happened, giving the Americans breathing room to fly in a backup helicopter to replace the one that had crashed while depositing the first batch of SEALs in the compound.
After McRaven told then-CIA director Leon Panetta he had a "Geronimo" call — the radio code that meant the SEALs had found bin Laden — the admiral realized he had not asked whether bin Laden was dead or had been captured.
McRaven checked again with the SEALs on the ground before relaying that bin Laden had likely been killed. But McRaven cautioned Panetta to "manage his expectations" until they had more definitive proof, by comparing his photographs with the dead man.
Later, McRaven told the president that he felt sure that they killed bin Laden but said the military needed to complete DNA analysis to be certain, Bowden writes.
The book's publication may complicate the Pentagon's attempts to punish Bissonnette for his book. Writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen, Bissonnette published "No Easy Day" without submitting it for a security review by the Pentagon. Bowden was under no such requirement to have the book vetted because he was not a government or military employee.
"The Finish" is published by Grove/Atlantic Inc.'s Atlantic Monthly Press imprint.
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13 Seattle Icons Worth Keeping
My column “Statues of Limitations” (March 2011), on the topic of local icons that I’d like to Photoshop out of the picture if I were Seattle’s Stalin, generated a lot of debate. I came down against Fremont’s Troll and Lenin statues, and the Darth Vader–ish Columbia Tower. I said the Pioneer Square totem pole was a dubious symbol, and I kicked “Hammering Man” in the shins.
Fremont Universe, a neighborhood blog, predicted that I would not “be elected King Faerie of the Solstice Parade anytime soon.” Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey said I went too far in calling the Troll “ugly and charmless,” arguing, “It’s eating a Volkswagen! A real Volkswagen. How can you not like that?” Bruce, it’s good to know where you stand in the war on cars!
Some readers challenged me to make a list of public icons I like. So, running the risk of jeopardizing my curmudgeonly status with a warm and fuzzy column, I offer a partial list of public art, artifacts and landmarks that I really like.
Mount Rainier: The volcanic goddess that must be respected—and feared. Her beauty, moods and menace define our days. We have a reputation for monotonously gray weather, but there’s always a drama played out with the mountain as backdrop. Can you see her? Is she hiding? What’s that saucer-like cloud on her top? Can you see her glaciers glinting in the sun? Is she gonna blow? You never see the same mountain twice.
The Space Needle: I won’t be “King Faerie” in Fremont, but as the Space Needle’s first writer in residence (with a desk on the Observation Deck), all I can say is, “So what?” I’ve got a great perch, and the views never get old. The Needle hosts roughly a million visitors per year; the Seattle they see from the Needle is the ultimate living postcard.
Olympic Sculpture Park: One of the best additions to Seattle in decades. Two sculptures I find intensely provocative: Roxy Paine’s steel tree (titled “Split”) and Mark Dion’s “Neukom Vivarium.” Both urbanize nature in a way that is infuriating, thought provoking and blessedly non-whimsical. We have enough Pike Place pigs.
Pacific Science Center: People loved Minoru Yamasaki’s brilliant secular temple of science when it debuted as the U.S. Science Pavilion at the 1962 World’s Fair. They still do. Some said that with its white stone, fountains and pools, it was a modern Xanadu. Many modern architects sniffed, however. Not spare or cold enough, the pavilion was dismissed by I.M. Pei as “artistic caprice.” Whatever it is, it’s inspiring. The Gothic “space arches” are stunning still.
Paul Horiuchi Mural (at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre): A tile collage by a Northwest artist who brilliantly blended East and West. It’s an abstract meant to live outdoors.
Kubota Garden: Like a living Horiuchi that changes with the seasons.
“Black Sun” by Isamu Noguchi (in Volunteer Park): Very 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s a sculpture that seems to emit a hum. The climbable doughnut is art, but art that also frames a classic city view.
The statues of Chief Seattle (downtown), William Henry Seward (in Volunteer Park) and Leif Erikson (at Shilshole Bay Marina), and the James J. Hill bust (at the University of Washington): Seattle doesn’t have many old-school statues of great people, but these represent our eclectic past: an Indian, a statesman, an explorer and a railroad baron. Add a Seafair sailor and call it the Frontier Village People!
Koolhaas library (downtown): Great as a sculpture. I have my complaints about it as a library (slow elevators, poor signage), but it’s a visual marvel. How many other libraries are tourist attractions?
The P-I globe: Long may it turn. Ditto for the Elephant Car Wash sign.
Walrus heads (on the Arctic Building): Built late, Seattle has few gargoyles, but these tusked faces are fabulous and could only have appeared in a town that’s rep was made as the “Gateway to Alaska.”
Seattle Waterfall Garden (in Pioneer Square): Odd, hidden; it suggests urban shrines in Japanese cities that feature flowing water, a touch of nature in megalopolis. It’s a reminder that a freshwater spring was one of the reasons Seattle started here.
Ramps to nowhere (in the Arboretum): An admonition that saying “no” is often a good idea; that technology, roads and “progress” have limits.
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Joe Balku, 76, learned that the 80-foot Norway spruce had been chosen for the honor four weeks ago. Sandy hit two weeks later.
Balku watched the tree, which weighs 10 tons and is 50 feet in diameter, as it swayed in the backyard.
"I kept going outside during the night. I lost two trees, an oak and an evergreen, but the big tree was tied up for its protection," Balku said.
His electricity went out, but on the morning after the storm, the tree was still standing and his home did not sustain any damage.
The tree was about 22-feet tall when Balku purchased the home in 1973.
Balku had two generators running to power his home in the rural community about an hour from Manhattan. He didn’t have cable TV or Internet service.
Electricity was restored on Saturday.
The tree will be loaded on a 115-foot-long flatbed truck and erected at Rockefeller Center on Wednesday. Workers will then string 45,000 lights on the branches.
"It’s a thrill of a lifetime to have the chance to donate the tree to Rockefeller Center and for millions of people to see it all over the world," he said.
The 80th Christmas tree lighting will take place on Nov. 28.
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Kenya has taken to the Twitter to publicise its invasion of Somalia, judging that 140 characters is exactly enough to warn innocent Somalis of their impending doom. By SIMON ALLISON.
Warning enemy civilians of their impending doom is not a new technique. Medieval knights would shout threats to the people of whatever town their armies had besieged, lobbing a dead cow over the walls to underscore the danger (as recreated admirably in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), while US planes dropped thousands of pamphlets over Iraq before the invasion, warning citizens to get out of the way of the incoming troops. It’s a technique used to indemnify the aggressors, an insurance against possible civilian casualties: “Well, we told them we were coming…”.
Kenya has brought this old strategy into the 21st century. Meet Major Emmanuel Chirchir (@MajorEChirchir), spokesman of the Kenyan military and now something of a Twitter legend for his tweets about the progress of the Kenyan incursion into Somalia, getting himself nearly 5,000 followers after just a couple of weeks on the social network.
But with his updates come some serious warnings. “BAIDOA, BAADHEERE,BAYDHABO,DINSUR, AFGOOYE,BWALE, BARAWE,JILIB,KISMAYO and AFMADHOW will be under attack continously[sic],” he tweeted, naming 10 Somali towns that would be targeted by Kenyan forces.
“The Kenya Defence Forces urges anyone with relatives and friends in the 10 towns to advise them accordingly,” he added, the 140 character limit preventing him from elaborating on what that advice might be. Get out of town? Hide under your bed? Throw a goat on the braai and have a party because there’s not much time left?
Chirchir also had a few things to say on the subject of livestock. Pointing out that Al Shabaab is using donkeys to transport weapons, he warned: “Thus, any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as Al Shabaab activity.” Bad news for the many ordinary Somalis for whom donkeys are the only form of transport. But they can’t say they weren’t warned – it was on Twitter, after all. DM
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Oprah has always said that mothers have the most difficult job on earth, and actress Jenny McCarthy is one mom who has never backed down from a challenge. Jenny has been an outspoken advocate for parents of children with autism since her son was diagnosed with the disease two and a half years ago. In her new book, Mother Warriors, Jenny tells the story of other moms fighting for their special-needs kids. So when Oprah heard about Monica, another mom fighting for her children, she thought Jenny would be just the person to get this mother warrior's story.
After going through a painful divorce, Monica met Tony when she least expected it. Monica already had a 9-year-old daughter, but soon after she and Tony got engaged, they were thrilled to be expecting another bundle of joy. In August 2007, she had a C-section, and though she worried about complications, Monica delivered a healthy baby girl. But hours after Sofia was born, Monica began running a fever. No one was concerned at first—Monica figured it was just hormones—but three days later the fever hadn't broken, and Monica's abdomen was swollen and painful.
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“It’s about so much more than pink.” Rick Dunetz wants to ensure that participants and supporters of The Side-Out Foundation’s Dig Pink® events understand this. Rick and his dad, Bryant, started The Side-Out Foundation in 2004, and it has gone from a local grass doubles event to a national volleyball rally, adopted by schools and clubs in every state.
Rick is proud to say that Side-Out was born not out of tragedy, but out of hope. His mom, Gloria, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body) just after Rick began his varsity volleyball coaching career. Watching his team play renewed Gloria’s desire to rally against her own opponent.
Prior to attending the games, Gloria had not left her house except for medical appointments. She was devastated by her second diagnosis of breast cancer, especially because metastatic breast cancer did not have a cure. Watching the underdog West Springfield girls dig, spike, kill and win against powerhouse teams gave Gloria energy and motivation to learn what advantages her own opponent held across the net so she could develop a competitive plan of action.
Sports have such incredible power to motivate. Sports journalist Howard Cosell once said, “Sports is human life in microcosm.” Indeed, in sports as in life, individuals confront daunting challenges, overcome countless fears, and they must work hard to remain strong.
As a son and a coach, no one understood these parallels better than Rick. He watched his mom ease out of a deep depression to become a knowledgeable advocate and a determined patient. From this hopeful transformation, the seeds of The Side-Out Foundation were planted. Rick knew the volleyball community could impact the lives of other breast cancer patients and their families, and he and his dad began the foundation in 2004 with the first Side-Out Grass Doubles event.
Side-Out quickly established a devoted following for its trademark Dig Pink® events. Schools and clubs nationwide organize games, tournaments, camps and other fundraising events. The funds go toward clinical research as well as compassionate support organizations—typically charities or hospitals that provide free counseling, exercise classes and other related family support services.
The fact that Side-Out has its own board of directors and scientific advisors distinguishes it from many other charities. Instead of giving the funds to another organization to disseminate, The Side-Out Foundation chooses the research it deems most important for breast cancer patients and maintains direct contact with the physicians and scientists conducting the research. In February 2010, The Side-Out Protocol began accepting patients, a clinical research trial specifically for patients with metastatic breast cancer, a sorely underfunded area in cancer research.
In the area of compassionate support, Side-Out hopes to be a leader in educating more health care workers to be sensitive to the specific needs of cancer patients. To this end, the foundation is working to create an online continuing education curriculum. This curriculum will offer current nurses and nursing students the opportunity to build upon their existing medical knowledge and patient care techniques to become truly effective oncology caregivers.
Side-Out also hopes to encourage students not yet involved in health care to learn more about breast cancer research and the challenges that patients face. It is currently working with the National Breast Cancer Coalition to create advocacy roles for college students, and it plans to promote Dig Pink® ambassadorships for high school and college students. An ambassador could be anyone interested in creating a school or community project focused on some aspect of breast cancer.
It is important to note that all of the research, education and compassionate support are being done because of the volleyball community. Your commitment to the cause is making an impact for breast cancer patients, their families and their friends. In addition, you are influencing a group of young women and men who are not typically aware of issues surrounding breast health. Thank you for your support, for your enthusiasm and for teaching others just how wonderful the sport of volleyball is.
It certainly made a difference in Gloria's life. She passed away in August, 2010 after living six years with metastatic breast cancer, but she will always remain the face of the organization. Gloria inspired Rick and Bryant to create Side-Out and her memory will keep them forging ahead. They enjoy watching players and fans create a sea of pink in gyms and convention centers simply because it represents a unified front, but they hope someday the meaning of the pink will be forgotten and it will become just another color in a world bright with possibilities.
For more details about The Side-Out Foundation and its Dig Pink® events, visit sideout.org or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org.
A Personal Experience
Volleyball magazine How did you get involved with The Side-Out Foundation?
Julie Matthews Bryant Dunetz, Rick’s father and the COO of The Side-Out Foundation, is my neighbor. When I returned from Seattle, Wash., in 2009 after receiving a stem cell transplant in 2008, I could often be found outside walking my two dogs. Bryant knew I wasn’t working and he also knew that I loved to write (I keep a blog about my experience with leukemia at juliekaymatthews.com), so he suggested that I help Side-Out update its website content in January, 2010. I’ve been here ever since!
VBM What has it been like to work for Side-Out?
JM Rewarding is probably the first word that comes to mind. I have the opportunity to write, to interact with a variety of people, to enhance my technology knowledge and to use my own cancer experience to help others, all of this in the exciting atmosphere of the sports world. I’ve also learned that volleyball is an awesome sport. I’ve challenged my colleagues (all coaches) to teach me how to play—I was always the one who tried to avoid the ball in PE class!
VBM What do you personally hope to accomplish with your involvement in the organization?
JM Through my writing, I hope to influence players, coaches and aficionados to become involved in their communities and also to be knowledgeable about breast cancer. In addition, I want to make sure that everyone in volleyball knows about The Side-Out Foundation and its Dig Pink® events, and that they are aware that their efforts truly make an impact. I also expect to develop professionally by gaining invaluable knowledge about public relations, cultivating my writing skills and understanding the inner workings of a non-profit organization.
VBM What is the attitude and atmosphere like at the Dig Pink® events?
JM You only have to take a look at some photos and/or videos to get a feel for the Dig Pink® events. They are festive, energetic, touching, empowering and fun! Many teams report that Dig Pink® events achieve record attendance numbers. It is a wonderful way to draw non-volleyball people into the crowd to learn more about the sport.
VBM How do you find the volleyball community responds to issues like cancer?
JM Athletes in general are conscious of their health and when asked to play for a cause, their competitive spirit shines through. It is the same with volleyball players, coaches and fans. They love their sport, and they love when they can use their sport to reach out to others. What is unique about the volleyball community is it’s a small, tight-knit group of very dedicated people, and I’ve found that they are very proud to demonstrate the spirit of their teams and the excitement of their sport.
Originally published in June 2011
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Since 2010 we have had 21 pupils taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. This is a national scheme that operates throughout the UK and was founded by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in 1956. Joining the scheme gives the students the opportunity to experience new activities and to develop new or existing skills.
There are three progressive levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each student creates his or her own DofE programme by choosing a volunteering, physical or skills activity and by going on a camping expedition. On a Wednesday lunch time we have chosen to help the community by volunteering in the local charity shops or by helping at Cobham day centre, where the clients have really looked forward to the visits of our pupils. Most choose music as their skill and the choices for the physical activity have included yoga, running, swimming and football.
The Bronze expedition is a weekend hiking and camping in the beautiful local South Downs, whilst for silver we visit the South Downs and the New Forest in Hampshire. This year we have four intrepid students who have embarked on their Gold award, which involves a four-day and three-night expedition in the Lake District carrying all they need for the three days. When the Gold students receive their award it will be an amazing achievement and will deservedly be presented at St James's Palace in London in the presence of HRH.
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The Native American Housing Block Grant program, authorized by the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 ("NAHASDA") assists tribes in developing, operating, maintaining, and supporting affordable housing for rental and homeownership housing. Funds can be used for acquisition, new construction, rehabilitation of affordable housing, site improvement, development and rehabilitation of utilities and infrastructure, utility services, conversion, demolition, financing, administration and planning, improvement to achieve greater energy efficiency, mold remediation, investments that leverage private sector funding or financing for renovations, and energy conservation retrofit investments.
Funds will be obligated through competitive funding by September 30, 2009. Priority will be given to projects that will spur construction and rehabilitation and will create employment opportunities for low-income and unemployed persons. Tribes/tribally designated housing authorities (TDHE) will be required to obligate 100 percent of their funds within 1 year of the date funds are made available, expend at least 50 percent of such funds within 2 years of the date in which funds became available, and expend 100 percent of such funds within 3 years of such date. If a tribe/TDHE fails to comply with the 2 year expenditure requirement, the funds will be recaptured and reallocated by formula to tribes that have complied with this requirement. If a tribe/TDHE fails to comply with the 3 year expenditure requirement, the balance of the funds originally awarded to the tribe/TDHE will be recaptured.
Milestones in the award process include the publication of a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), submission of an application by the tribe/TDHE, review of the application by HUD, and execution of a Funding Approval/Agreement by the tribe/TDHE. In compliance with the Recovery Act, the funds will be obligated by September 30, 2009.
The Catalog of Federal domestic Assistance number (CFDA) for this program is 14.887.
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Opened in late 1942, RAF Hartfordbridge was active
throughout the war, providing a base for Squadrons of Spitfires and
Mosquitos involved in reconnaissance and fighter defense operations
as well as a home for the Free French Squadron (Lorraine).
RAF Hartfordbridge, with its excellent all-weather record,
welcomed many notable arrivals including King George VI and Queen
Elizabeth, Supreme Allied Commander General Eisenhower and Field
At the end of the War, newly renamed RAF Blackbushe was
transferred to RAF Transport Command and was used as a base for
many Dakotas involved in the 1948 Berlin Airlift as well as flight
training purposes, listing HRH The Duke of Edinburgh as a
In 1960 Blackbushe Airport passed into civilian
ownership, initially as a home airfield for a collection of
historic Spitfires prior to being acquired by British Car Auctions
who redeveloped the facility into a thriving centre of private,
business and executive aviation.
In addition to its long association with aviation, Blackbushe
has also hosted motor sport sprints and even a famous open-air Rock
Concert in July 1978 "The Picnic at Blackbushe" when Bob Dylan and
Eric Clapton performed in front of over 200,000 fans.
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San Francisco economic officials hope to roll out a new technology within the next few months that will help The City keep tabs of vacant commercial properties so they can better attract business to those areas.
A new survey of low-income businesses and entrepreneurs shows that one of the biggest needs in San Francisco’s business climate is a universal tracking system that better connects potential tenants with vacant commercial space.
With an unemployment rate at nearly 10 percent and vacancies plaguing high-profile shopping areas, officials say now is the time to help usher in new businesses quickly.
“We have people looking for spaces, but we don’t have effective tools to connect them,” said Jordan Klein, project manager with the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
This is exactly why the Castro district started its own business assistance program, helping businesses that are looking to move into the neighborhood.
The program — with just two part-time employees — is one of the most proactive in The City. Once a month, the staff holds tours of buildings to show brokers potential spaces that are, or will be, available for rent, officials said.
But these types of efforts to help businesses find a location are spotty throughout San Francisco, said Amy Cohen, director of neighborhood business development for the Office of Economic and Workforce Development.
“We are aware of a lot of vacancies in many neighborhoods, so we need to determine best way for The City to help,” Cohen said.
This is good news for San Francisco Small Business Commission members who have seen their own problems with vacancies citywide. This year, commissioners launched an aggressive campaign to crack down on chronically vacant properties that have created blight, crime and nuisance in neighborhoods.
Kathleen Dooley, a local business owner and commissioner, wants property owners to be held accountable for neglecting their vacant sites, making them a nest for squatters and other criminal activity.
The commission wrote letters to these properties owners asking them if they needed help reactivating their sites, Dooley said.
“We did outreach and tried to contact the owners and we never received a single response back,” Dooley said. “We have been working on this.”
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Texas public schools have come under fire again. This time, a teacher allegedly encouraged high school girls to dress up in full-length Islamic burqas and then instructed the entire class that Muslim terrorists are actually freedom fighters.
The incident occurred in a world geography class at Lumberton High School in the small town of Lumberton, Texas. The general topic of the class that day was Islam.
An unnamed student informed WND that the teacher said, “We are going to work to change your perception of Islam.”
“I do not necessarily agree with this,” the teacher also allegedly said, “but I am supposed to teach you that we are not to call these people terrorists anymore, but freedom fighters.”
The controversial lesson came from a lesson plan provided by CSCOPE, an all-embracing, online K-12 educational curriculum used in 80 percent of the school districts in Texas. A rapidly growing chorus of critics charges that CSCOPE is a radical, backdoor way for progressives to circumvent both the Texas legislative process and the desires of local school boards and communities. (Ten shocking things CSCOPE is teaching kids in Texas)
A student in the class told WND that the burqa-related lesson focused mainly on the lives of women in Muslim countries. The enveloping outer face and body covering was treated more or less as a fashion accessory.
Apparently, no mention was made of the fact that women in Saudi Arabia and Iran must wear the garment under threat of arrest and criminal punishment.
At the end of class, the teacher assigned a paper about Egypt. A student explained to WND that the topic of the paper was “how Egypt was a good country until democracy took over, and that things were finally corrected when the Muslim Brotherhood came into power.”
State Sen. Dan Patrick, chairman of the Texas state senate’s education committee, told Fox News that he found the photograph of the burqa-clad female students disturbing. Patrick was also concerned that the CSCOPE lesson apparently blames democracy for turmoil in Egypt and paints the Muslim Brotherhood as some political savior.
“Parents are very sensitive to any issue that seems to be anti-American — that blames democracy for some sort of trouble in the world,” Patrick told Fox News.
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UND Aviation Grad Killed in Air Show CrashA pilot killed in a crash at a Kansas City air show was a UND aviation graduate. Bryan Jensen was piloting a small plane at the time.
By: David Schwab, WDAZ
A pilot killed in a crash at a Kansas City air show was a UND aviation graduate.
Bryan Jensen was piloting a small plane at the time.
Jensen had a passion for flying at a very young age. According to his website, at age 16, the Iowa native received his pilot's license before his driver license.
After attending UND, Jensen went on to fly commercial planes for Delta and has been flying aerobatics for 15 years.
All of that tragically came to an end Saturday when his plane did not recover from aerial flips at a Kansas City air show.
UND aviation officials responded to the news of the tragedy by issuing the following statement.
"Anytime an airman goes down, we lose a part of ourselves. Our hearts and prayers are with Bryan's family and his friends. He was a true pilot and he will be dearly missed."
On Sunday, pilots at the Kansas City air show decided to go on with the show. After a moment of silence, there was a fly-over for Jensen. Planes lined up in a missing man's formation.
"It's a tribute to a lost pilot. It's not something I would enjoy watching, but it's the right thing to do. It's a sad thing at the same time. I'm surprised they are still having it - I'm glad they are. It's pretty noble," air show visitor Ron Zimmer said.
Fans say watching the horrifying sight of Jensen's plane spinning, crashing and bursting into flames Saturday is something they will never forget.
Many returning Sunday were compelled to come out to honor Jensen and the other pilots flying.
Jensen had more than 23,000 hours of commercial flight time.
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It is important to make sure your computer is maintained well and running at an optimal temperature. Temperature Monitor Widget for Mac helps you avoid letting your computer overheat by reading out all accessible temperature sensors. It is a rather easy-to-use and non-intrusive widget that runs in the background.
Temperature Monitor Widget for Mac comes in a 200KB installer and adds the widget to the dashboard. It will default to displaying the temperature of your CPU, but you have the option to change which components it monitors. The app is very non-intrusive and you'll most likely forget it's … Read more
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More strange metal boxes along coastal beaches – UFO’s, or What?
BRAY’S POINT, Ore. – They can’t be moved; even when yanked by a four-wheel drive truck pulling on heavy chains tied around these humming metal boxes that are still appearing as of Feb. 8 up and down West Coast beaches.
As of late afternoon Feb. 8, Bill Hanshumaker, a public marine specialist and (Ph.D) doctor of marine science at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in nearby Newport, told Huliq in an interview that, “I don’t know what they are.” In turn, Doctor Hanshumaker said he’s advised “surf monitoring” about these strange metal boxes that suddenly appeared along local beaches Feb. 6, and now seem to be multiplying like Star Trek “Tribbles.” The photograph that accompanies this report – taken during the afternoon of Feb. 8 near Bray’s Point — of yet another strange metal box stuck in the surf up is one of a possible group of a dozen or more that have been sited up and down West Coast beaches. Meanwhile, the British government also photographed similar huge metal boxes on beaches in Sri Lanka in the late 1990’s and in early 2004 and 2005. The discovery of the boxes is detailed in updated previously classified reports from the British government that document sightings of unidentified flying objects by both the military and the general public dating back to the 1950s.
UFO history filled with “mystery boxes”
Thus, within these British government UFO files, available via the Internet, are the Sri Lanka beach boxes that are similar in both size, coloring and shape; with locals all along Sri Lanka’s beaches – located in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal – stating in the recently released British UFO documents that “the strange metal boxes appeared suddenly, and after numerous reported UFO sightings.”
In turn, the metal boxes along Oregon, Washington State and Northern California beaches are now being photographed, documented and examined by local experts.
Also, due to recent storms out in the Pacific Ocean, the “boxes” are being more or less ignored; with passing comments in local coastal newspaper,” state Errol, a Bray’s Point local and a member of the Oregon UFO “watchers” group that gathers both here and at nearby Stonefield Beach to scan the sky for flying objects in much the same way bird lovers use binoculars for birth watching.
Science is slow in reacting to UFO related objects
Errol notes that it’s always a sort of “communication breakdown” that always seems to go the same way; be it a UFO sighting or even something like “these humming metal boxes.”
However, Errol said it’s a good thing “when something like this becomes interesting to the Oregon State University Research Agenda.” For instance, Doctor Hanshumaker works for this OSU research enterprise at the nearby Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. Whenever there’s some dead sea life – such as a beach whale or other something along the lines of massive dead sea birds – the experts at the Hatfield are called in to investigate.
When asked if he’s ever heard of anything like these huge metal boxes, with no opening or seam, Doctor Hanshumaker would not comment or speculate on the record. Instead, this marine science expert has for photos of the boxes and size and coloring details.
In turn, Doctor Hanshumaker would not speculate about various rumors regarding the boxes; but said that an alert has gone out and the boxes are being investigated. Of course, Huliq will continue to monitor this breaking story that has local coastal residents and visitors scratching their heads about the boxes.
Bray’s Point monitored by the Hatfield
An hour’s drive from Corvallis, the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport is OSU’s coastal campus for research and investigation of marine biological and geochemical aspects of tidal, estuarine, and near shore ocean environments. According to it’s fact sheet, “research programs at HMSC advance scientific understanding of marine and coastal ecosystems, with an emphasis on collaboration across disciplinary and institutional affiliations of the more than 300 personnel onsite.”
In turn, marine science experts are tasked by both the state and federal government to monitor the Oregon coastal beaches even more so today after the Japan earthquake last March that sent Tsunami waves racing across the Pacific Ocean that slammed into the West Coast causing destruction and creating a massive amount of debris that seems to be growing daily as beach trekkers find “all sorts of things” along the coast.
While these strange metal boxes have been examined for any lettering or symbols that they may be from last year’s earthquake in Japan, Errol and other Bray’s Point locals say “all we know is there’s been a lot of action in the sky as of late with UFO sightings that seem to be increasing. The boxes were found the day after several sightings and bright lights over Bray’s Point. The boxes have no identification at all.”
Monitoring the coast comes under OSU
Earning $261.7 million in external research funding in FY 2011, Oregon State’s fact online fact sheet that describes its operations notes “it is one of only two land, sea, space and sun grant institutions in the U.S., and holds a top tier research designation from the Carnegie Foundation. Also, Nine of OSU’s academic programs have ranked among the top 10 nationally in the past three years. Faculty include 29 NSF Early Career Award recipients since 2000, two MacArthur Foundation Fellows and scientists who lead federal programs at NSF, NASA and NOAA. More than 35 present and past faculty have been elected as Fellows of AAAS, and five as members of NAS.”
In turn, the Hatfield Marine Science Center is home base for the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station (COMES), the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies (CIMRS), and the Marine Mammal Institute, along with various other OSU and state/federal agency units:
– Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
– Oregon Coast Community College
– OSU College of Agricultural Sciences
– OSU College of Engineering
– OSU College of Forestry
– OSU College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences
– OSU College of Science
– OSU College of Veterinary Medicine
– OSU Extension Service and Oregon Sea Grant
– NOAA Fisheries
– NOAA Ocean Environment Research Division
– USDA Agricultural Research Service
– US Environmental Protection Agency
– US Fish & Wildlife Service
What is and what should never be with UFOs
According to now de-classified once top secret UFO reports – that were under lock and key by the British government since the end of World War II – there’s good reason to keep the public in the dark when it comes to such things as UFO sightings, strange occurrences, first contact with aliens and more in detailed reports that point to senior British Ministry of Defense officials stating to the prime minister in now declassified memos that “if we said to you, Sir, that we have reason to believe the UFOs are real, than what would the British people think of us?”
As for this link between the Sri Lanka beach boxes and the ones now showing up in the surf up and down the West Coast – based on local media reports of “strange metal boxes” – the British Ministry of Defense photos of the Sri Lanka “boxes” are still marked “classified.”
However, there are detailed statements – that cover the period from 1997 to 2005 and include photographs, drawings and “descriptions of flying saucer sightings, as well as letters that the Ministry of Defense sent eyewitnesses in response to their accounts of the metal boxes.”
Of course, both local police here along the coast and back in the day when the Sri Lanka boxes were discovered, state that “they are probably from a container ship,” that theory doesn’t hold water since both the central Oregon coast and the coast of Sri Lanka are not accessible to container ships.
Boxes on the beach called “projectiles”
In one account – featured in the now released British government UFO documents — a man said he believed he had been “abducted” by aliens in October 1998 after seeing an unidentified craft hover over his coastal home and finding that he had gained an hour of time in the process. The man went on to describe seeing “projectiles” all along the beach “that were here on day, and gone the next.”
However, the metal boxes that suddenly appeared along West Coast beaches – beginning Feb. 6 at nearby Stonefield Beach after local UFO “watchers” reported a weekend filled with what locals call intense UFO sightings.
“These metal looking boxes, that are about 20 inches in height and are a complete square of five foot by five foot are sunk deep in the surf” both here at Stonefield Beach – a popular Oregon coastal beach lookout for UFOs – and down the coast as far as we know “with yet more of these square metal containers that have no opening and are sealed all around,” explains Oregon UFO “watcher” Errol who lives nearby at Bray’s Point.
In turn, these boxes are “not moveable,” and they are solid and metallic and seem to have this keening wail coming from both the boxes and the atmosphere around them,” adds Errol who’s been called in to “see what’s up” by locals thinking it “has something to do with UFOs” quipped a local senior named Doris who said she heard “a miaowing wail come from the boxes Sunday evening.”
Strange beach boxes cause a stir
It’s as if an alarm went off, when a “high, shrill, piercing, frightening ring caught our attention Sunday evening,” explained Doris, a local senior whose retired and lives nearby Stonefield Beach. “I know crazy things happen over at Stonefield, but when you walk down and see that metal box sort of glowing in the surf it gets your attention real quick.”
At the same time, Doris said this area around Stonefield Beach is a very “quiet place,” where “nothing but seagulls and the Pacific Ocean waves to break the quiet.”
Brain plays tricks even when metal boxes appear
While these “metal boxes” buried up and down the Oregon coast are real to the touch and sight, a local professor of psychology – whose attempted to explain away the “strange goings on at both Bray’s Point and here at Stonefield Beach,” thinks the many “of these remote living residents who claim to see UFOs at night are simply not using the tool between their ears to figure this stuff out.”
In turn, this retired professor said in a Feb. 6 Huliq interview at Stonefield Beach that most locals and visitors here “looking for those UFOs” are more or less carrying their own “baggage or self-as-content,” with views and experiences that now seem to define them.
Doris added: “The doc is saying we’re all a bunch of nuts to believe in UFOs.”
What’s real about UFOs?
Yet, the professor – who specialized in repressed memories when he taught at university and had his own private practice – noted that Doris and others are in a sort of “constant frame of reference when they converse with each other that UFOs have appeared.”
“I’ve seen this Stonefield Beach crowd carry on at meetings about UFOs being spotted in the sky, and I’m confident they believe these things to be true.”
However, the professor says there’s “good hard science that can probably explain away each and every claim they’ve made about UFOs and aliens about at Stonefield Beach and Bray’s Point. But, this perspective comes at a cost,” he asserted; while stating that “such beliefs in UFOs can lead them to label themselves, either positively or negatively, in very limiting ways.”
For example, the professor said “I don’t know if these metal boxes are something to worry about or not.”
And, he added, “I don’t know if Errol is an expert on UFOs. Just because people come to him with their stories of UFOs doesn’t make it real.”
“It does raise some questions about what really would happen if at any time in the future there was some kind of incident — would we be prepared?” said David Clarke, author of “The UFO Files” and consultant to the National Archives’ UFO project.
Boxes appeared after auras
When pressed for more details a few days later, on Feb. 8, UFO “watcher” Errol noted that “what may have been different with the recent sightings was a sort of bright golden and reddish aura with that keening wail sound that I talked about.”
However, the late afternoon before sunset at Bray’s Point Feb. 8 found only the roar of absolute silence. In turn, there was no same intense level of noise coming from two boxes on the Bray’s Point beach and others at the nearby Stonefield Beach.
Still, it’s interesting to point out that the British government UFO documents do point out that the “Sri Lanka metal boxes” – in a report dated January 2003 and sent to the Ministry of Defense with supporting “classified” photographs reveal even more mysterious happenings on that Sri Lanka beach after “repeated UFO sightings.”
“I noticed a partial aura in the sky, a minute or so later there was a clap of thunder, then a short while later a ring like a doughnut appeared,” one Sri Lanka police official told the ministry, adding that he thought it was an “air burst.”
In its reply, the ministry suggested that the officer contact the Sri Lankan government.
The world’s oceans hold secrets
While there’s a lot of focus on the heavens these days – with regular reports of “flying saucers” reported up and down the West Coast from as far north as Alaska – there’s also “alien activity” believed to be happening in the world’s oceans.
For instance, a recent ocean exploration team led by Swedish researcher Peter Lindberg has found what some are suggesting is a crashed flying saucer, according to a recent European Union media reports.
Lindberg and his underwater team of scientists are credited with finding and then recovering “sunken ships and cargo” using high-tech sonar; while “never expecting” to find what Lindberg claims “is a mysterious round object that might (or might not) be extraterrestrial.”
Image source of yet another strange metal box that appeared in the surf Sunday evening after locals recorded yet another UFO sighting here at Stonefield Beach. Many other “metal boxes” with the same size and color have appeared up and down the Oregon coast and are also reportedly being found up and down the entire West Coast as of Feb. 8, 2012. This “box” was photographed late afternoon Feb. 8 near Bray’s Point, Oregon. Photo by Dave Masko
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New gun laws threat to 2nd Amendment
I would like to address the recent controversy on gun control. I believe that we are in jeopardy of losing our Second Amendment constitutional right to bear arms.
Guns have been in my family for generations as they have been for many other families. We have been supervised and taught to treat them with care. Thus we have always used them safely and respectfully.
The main argument for not outlawing guns is for a person’s own protection. I am concerned that the recent restriction on guns could lead to the government banning all firearms. Guns are a part of life for many people in many different ways. Many families hunt to supplement their food bills. Many people also use guns for recreational purposes such as target shooting. Hunting and shooting as a family offers quality time together learning about the outdoors.
When tragedy strikes, people are to quick to point their fingers at guns. People who support gun control should direct their energy toward the breakdown of family, such as the long hours of unsupervised television and video games and the lack of religion, which is the real problem.
I believe that the ban of guns will not help our society but only make it worse. I believe that stricter background checks on the purchase of firearms could help to lower crime rates and resolve gun control.
Clearly it should be criminals that they have a database for, not law-abiding citizens.
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Scandinavian Midsummer Fest moves to Oaks Park
For years, the Portland Scandinavian Midsummer Festival has celebrated the summer solstice at the German American Society on S.E. Division Street near S.E. 79th Avenue. But, the 2011 edition of this colorful event instead took place on June 25th at historic Oaks Amusement Park.
Scandinavians have a long tradition of celebrating the summer solstice with bonfires, or the raising of the Maypole (Majstång), pointed out Mike O'Bryant, Executive Director of the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation.
'This tradition has been celebrated continuously for 83 years here in Portland,' O'Bryant added, 'With a festival featuring Scandinavian foods, music, dancing, and vendors. We decided to expand our event, and when we contacted Oaks Park last year, they said they'd be delighted to host us.'
Joe Norling, president of non-profit Oaks Amusement Park, commented that this festival seemed a 'good fit' for them. 'We enjoy working with other non-profit organizations, and we host events of all kinds here.'
O'Bryant agreed, observing that the move seemed to boost their attendance, not hurt it. As celebrants began line up for the parade that leads to 'the planting the Majstång', he said there's been continued support for the festival because Portland is home to about a half-million people who claim Scandinavian or Nordic ancestry.
'Many of us are second, third, or fourth generation residents here, as I am,' O'Bryant said. 'Others are new immigrants. But, this celebration brings us all together to celebrate coming out of a long winter - and in northern latitude countries, the winters are long!'
Even though we're all Americans, O'Bryant said he thought the festival continued to be successful because it's 'incredibly traditional. You'll see both men and women in traditional clothing from their native countries. It's welcoming to immigrants, and educational for those whose children have grown up here.'
Clearly, the Midsummer Festival is a family affair. In the 'Kids Zone', youngsters were making traditional flower wreaths to wear in their hair, engaged in other crafts, and taking part in song and dance demonstrations.
With sounding of the 'Lur', an ancient wooden horn found in Norway, Denmark, and South Sweden, the Majstång procession began. It ended as a crew of men lifted this maypole, a little bit at a time, into position.
Then, it was time for singing and more dancing, dining on Swedish meatballs and lutefisk (salted fish), and basking in the sunshine that warmed the afternoon.
'It's an all-day festival,' O'Bryant added, 'It concludes with an evening dance.'
We asked if they'd also celebrate 'Ukon juhla', the Finnish tradition of building a huge bonfire that burns bright into the night.
'No, City officials frown on that practice,' O'Bryant replied. 'That's why we celebrate with the Majstång.'
They're already looking forward to their 84th celebration, O'Bryant said. 'It'll be the last Saturday of June next year.'
To learn more about the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, visit their Internet website: www.scanheritage.org .
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PerfProtector writes "Did you recently install Thunderbird 3 or upgrade from Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3? Did you notice any severe slowdown in your machine or a major decrease in its performance? Well, many people around the world encountered these problems. We wrote a technical analysis about the severe problems that are caused by Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client. These problems include anomalous usage of CPU, memory, hard disk and Internet bandwidth. You can read the full analysis, including several graphs that show how bad the situation is and what went wrong from Thunderbird 2 to Thunderbird 3. For example, while CPU utilization of Thunderbird 2 is usually between 0% to 10%, with an average of 0.3%, Thunderbird 3 CPU utilization is between 5% to 80%, with an average of 30% — 100 times more than Thunderbird 2. In addition, during long periods of time, Thunderbird 3 used more than 50% of the overall CPU resources.This behavior slows dramatically the whole machine." It's worth noting that this analysis comes from developers who have developed a (freeware) tool they claim will improve Thunderbird's performance, but they explain also how to do so with manual changes.
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Coupons are big business, but they require effort to keep track of. Digital coupons are bridging that gap. According to recent research cited in an article on CPGtrends.com, digital couponing is gaining momentum: usage grew from 88.2 million in 2011 to 92.5 million in 2012. For retailers to cash in on digital couponing, they need to coordinate with their IT departments to create hassle-free coupon redemption.
Stepping inside a store today is like taking a peek into the future: Retailers are using heat cameras, WiFi and radio frequency identification tags to track customers’ in-store behavior and trends, according to a recent Women’s Wear Daily article. While data mining applications have been around for a long time, brick-and-mortar stores are starting to use tracking technology to collect even more data.
The corner boutique is now in everyone’s neighborhood thanks to the Web. Boutiques are thriving in the digital frontier, according to a recent New York Times article. These stores are able to reach more shoppers online and still manage its digital operations with personalized flair. A Web presence is a great way boutiques can attract new customers and maintain relationships.
For retailers, having a great customer experience for online, mobile, social and in-store shopping is critical. The key to this is technology. A recent survey cited in a MediaPost.com article affirmed this important need. For 75 percent of U.S. retailers, creating an engaging in-store customer experience is the most pressing concern over the next five years.
When it comes to reaching today’s average online consumer, it’s not what you say, but how you say it — digitally and visually — that counts. Social media is shifting from a socially-based consumption model to more of an experience model. Mashable.com highlighted top trends that are transforming retail customers. They include making information more visual, using calming technology and neuromarketing.
Retail can take a few notes from print media’s digital transformation. Major newspapers and other media outlets are creating brands that are compelling, engaging and socially optimized, according to a report cited on Forbes.com. Retailers need to make sure that they’re taking advantage of the digital format by presenting their products in an engaging way and creating a strong social media presence.
The use of radio frequency identification tags could boost sales and help retailers monitor their inventory better, but many have not adopted the technology. That’s because it can be costly and requires many logistical details. Where RFID is really gaining traction is for high-margin, high-cost items. One major clothier said RFID led to a 1 to 2 percent increase in sales, according to LuxuryDaily.com.
QR codes are still trying to win over friends in one segment of the retail shopping world. Mobile Commerce Press recently cited a survey that found only 7.2 percent of retail stores in Boston-area shopping malls used the two-dimensional barcode. If retailers are going to use QR codes, they need to have the infrastructure to gather usable data while making sure the codes are secure.
A mobile-robotic system is the innovative backbone of one retailer’s distribution center. Shortly after implementing the new technology, officials said the order fulfillment process became more efficient. However, using robotics is a considerable investment. The system requires a very sophisticated IT system and very skilled people to take care of and properly maintain it.
A recent article on Mashable.com highlighted a prototype grocery cart that gives shopping a futuristic makeover. Paired with Microsoft Kinect technology, the cart can pretty much do most of your shopping, including crossing off items on your grocery list and ringing them up as you go. This innovative way to cater to the customer’s needs is the future of retail.
More retailers are reaping the benefits of radio-frequency identification as the cost of the technology decreases. RFID allows companies to track products from the manufacturer through shipping to the distribution center and on to individual stores. They can see where their shipment is at any time — even if it’s in the middle of the ocean. RFID helps companies cut costs and improve service.
Randy Misener, Editor-at-Large
Randy Misener is the Industry Executive responsible for Enterprise Retail Management solutions at Avanade. Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation and has approximately 15,000 professionals in more than 20 countries.
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Free Markets, Free People
What’s Just Like Death?
Taxes, as the saying goes, in that both are certain to come to us all. The corollary is that once government spending outpaces tax receipts by a significant enough amount, then taxes will inevitably rise. Or, at least, that should be the corollary.
The first of several stimulus packages has just passed but it is just the beginning of our efforts to address our immediate and long-term economic problems.
After 2010, the federal operating budget will face trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. They have to be addressed for the long-term prosperity of our country and our future credit-worthiness in the world.
Eventually every American has to dig in and pay more taxes to help our country and our fellow citizens. We must put in place the laws and mechanisms to steadily increase taxes after 2010. We have to owe up to our massive public and private financial messes. Cutting federal earmarks and waste will not eliminate even half the annual deficits. The federal budget gap will require increasing taxes by over $500 billion by 2011. Fiscally irresponsible and spoiled children hate to hear this news but it’s our only choice for our collective long-term prosperity.
It is true that people don’t want to hear this, and I don’t think that is limited to “fiscally irresponsible and spoiled children.” Indeed, the inevitable raising of taxes was one of the arguments against the stimulus package, so I’m not sure to whom Pascal is referring.
A number of prominent publicly-minded millionaires and billionaires including Warren Buffet have recommended higher income taxes on themselves and their friends for several years. Certainly Mr. Buffet has been right more than most politicians and it’s time to effectuate his recommendations. Their altruistic economic view may simply be a rational response for their long-term preservation and that of the nation as a whole.
Actually, their view is not altruistic at all. The very rich, with the financial means to hire the very best in tax advice, are quite skilled at arranging their affairs so as to minimize their tax burden. When Warren Buffet clamors for raising taxes on the rich, you can be sure that he does not intend to pay as much as he possibly can to the federal government. However, those in the middle income brackets surely will. Buffet and brethren simply hope that those taxpayers will somehow be mollified by the fantasy that “the rich are paying their share too.”
On to the plan:
The Bush tax cuts should expire by their own terms by 2010 and marginal income taxes will return to the rate of 39% for incomes over $250,000. Additionally, and instead of capping executive pay, we should create a new marginal tax rate of 49% for earning over $1 million.
That is actually a somewhat more reasonable plan than some that have be floated, but still a pipe dream in terms of raising tax revenues to cover the trillions in spending contemplated (and as yet revealed) over the next four years. Even if the rich were to pay every possible penny of their income above $1 Million in taxes at that rate, how long to do you suppose they would do it for? If you had a choice of living quite comfortably and making around a million dollars, knowing that you’d keep something close to 70% – 75% of the money, would you really continue working hard enough to earn more than that if you knew you would only receive 50 cents on the dollar?
If there are any short-term tax cuts, they should be combined with long-term tax increases. The 2009 FICA payroll tax for social security is a 6.2% tax rate on every dollar earned up to a gross annual income of $106,800. For more than a decade, everyone has agreed that to save social security (without increasing the retirement age, the tax rate, or lowering the average monthly benefits of just under $1,000 per person) the best solution is to raise the taxable income limit so the wealthy contribute more to the entire system. We could provide both a short-term economic stimulus to the majority of Americans and save social security for the long term.
Let’s lower the FICA social security tax rate for rest of 2009 and all of 2010 to 5.5% but raise the income limit to $250,000. In 2011, let’s raise it to 5.75% and set the income limit to $500,000. By 2012, the rate would be 6% and the taxable income unlimited. This would simply parallel the 1.45% FICA tax for Medicare and Medicaid imposed on all earned income. Its rate will probably have to be raised to 2% after 2010 to pay for existing programs and any expansions of benefits.
Again, not an entirely unreasonable plan considering the alternatives. But what’s never mentioned when someone suggests raising the income level for FICA is that, while more tax revenue would be raised, federal liabilities would also be increased. That’s because the government is simply taking more money now and promising to pay more benefits upon retirement. That does nothing to reduce the burden of current spending, which was supposed to be the point of the tax increases.
As near as I can tell, this part of the plan would have the effect of hastening the looming entitlements crisis in exchange for perhaps pushing the current one off down the road a bit. The end result looks more like a perfect budgetary storm as the bills we’re racking up today and the entitlements we’ve promised in the future, begin to overlap.
Across the political spectrum, most people agree that our various transportation, water/sewer, and electrical grid infrastructures have been long neglected. Infrastructure spending is the best use of government stimulus money because more jobs are created both quickly and over the long term. Just to modernize our existing infrastructures systems will cost at least 2 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Furthermore, we must also invest in new energy technologies, mass transit and high speed rail lines – all of which will cost billions more. We can’t put off such spending and we have to be honest about paying for them over the foreseeable future without resorting to further borrowing.
This is a part of the supposedly Keynesian argument that government spending provides a greater multiplier than private spending. Of course, as Bruce has pointed out before, if that were the case then why have private spending at all?
Furthermore, I really don’t understand how government spending on infrastructure and energy technologies creates jobs.
In the infrastructure realm, once a government project is done, then the job disappears. If the job is done quickly, efficiently and completed on time then it’s not government work the job just disappears that much more quickly. And after that? How does a brand new bridge create a job after it’s built? Even worse, what happens if the project turns out like the Big Dig in Boston (which seems to be much more likely)? Sure people will have jobs for longer, but the supposed benefit of the structure will shoved further into the future and the taxpayers will be on the hook for a lot more than they signed on for. How does that sort of project stimulate the economy?
With respect to new energy technologies, I’m all for it. But with the government choosing which technologies to fund, how do we know we’re getting the best there is to offer? That’s not typically the case where government picks winners and losers. And just because something is “green” does not mean that it is efficient, beneficial to the economy, and/or capable of saving anyone money in the short (or long) term. In fact, it probably means the opposite of one or all of those things. Instead, why doesn’t government get out of the way and allow nuclear power plants to be built, thus saving taxpayers billions of research dollars. That’s technology that we already have, and it’s green. Otherwise, these sorts of proposals are little more than a massive wealth transfer from one group of people to the politically favored few. There is nothing stimulative about that.
Across Europe, the average tax per gallon of gasoline ranges from $4 to $6. The U.S. federal gasoline tax is a paltry 18.3 cents per gallon with each penny raising $850 million to $1 billion per year depending upon how much Americans drive. Only when gasoline hit $4 a gallon during last summer did we start taking mass transit, buying hybrids, shunning gas guzzlers, demanding more energy-efficient cars and buildings, and seriously considering alternative solar, wind and nuclear power, and our own oil and gas reserves. The best and only way to ensure long-term energy independence is to have a serious financial incentive that hits everyone.
OK, if we accept the premise that less fuel consumption is better for Americans, then Pascal has a good point here. Of course, I’m not sure why gas station owners or truck salesman are any less deserving of being stimulated than other Americans, but that seems to be a staple of these plans. Moreover, Pascal’s plan doesn’t look all that much different than how transportation projects are already funded at the federal level.
While we should not enact excessive gasoline taxes, we can at least impose an additional and modest oil import fee on foreign barrels of oil.
More importantly, we should increase the federal gasoline tax from 18.3 to 75 cents per gallon, by monthly increments of about 5 cents per gallon over 12 months. The overall U.S. gasoline price per gallon by the end of 2010 should still be around $3.00 but the U.S. would have $70 billion a year to pay for our many needed transportation and energy infrastructure projects. This would be the responsible, mature, and intelligent solution for raising the necessary funds for these projects.
Presumably, Pascal means that we would charge this import fee to the American refiners who distribute gasoline in the country. And Pascal does suggest that he thinks this would be a tax on everyone, which in addition to the increased gas tax it would be. Strangely, this is the sort of protectionist measure one sees where domestic industries are beset by low-cost foreign competitors, yet domestic production is practically forbidden. Instead, Pascal wants to drive demand for gasoline down, so he advocates raising the costs of gasoline indirectly. Would that have the effect of increasing demand for more domestic oil? Perhaps. But it would certainly raise costs for all Americans, whether we all buy hybrids (which are much more expensive) or not, and again I don’t see how raising prices is stimulative.
Overall Mr. Pascal’s tax proposal is not altogether outlandish, and certain elements of it are almost certain to come to pass. What’s so horrible is that these sorts of plans are only necessary (and inevitable) because the government has been spending far more than it takes in for quite some time now. Even if you think that the Bush tax cuts “cost” the federal government money, you have to admit that the one thing that every administration has had in common, whether Republican or Democrat, is that federal spending never decreases. Regardless of whether tax-and-spend is better/worse than cut-taxes-and-spend, the situation we find ourselves in today is precisely because spending never seems to drop, not because tax rates go up and down.
To be sure, there is nothing evil per se about deficit spending. Whether it’s bad or not depends on where the money is going, and how the costs are intended to be recouped. But at some point the piper must be paid, and when that time comes one would hope that all the spending had created some wealth with which to pay him.Obviously taking money from Peter and giving it to Paul (minus a transfer fee, of course) won’t accomplish that goal. And neither does building a new bridge from Paul’s house to Peter’s. Indeed, unlike people, the government can’t work harder in an effort to “do something” and create wealth, because that’s not what governments do. The only things that government is any good at is making rules and enforcing (some of) them. Although those two actions can protect wealth and the opportunities to create wealth, neither action actually creates wealth.
Thus, we’re left with the unshakable propositions that (1) government spending necessitates taxes, (2) deficit spending necessitates tax increases, (3) tax increases necessitate higher prices, (4) higher prices produce less consumer spending, (5) less consumer spending results in less business revenues, (6) less business revenues means fewer jobs and less wages, (7) fewer jobs, less wages and less business revenues means less tax dollars, and (8) fewer jobs, less wages, less business revenues and less tax dollars means … more government spending is necessary?
If you believe that last one, then I have a bridge I’d like to build you. It will be ready for use immediately upon the check clearing.
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Olympics fans pleased with London Underground
Newcomers to Olympic host city depend on Tube
The Underground was put to the test like never before during the 2012 Summer Games, and it's getting rave reviews from fans who depended on it.
There were a lot of fears about how the Underground was going to handle all of the Olympic tourists.
It was really going to be stressed by the numbers of people who would be riding it during the Summer Games.
The reality is that things have actually gone surprisingly well. It's tight at times, and there are usually a lot of people on board, but the trains have handled the extra people pretty well.
There have been a couple trains that have broken down, but overall the Tube has worked very reliably as Olympic transportation.
For American tourists not used to doing the public transportation thing, it has actually been a lot of fun.
"Actually, the way I see it, it's a free tour of the city of parts you're not going to see. It went smoothly, and all of the volunteers, they direct you. It's great," said American tourist Mike Chisari.
The Underground prepared for the Games by adding extra trains. It also ran constant announcements about the status of the trains.
Copyright 2012 by Hearst Television. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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If you’re at all familiar with Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, you know that her books are gems that lend themselves to frequent rereading and — if the upcoming film based on her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, is any indication — to media adaptation. Her latest, Americanah, will be no exception. At its center is the love story of Ifemelu and Obinze, teenagers who meet at a Lagos school and are eventually separated by military conflict and personal ambition. They reunite fifteen years later to find themselves faced with greater challenges than they could’ve imagined.
According to Shadow and Act, “the term ‘Americanah’ is a derogatory word used in Nigeria to label other Nigerias who have become too *Americanized.*” Since Ifemelu spends a good deal of the novel in America, pursuing her studies and a post-grad career as a writer, we can imagine the term is one that will be leveled at her. Obinze is disallowed entry into the U.S. after 9/11.
Avid Adichie fans like myself will be thrilled to know that the wait for this book won’t be too long. The 352-page hardcover will be published by Knopf on May 14, 2013, and Amazon already has it available for pre-order.
In the meantime, re-watch the writer’s brilliant TED talk on the Dangers of a Single Story:
Are you looking forward to Americanah? Have you read Chimamanda Adichie’s other books, Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, and The Thing Around Your Neck?
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By now many Ricochet readers will have had their attention drawn both to the alarming statistics released on poverty today and to the excellent Heritage Foundation study on what constitutes “poverty” in America. On the one hand, poverty has certainly increased under President Obama. On the other hand, poverty is being so loosely defined as to become virtually meaningless. Of course, the political capital to be gained by statistics related to poverty almost always redounds to the advantage of the Left. Or so it has until now.
As the Heritage Foundation points out, though, virtually all households living in poverty have a refrigerator, a television, and a stove and oven. The vast majority have air conditioning, a microwave, a DVD player, and cable television. Almost forty percent have a personal computer; a third have more than two televisions; thirty percent have a video game system; and 22% have more than one DVD player. These figures are for 2005, by the way, the horrible Bush years.
Such statistics are confirmation of what Adam Smith said long ago. An “improved” commercial society, relying principally on the workings of the market, may distribute wealth unequally (the rich are much richer than the poor); but that is better than all being equal in squalor. And even the poorest people living in commercial society will be better off than the wealthiest and the rulers of unimproved society.
These facts lead me to the inescapable conclusion that the poor should be poorer in America. I mean that in two senses. First, as the Heritage Foundation report urges, we need to redefine poverty to be in line with what most people imagine when they hear the word: that the impoverished are suffering from want of food, housing, clothing, and other basic necessities. The line “30 million Americans are living in poverty” is nothing more than fodder for demagogic Democrats.
Yet I mean this in a second sense. We should look at these figures and be outraged at the welfare state. My household does not have a “non-portable stereo,” though 49% of the “poor” do. My home has only one television, though a third of the “poor” have more than two. I do not have a printer, though 27.9% of the “poor” do. Should we—you and I, as taxpayers—pay for the poor to live with more luxuries than we have in many cases? What incentive do the poor have to get off the dole if their food is paid for with food stamps, their health care is paid for through WIC and other programs, and their daycare is paid for through “early childhood” centers masquerading as schools? The poor should be poorer in America (i.e. have their social programs cut) so they will have an incentive to quit feeding at the public trough. What would happen then to the “poor”? What would then happen—according to Econ 101—is that the money saved from no longer “helping” the poor might actually be invested by people who understand markets in order to create more and better jobs. There would be fewer poor. Republicans can win on this issue. Reagan did.
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Hey all! Our team is preparing for our project in Ghana that will begin on May 28th. We’ll start our travel this Saturday, and arrive in Ghana on Sunday night. This will be the official blog of the University of Kansas & University of New Mexico partnership with ABAN this summer. Follow our journey here! We’ll update atleast once a week with the progress of our project, the impact of our project in the community, and the impact of the project and the community on ourselves.
ABAN is an organization in Accra, Ghana that provides aid to street girls in Accra, as well as help to improve the environmental conditions of the city. Every day, the same streets that these girls are forced to sleep on are littered with over 40 tons of plastic waste. ABAN helps to teach these girls to recycle these waste products into materials that they can then transform into profitable items, such as bracelets, aprons, and cosmetic bags. ABAN not only teaches the girls the seamstress skills for this trade, but also provides them with shelter, an education, and a savings matching program upon the girls’ graduation. ABAN’s aim is not just to temporarily aid these girls, but to provide them with the life tools they need to end this cycle of poverty.
While we are at ABAN, we will spend our mornings building an outdoor bead center, which will hold the kiln (for the girls to fire their beads). In the afternoons, we will be working one on one with the girls, learning their stories and helping them grow. We’ll be doing a homestay with a man there named Dan, who works with ABAN, and will drive us there and back everyday.
I don’t know exactly what to expect on this trip, but I do know that I am excited beyond belief, and look forward to helping these women and this program grow, just as I am sure it will help all of us to grow.
See you soon, Ghana; I can’t wait to experience what you have in store for us!
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According to Dale Arnold, information is available, and knowledge is power.
Driving north from Columbus along State Route 23, Dale Arnold offers a reminder.
"John D. Rockefeller didn't make his money in Texas. He made it in northwest Ohio," said Arnold, Ohio Farm Bureau's director of energy policy.
He is on his way to meet with a group of landowners in Wyandot County after receiving calls from Farm Bureau members concerned about recent offers to drill for oil and gas on their properties.
For many here, this is something new. Oil and gas exploration had all but disappeared since the days of Rockefeller. But farmers are finding out that reserves still remain, and the companies are coming back to get what their predecessors left behind.
To get a sense of what's coming, Arnold said farmers can look to the east.
His advice: "You need to start asking questions."
Today, you may have to circle the Carrollton town square once or twice before finding a parking spot.
"It didn't used to be like that," said John Davis, president of the Carroll County Farm Bureau in eastern Ohio.
He walks through the courthouse pointing out tables set up in the hallways, makeshift workstations to accommodate people searching property records. Another room is filled with people thumbing through old books.
It all began a few years ago when locals started to notice strangers with southern drawls - oil and gas men out of Texas and Oklahoma. New technology was allowing drilling companies to explore for minerals in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations that lie deep under this part of the state. Soon, farmers were approached by landmen who were offering payouts in exchange for signing a drilling lease.
Ron Carlton, who owns a tree farm, saw things were going wrong. Some leases offered a small fraction of what the minerals were likely worth. Others tilted the terms completely in favor of oil and gas companies. One landowner might be offered $100 per acre while another would get 10 times that.
Carlton realized, "The best thing we could do to protect ourselves was protect our neighbors." He helped organize a group of property owners who could pool their acreage and strengthen their negotiating power.
"Probably the most meaningful thing we did for Carroll County was to bring in the competition," said Lynn Anderson, a landowner who has also been involved in group negotiations.
With a more competitive leasing process, payment offers started to increase.
"It was all about helping neighbor to neighbor to neighbor. We knew that in fact we'd be helping ourselves," Anderson said.
But keeping a group together wasn't easy. Some landowners needed the money sooner than others and were ready to jump at the first offer. The confidentiality of the negotiations left some wondering what, if anything, was being done on their behalf. All the while, landmen were tempting members to leave the group.
"What you need is good, solid community leaders," Carlton said.
In the end, the landowner group was able to negotiate higher bonus payments and royalty rates as well as leasing terms that protected themselves and the community. A surplus in funds, which group members had paid to cover administrative costs, was then donated to local charities.
While lease prices appear to have leveled off for now, signing bonuses had climbed as high as $5,800 per acre with royalties between 12 and 20 percent. Tens of millions of dollars were pouring into the county seemingly overnight.
Community in Transition
A few blocks down from the courthouse, Amy Rutledge, director of the Carroll County Convention and Visitors bureau, catches her breath before reflecting on what has happened to her small town. She's soon interrupted by the phone and it's not too long before she has to excuse herself for a visitor.
"All those wells going up, any way of getting a map of that?" the man asks.
Rutledge takes the increased activity in stride, but knows that it has only just begun. And community members are still sorting out just what lies ahead. She said many farmers in the area had scraped by their entire lives, and now some of them are trying to understand what it means to be a millionaire.
"They talk to their minister because they're not used to dealing with financial planners," she said.
New money will likely be reinvested in farms - an opportunity to build a new barn, pay down loans or to upgrade the tractor. But some may see an avenue to leave behind a risky business and a grueling work schedule, which could have impacts on the local farming infrastructure.
A Penn State University study recently found a correlation between an increase in drilling and a decline in dairy production.
"Agriculture plays important local economic, environmental and social roles, so it's important to understand the implications of Marcellus Shale development on farming," said Timothy Kelsey, professor of agricultural economics.
According to Rutledge, people have recognized that there will be challenges that come with the opportunities. For example, some community members will benefit more than others, meaning there could be social tensions. Home and apartment rental prices are expected to climb as more people come looking for work, putting pressure on low income residents. And in an area that has battled unemployment, there is now concern about the ability of local businesses to retain their skilled workers as more job opportunities open up.
"The hope is that all of the people who want a job can get a job, and that's going to happen," Rutledge said.
Not surprisingly, some who moved to Carroll County for its bucolic setting are bristling at the possibility of development.
On the other hand, local charities and nonprofits are thinking through ways to allow people to give, when few had the opportunity to give before. New businesses, such as equipment rental services, are coming to support the drilling industry. And there is more incentive for investment in infrastructure-from broadband and cell phone service to roads.
One thing is for certain, "They tell us it's going to look a lot different five years from now," Rutledge said.
Making the Most of It
Just outside of town, changes can already be seen at FFA Camp Muskingum. Todd Davis is the executive director of the camp, which provides young people with opportunities for recreation, leadership development and conservation education.
He walked through the wooded campgrounds showing off construction on a building that will accommodate teachers and chaperones. Farther up the hillside, a new nature center is being built. Standing in what now is a parking lot, Davis beams as he describes his vision for a lakeside meeting facility.
The camp, which is primarily self-funded, would not have been able to make these investments so quickly, Davis said, if it hadn't received a financial boost when it leased its adjacent farm for drilling.
"We got a good lease and that was the most important thing," Davis said of protecting the integrity of the camp.
Done safely and responsibly, Davis believes the oil and gas exploration can offer a real life lesson on how people can benefit from natural resources.
"If it's in your backyard, it's in your backyard," he said.
But those ideas are now being put to the test as drilling in the county gets underway.
When Keith Burgett's son showed him the map of the road that would cut through their pasture, he knew his prized shingle oak tree was likely gone.
The Carroll County veterinarian and cattle farmer had mentioned the sentimental value of the tree to Chesapeake Energy when he negotiated a lease agreement, but realized it stood directly in the path to the drilling site.
Burgett chuckled when he recently drove back toward the large gravel pad on his property. The tree was encircled with an orange construction fence, the road bending around it.
To him, it's just a simple example of how, once the lease terms were in place, the company has been willing to make every reasonable attempt to work with him.
"We're in a partnership with them, basically," he said.
That's not to say there haven't been problems. The project required large disturbances to his property. But they've worked through them, and overall, he says he's pleased.
"They treat us very well, from the supervisor down to the lowest guy on the totem pole," he said.
The company has shut down its equipment to let him move his cattle, put up barriers to protect his buildings and made a wide gravel lane, giving him a place to store round bales. His son, who has been involved with the Soil and Water Conservation District, said there have been no signs of erosion.
Burgett believes that with a partnership approach, the overall impact from drilling will be good for Carroll County. But like many others in this community, he is well aware of the need to prepare for the challenges that development will bring.
"There's two sides to all of it," he said.
Time to Ask
Back in northwest Ohio, it soon becomes clear what Ohio Farm Bureau's Arnold means when he tells landowners gathered in a Wyandot County meeting hall that they need to be engaged in community planning.
"Congratulations. Welcome aboard. I'm glad you're all here because you're now all part of that planning process," he said.
Already, there are stories of farmers here who have signed leases for just a few dollars per acre when the actual value could be in the hundreds or thousands of dollars.
"It all depends on what's under your feet," Arnold said.
Consulting an attorney is expensive, he said, but not having one could cost farmers more. And he cautioned against boilerplate leases that are only a few pages in length.
"Ask for a more detailed lease," he told them. "Demand it."
According to Arnold, information is available, and knowledge is power. Now is the time, he said, to think through your goals-as individuals, as families and as a community.
"You already have all of the answers," he said. "It's the questions we don't know."
Lawsuits show need to research property, study deeds and agreements
Lawsuits filed between landowners and Chesapeake Energy have shown the importance of landowners researching titles to their properties and paying attention to the language of deeds and lease agreements.
In a case filed by a landowner in Harrison County, the court was asked to determine if the language in a deed more than five decades old allowed Chesapeake to set up a horizontal drilling operation that would pull gas from neighboring properties that Chesapeake also holds under lease. The judge agreed with the landowner, ruling that the language in the deed only allows Chesapeake to use the surface of the property to extract minerals from that property, but not to use the surface to extract minerals from other leased properties.
In a case filed in federal court against landowners in Carroll and Columbiana Counties, Chesapeake is challenging landowners' assertions that a clause in their leases allows them to end the leases if they receive a better deal from another party that Chesapeake does not match.
The rights of landowners and oil and gas companies depend upon precise language found in leases and mineral rights reservations in deeds. Landowners can locate deeds and leases in their chain of title at the County Recorder's Office with the assistance of a title examiner or real estate attorney. Deeds and leases should then be taken to an oil and gas attorney for review.
Ohio Farm Bureau’s Dale Arnold has helped thousands learn options when considering oil and gas lease agreements.
Find an oil and gas leasing informational session near you.
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SEATTLE – May 29, 2012 – Swedish Cancer Institute (SCI) is set to open its new True Family Women’s Cancer Center to patients on Tuesday, June 5. Carefully designed with the female cancer patient in mind, the new 23,600-square-foot women’s cancer center gives Swedish Cancer Institute the ability to consolidate most of its services for treating women’s cancers into one facility. The new center acts as a treatment hub where women are guided through personalized and coordinated multidisciplinary treatment of their cancer, including disease-specific education and holistic support activities.
In 2009, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) created significant controversy and confusion for both providers and patients when they revised their breast screening guidelines. (The USPSTF is promoted as an unbiased group that reviews relevant studies and makes guideline recommendations. Specialists may be asked to review the guidelines but no breast specialists (surgeons or radiologists) were on the actual review panel.)
The guideline development process aims to weigh the potential benefit of services against the potential harm, and make recommendations accordingly. For breast screening, the harms considered were “psychological harms,” imaging tests and biopsies in women who were ultimately found not to have cancer, inconvenience, and the possibility of treating a cancer that might not have been life threatening. Radiation exposure was considered to be a minor concern. Regarding benefits – the only benefit considered was reduction in death rates from breast cancer.
These USPSTF guidelines recommend...
This week a large European consortium updated the data on a huge study on prostate cancer screening. The study included over 160,000 men in eight European countries followed for an average of 11 years. The men were randomly assigned to prostate cancer screening with the PSA blood test or no screening. The primary endpoint of the study was death from prostate cancer. The current report in the New England Journal of Medicine gave an additional two years of follow-up data over the prior reports.
As expected with longer follow-up, the benefits from screening have become more clear. The study now shows a 29% decrease in the number of men dying from prostate cancer in the screened group. This confirms the expected benefit for early detection.
This publication comes at a time of great controversy regarding prostate cancer screening here in the United States...
On Sunday, March 25, 2012, the Mercer Island Rotary Club will be hosting the 40th Annual Mercer Island Half Marathon. Children and adults of all ages participate and we anticipate more of the same this year. In addition to the half marathon race around the Island, there will also be a 10K Run, a 5K Run and Walk and a Kids’ Dash. So anyone can participate!
Swedish and the Swedish Cancer Institute are sponsors of this signature event. We are so excited to be part of this event again. One of the main purposes of the day is to raise awareness of colon cancer prevention.
In addition to the various runs and walks, you can still visit, have fun and maybe learn something new. You can also visit the “COLOSSAL COLON”! For the first time you get to walk through the colon and see what the inside looks like! Just don’t get lost in there. Don’t worry, it doesn’t smell!
This year will be particularly special as the 40th anniversary run. In honor of the anniversary, the Mercer Island Rotary Club has collected the “40 Faces of Colon Cancer”. This is a terrific idea. It’s a way to make colon cancer personal and real. Patients of all ages, races and backgrounds have agreed to share their personal stories and cancer experiences. Each story is unique as are the individuals with cancer. What they have in common is a passion to raise awareness of colon cancer and the need to get screened.
Colon cancer is unique among cancers in that nearly all can be prevented with appropriate screening.
If you're 50 (or nearing it), you should be thinking about getting your colonoscopy. Not a pleasant thought, but it's important for everyone to get screened at 50. If you don't know much about colonoscopies, why they are important, or have questions that you're too embarassed to ask, tune in to the livestream next Wednesday between 9 a.m. and noon (Pacific Time) at www.swedish.org/colonlive.
Drs. Raman Menon and Nicholas Procaccini are hosting a livestream to discuss the benefits of colonoscopy, and why it is important that everyone at age 50 get screened. Patients at risk and those with family members who have had colon cancer may need earlier screening. March is colon cancer awareness month – and Swedish is committed to identifying new ways of communicating to better inform and to provide a new level of education to the community.
You'll be able to watch them chat live, narrate recorded colonoscopy procedures, and answer your questions live (and you can submit them anonymously - so no need to feel embarassed).
What is colon cancer?
Colon, or colorectal, cancer is cancer that starts in the large intestine (colon) or the rectum (end of the colon). Other types of cancer that can affect the colon include lymphoma, carcinoid tumors, melanoma, and sarcomas. These are often rare but can often be detected by a colonoscopy.
What is a colonoscopy?
A colonoscopy is the endoscopic examination of the large bowel and the distal part of the small bowel with a CCD camera or a fiber optic camera on a flexible tube passed through the anus. By having a colonoscopy, doctors are able to see potential ulcerations or polyps within the colon. During the procedure, if these are found, doctors have the opportunity to biopsy or remove suspected lesions.
Why a livestream of a colonoscopy?
The American Cancer Society says that colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. However, if caught early it often leads to a complete cure. Education and awareness is our goal. Because of awareness, the death rate for colon cancer has dropped in the last 15 years ...
Colon cancer remains one of the most prevalent cancers in the US, affecting 1 in 18 Americans during an average lifetime. This year, more than 143,000 new cases and 51,000 deaths are expected (only lung cancer kills more women and men than colon cancer). Men and women are affected equally. Age is a major risk factor with dramatic increases in colon cancer after age 50. A family history of colon cancer is another major risk factor that accounts for approximately one third of all cases. A family history in a first degree relative (parent or sibling) portrays a lifetime risk of colon cancer of 10-33%.
Colon cancer for the most part is a preventable disease. Incidence and death rates have been declining for the past 20 years because of increased use of screening tests and better treatments. However, only about 6 in 10 adults are up to date on getting screened for colon cancer. Most colon cancers arise from a preexisting noncancerous growth referred to as an adenomatous polyp. The hallmark of colon cancer screening is to identify those individuals who form precancerous polyps, and to have them removed non-surgically through colonoscopy.
Colonoscopy is the gold standard for colon cancer screening because of its accuracy in identifying small cancers and polyps and, the ability to remove them in one outpatient procedure. Colonoscopy has been found to significantly reduce colon cancer deaths by greater than 50%. This number compares favorably with mammography for breast cancer in women.
Colonoscopy may be the most unloved cancer screening test ....
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College education still remains a bargain
Editorial in the December 8, 2006, issue of the Austin Business Journal.
Much has been said in the media lately about the cost of college tuition. But this cost needs to be put in perspective.
Try to put your 17-year-old up in an Embassy Suites hotel or any other moderately priced hotel for 240 nights a year - the length of an average year in college. You would pay about $24,000 for the year, and all you would get is a room, linen and maid service, and maybe a free continental breakfast. And even if you went to a budget motel, you’d still spend nearly $15,000.
What else would your son or daughter get for the hard-earned $24,000 you spent on a 240-day hotel stay? In a word, nothing. No senior professors or even graduate students to teach them. No science labs or libraries. No music instructors. No technology centers. No tutoring or other help when they can’t figure out calculus, write a coherent sentence, or parse a differential equation. No help with finding a job or career placement and training. No coaches, athletic trainers, or lush green recreational fields.
Then consider buying all of these things separately on top of the cost of your Embassy Suites room with continental breakfast, and you may begin to appreciate that a college education is quite a deal.
As you consider this proposition, think about what students, families, politicians, and the public demand of colleges and universities. They insist that senior professors teach undergraduates, and get upset when lower-paid graduate students are responsible for teaching. They want classes to be small, so students can get lots of personal attention from the senior professors they demand spend more time in classroom. And they want campuses to have state-of-the-art facilities and technologies. In other words, they desire - and insist on - the very things that make a college education more expensive, while at the same time complaining bitterly that it costs too much.
For a four-year investment of between $24,000 and $52,000 - depending on whether they attend a public or private university - students with a college education will earn more than $1 million more over their lifetimes than their friends who did not understand the value of higher education.
The numbers are worth considering carefully.
Jake B. Schrum is president of Southwestern University, a private liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas.
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Originally Posted by iPoster
Huh? That is the exact opposite of what I linked to.
Like I said, security from land attack is a concern. No reason to shut down all plants (and increase our reliance on foreign oil/US coal, plus emit more CO2). Plus those tests referred to are going on 10 years old, that PDF you linked to is from 2003. Hopefully security would have improved since then. (I don't have any handy data on that so I can't comment directly) How would the terrorists get the missile launchers into the country? Our security is still fairly loose, but not that loose.
How is security at your local water treatment plant? Many people don't realize that thousands of pounds (maybe cubic feet, not sure how it's measured in large quantities) of chlorine gas are stored at those facilities. The last Navy base I was stationed at had an evacuation plan for the possibility of the neighboring treatment plant suffering a massive gas leak. AFIK the adjoining town where we lived had no planning whatsoever, even though it had the potential depending on wind, etc. to kill everyone withing several miles of the facility.
My family and I live about 30-40 minutes from a nuclear plant. We are much more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the store than a one in a million (billion?) incident that somehow exceeds the design limits of the reactors. That doesn't mean I advocate getting rid of cars and trucks.
Chlorine gas was used as a chemical weapon by the Germans. I can't believe they'd have so much stored like that, amazing.
You said, "The only real security concern I have is some ground force occupying a plant and knowing enough to bypass the safety systems to cause a meltdown". Which is highly likely in my opinion and once they take control what's to stop them using whatever means at their disposal, like explosives to break through the containment wall?
Here's how a CNN piece described the security training in the face of a terrorists attack-
"They are training for an attacking force of five, when in reality they'd come in with at least 12," said Stockton, noting that they also don't allow the "terrorists" to use automatic weapons or high-powered explosives. "It's ridiculously unbelievable."
I live about thirty miles from a nuclear power station and UK security is even more lax than US security. So maybe they'll try attacking a few here first and see how they get on.
Uh oh.....70 times worse than Chernobyl...
"Terrorists targeting the high-density storage systems used at nuclear power plants throughout the nation could cause contamination problems "significantly worse than those from Chernobyl," the study found.
Strapped for long-term storage options, the nation's 103 nuclear power plants routinely pack four to five times the number of spent fuel rods into water-cooled tanks than the tanks were designed to hold, the authors reported. This high-density configuration is safe when cooled by water, but would likely cause a fire -- with catastrophic results -- if the cooling water leaked. The tanks could be ruptured by a hijacked jet or sabotage, the study contends.
The consequences of such a fire would be the release of a radiation plume that would contaminate eight to 70 times more land than the area affected by the 1986 accident in Chernobyl. The cost of such a disaster would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, the researchers reported."
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Look back as we leap forward
A planning commissioner with a vision, someone who is not afraid of making bold decisions and exudes passion for the city and its neighbourhoods.
The kind of vision that sees an abandoned, elevated rail line transformed into a striking urban park.
Better commuter times than Toronto (I’m still reeling).
It’s not like we aren’t trying. Spend some time exploring this city’s nooks and crannies and you stumble upon urban art installations and bike lanes alongside the train tracks. And there is a vision (albeit moving at a snail's pace) in the waterfront plans, in some community housing development and revitalization projects across the city.
But here’s something else we could take from the Big Apple: a museum that celebrates Toronto’s immigrant communities, and all that they have brought to the city.
Why not start with one little corner of the city.
In New York, it was the Lower East Side.
The Lower East Side Tenements Museum started when a historian and social activist decided she wanted to build a museum that honoured America’s immigrants. In 1988, she and her co-founder finally found what they were looking for… One of the original tenement buildings, those multiple family buildings that housed thousands of immigrant families from the mid-nineteenth century on.
Now, having restored six apartments to reflect the living conditions of six actual families, residing in the tenement at various points during those many years, the museum is a living history of immigration, a slice of time and cultures, all carefully told by guides with talent for telling their stories.
So my Idea of the Day is a celebration of Toronto’s immigrant history. And yes I recognize that we are all – with the exception of First Nation people – immigrants to this land. But let’s start somewhere. Perhaps a storefront on Spadina Avenue, once the centre of Jewish life in Toronto, the home of the garment district, Yiddish theatre, cinemas. The advent of Chinatown and the waves of new families, cultures and communities ever since. The smells and sounds of Kensington Market.
And it is true that the dreams of a Toronto museum have been lingering out there for years… so maybe this could be a first step, a little taste of what we are and what we will become. A celebration of something that we are proud of, a reminder of the good and the bad, the racism, the struggles, the triumphs.
Oh and since we are talking about museums, and thinking big ideas, spend a few moments checking out the virtual museum of Toronto. It’s a beautiful little thing.
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Deck Of Cards
- From: "catfish2006" <dhays003@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 16:27:16 -0500
A Deck of Cards
It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some
reason hadn't been heard. The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest
day of the week.
As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out
across his bunk.
Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with the rest
of the platoon?
The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with
The sergeant said, "Looks to me like you're going to play cards."
The soldier said, "No, sir. You see, since we are not allowed to have
Bibles or other spiritual books in this country,
I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."
The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"
"You see the Ace, Sergeant? It reminds me that there is only one God.
The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments.
The Three represents the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The Four stands for the Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Five is for the five virgins that were ten but only five of them were
The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and Earth.
The Seven is for the day God rested after making His Creation.
The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their
wives - the eight people God spared from the flood that destroyed the earth.
The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten,
but nine never thanked Him.
The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on
tablets made of stone.
The Jack is a reminder of Satan, one of God's first angels, but he got
kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the joker of
The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.
The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings.
When I count the dots on all the cards,
I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year.
There are a total of 52 cards in a deck; each is a week - 52 weeks in a
The four suits represent the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
Each suit has thirteen cards - there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter
So when I want to talk to God and thank Him,
I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have
to be thankful for"
The sergeant just stood there. After a minute, with tears in his eyes and
pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, may I borrow that deck of cards?"
Prayer for the Military Please keep the wheel rolling.
It will only take a few seconds of your time, but it'll be worth it to read
Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us.
Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in
our time of need. I ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our
servicemen and women all around the world.
There is nothing attached, but this can be very powerful.
Of all the gifts you could give a Soldier, prayer is the very best one.
Do not stop the wheel, please - just send this on.
- Re: Deck Of Cards
- From: Morton Davis
- Re: Deck Of Cards
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Today In History Today In History - May 26 26 May 2011 Helen Wigham ON this day in history......2004, A pair of Johnny Depp's pants raised £1,600 at an auction in the Oxford Playhouse, followed by a suit belonging to Jude Law, which sold for £2,000. Law was so thrilled by the price, he promptly offered his shirt too. "He went up on stage, took off his shirt in the wings, and that was auctioned too - for another £1,000," said one theatre-goer. The only disappointment was that Law returned to his seat wearing a borrowed T-shirt, thus preventing his fans from seeing more of him. ...2005, Gisele Bündchen impressed onlookers as she was seen hanging from a rope ladder in a black bikini and rising out of the sea mermaid-style on the Pirelli calendar shoot in the south of France. "Gisele is a stunning woman but she really took it to another level on this shoot," said one eyewitness. "Her figure looked amazing and everyone was impressed with her professionalism, even though she had to hang from rope ladders at one point."...2005, Usher denied he had ever dated supermodel Naomi Campbell. The pair were photographed together at a number of red carpet events, but in December 2004 it was reported that the relationship had gone sour because Campbell was tired of being bossed about by his extensive management team. "We were never a couple," Usher said. "We never dated. She just accompanied me to an event and is a great friend of mine who I think is a great person."
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The trial of three Birmingham men convicted Thursday of plotting to launch a "catastrophic" suicide bombing attack in the United Kingdom revealed that al Qaeda has developed a new strategy to target the West.
The new strategy involves a teacher-training approach in which a select few Western operatives are taught bombmaking and other aspects of terrorist tradecraft in the tribal areas of Pakistan and are then instructed to return back to the West to "spread the knowledge" to a larger body of Islamist extremists keen on launching attacks.
The new approach is a response to the growing toll of drone strikes which have made travel to the tribal areas increasingly perilous for Western recruits and significantly diminished al Qaeda's ability to orchestrate terrorist plots from the region.
The trial revealed that terrorist groups in Pakistan are actively dissuading Western militants from making the trip.
Two of those convicted Thursday -- Irfan Naseer and Irfan Khalid -- received 40 days of terrorist training in the tribal areas of Pakistan in the spring of 2011, mostly inside houses in the valleys of Waziristan.
In conversations bugged by British police, the plotters described being handled by al Qaeda operatives and having attended a training camp run by Harakat al Mujahideen, a Pakistani terrorist group closely affiliated with al Qaeda.
The recordings revealed that like other Western militants before them, they were provided detailed instruction in the tricky and potentially hazardous methods to make bombs out of substances readily available in the West, and practiced detonating them. Their instructors included Arabs and Pakistanis.
They also were taught how to put poisons in face creams.
And their teachers emphasized they should put nails inside their bombs, to act as razor-sharp shrapnel.
Naseer, a pharmacy major and the plot's alleged ringleader, was heard recalling how one of their trainers had said the July 7, 2005, London bombers had missed an opportunity to kill more people by failing to put nails in their devices.
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The US presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney found its way to
Tel Aviv this week, in a debate organized by The Jerusalem Post, along with
IVoteIsrael and the Association of Americans and Canadians in
Moderated by Post Editor-in-Chief Steve Linde, Monday night’s
debate at Beit Daniel in Tel Aviv highlighted some of the main concerns for the
room full of American Israelis.
On the Left side of the discussion table,
Hillel Schenker, representing Democrats Abroad Israel, praised Obama’s
dedication to Israel’s security and wellbeing, as well as his revival of US
standing in the international arena.
To the Right, Marc Zell,
representing Republicans Abroad Israel, was arguing that US international
standing has never been so low.
“Maybe the world didn’t like George Bush,
but they respected him,” he said. Zell said that if Romney will run the business
of America then “the economy has a fighting chance of getting back on its feet
and America’s standing in the eyes of the world will be able to lead around the
world and particularly in our region.”
Regarding Iran, Schenker said that
“Bush’s great achievement was to eliminate the Iraqi counterpoint to Iran, which
strengthened Iran’s situation tremendously in the region and in the world,”
creating the current crisis we have with Iran. Obama has set red lines, he said,
working towards preventing a nuclear Iran.
Zell, however, countered that
all Obama has done is try to talk to the ayatollahs, who in turn told him “to
take a walk. The person who has been working to prevent the nuclearization of
Iran,” he said, “is the prime minister of this tiny country
Zell said that Obama was avoiding the subject of Iran until it
became an issue in connection with his reelection.
Zell also gave away
that in his upcoming visit to Israel during his campaign, Romney would talk
about certain issues of interest including US recognition of Jerusalem as
Schenker was a little less promising, yet more
“Every presidential candidate can say whatever he wants as a
candidate about Jerusalem, but the fact is that when you are sitting in the
White House, you cannot declare that Jerusalem is the official capital until a
comprehensive peace agreement is achieved between Israel and its neighbors. This
is the reality,” Schenker said. “You have to work with both the Israelis and the
The series of political debates aims to encourage inform
Americans living in Israel to register to vote, and to better inform them about
their voting decisions for the upcoming US presidential elections on November
Another debate will be held Thursday, July 26, in Beit Shemesh at
Netach Menashe Beit Knesset at 8 p.m., moderated by Post political correspondent
Gil Hoffman. The debate will feature Zell and the counsel and past chairman of
Democrats Abroad Israel, Sheldon Schorer.
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I'm confused about Task execution using queues. I've read the documentation and I thought I understood bucket_size and rate, but when I send 20 Tasks to a queue set to 5/h, size 5, all 20 Tasks execute one after the other as quickly as possible, finishing in less than 1 minute.
deferred.defer(spam.cookEggs, egg_keys, _queue="tortoise") - name: tortoise rate: 5/h bucket_size: 5
What I want is whether I create 10 or 100 Tasks, I only want 5 of them to run per hour. So it would take 20 Tasks approximately 4 hours to complete. I want their execution spread out.
The problem was I assumed that when running locally, that Task execution rate rules were followed, but that is not the case. You cannot test execution rates locally. When I deployed to production, the rate and bucket size I had set executed as I expected.
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Raleigh, N.C. — The number of undocumented Hispanic/Latino immigrants has dropped by more than 1.5 million nationwide since August 2007, according to the national Center for Immigration Studies.
In North Carolina, the estimated decline in that period is around 140,000 of the estimated 380,000 illegal immigrants in the state.
Of that number, a little more than 3,000 immigrants were deported last year as part of the federal 287(g) immigration program, which allows local law enforcement agencies to identify illegal immigrants arrested on local charges.
But the driving force behind the decline, the Latino community says, is, in part, the souring national and state economies.
North Carolina's unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, but Latino advocates believe that number is significantly understated since illegal workers are not counted.
With limited jobs, primarily in construction, undocumented workers find themselves unemployed and with no money.
Qué Pasa, a statewide Spanish-language newspaper, first began reporting on what it calls "the immigrant exodus" more than a year ago.
"We find out the recession hit, first, the Hispanic market, the Latino market," said Alejandro Manrique, the newspaper's executive editor.
Local agents who sell bus tickets say they believe more people would like to return to their home countries, but they can't afford to so.
One woman, for example, has been in the United States for two years. She says she plans to return with her 1-year-old twins to her home in Mexico. She and her husband have been struggling to feed the children since he lost his construction job several months ago.
Her husband will most likely follow in a month or two, she says.
There are at least three bus companies that have daily routes from Raleigh to Mexico with about a dozen stops throughout the state.
While business is surging for them, other area businesses are seeing a drop in revenue.
Leonor Martinez, who owns a salon, says her shop is making half the profit it did a year ago.
"Today, I cut someone's hair, and they're leaving on Sunday," Martinez said. "It's been hard, but I don't want to give up."
Joel Lopez, who runs Mi Paisano, a grocery store in Cary that caters to a Latino clientele, believes he has to hold on long enough for the economy to rebound.
"As soon as it picks up, I think people will start migrating back," he said. "Migrant workers tend to go with the supply-and-demand of the work."
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social network for conservatives
Kassandra has not received any gifts yet
There are essentially two ways the federal government spends our money — Mandatory spending and Discretionary spending.
Think in terms of a business. In every business there are fixed expenses (e.g. building lease) and variable expenses (e.g. cost of goods). Consider the government’s fixed expenses “mandatory” and the variable expenses “discretionary.”
Mandatory programs are payments the government is forced by law to pay annually. These include…Continue
As a child, I used to play the board game of Monopoly. I still vividly remember the excitement of a “Get out of Jail Free” card and the royal blue of Boardwalk and Park Place. My brothers would be angered when I’d loft off to using the pink pastel colored dollars for other, imaginary scenarios in make-believe businesses. Who knew at a young age, I’d be an energetic entrepreneur, only my lessons of business and true capitalism would come from something other than playing monopoly with…Continue
The topic of oil is an old one, but is becoming more popular in conversations in Congress and across the U.S. It is virtually impossible to read articles about the state of the economy and not hear about oil, jobs, energy, and North Dakota. Oil producing states are featured in the news because of their positive growth in jobs and revenue. Through oil and energy production, states like North Dakota and Texas lead the nation in job creation and fiscal…Continue
How do you feel when you think of the word “bureaucracy?” I did an experiment and wrote down all the adjectives I could think of when I thought about bureaucrats and bureaucracy. Stop for a moment and do this yourself. What were your results? All negative?
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One-on-one with Jeremy Haefner
Photo by A. Sue Weisler
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Jeremy Haefner, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, provides insights into RIT’s aspiration to become an “Innovation University” during an interview with University News Director Paul Stella.
Question: You have identified “Innovation” as one of the university’s priorities. How is that being addressed in changes to RIT’s curriculum?
Answer: Innovation and creativity are integrated into our mission, vision and strategic plan, so my hope is to align our curriculum in support of realizing RIT as an innovation university. To understand how a full integration of innovation into our curriculum might impact our university, it helps if we break this notion down into three central components. First, we must strive to graduate students who understand how innovation takes place and are enthusiastic to innovate. These “innovation receptive” students share a T-shaped perspective. The vertical portion of the “T” represents a depth in field–this is the expertise developed in a particular discipline that results in a level of confidence necessary to innovate and be creative. But equally important is the horizontal breadth of knowledge that we give our students. This leads to awareness and intelligence required for collaborative activity that crosses disciplines and encourages teamwork among a range of peers. Next, we must ask the faculty to embed innovation into each program, and the upcoming semester conversion provides us that opportunity. We are all proud of the fact that last spring the Academic Senate voted to include innovation and creativity into the learning outcomes of our general education. In March, we began a process of developing the RIT Academic Program Profile, which is an organic document that captures the core characteristics we want all our programs to imbue. This profile is critical in redesigning our programs to include innovation and creativity. And, finally, we have to unleash the spirit of innovation. Our students are clamoring for that, and often the rigidity of our academic structure stands in their way. We must allow students to bring forth their ideas and then provide them the freedom necessary to bring those ideas to life.
Q: How has the Center for Student Innovation enhanced students’ learning opportunities?
A: The Center for Student Innovation has raised awareness to the opportunities for innovative activity here on campus. For example, last fall, RIT’s first-year students were provided access to the center through the First Year Enrichment program. Students toured the facility and were even challenged to help improve a project already in progress. In addition, CSI serves as a pipeline to RIT’s Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, further enhancing the level of resources available to students looking to engage in this type of activity. Ultimately, it is my hope that CSI becomes the venue for a senior capstone initiative. Student teams, made up of individuals from every one of our colleges, would collaborate on projects with broad societal implications. Some may even offer the potential for commercialization. I look forward to the day when a group of students from a variety of disciplines walks through the CSI doors with a novel idea for the next generation Google and makes it happen.
Q: In what ways has the faculty advanced RIT’s innovation agenda?
A: Our own faculty members are innovators and artists themselves. But they do more than their own innovation—they in fact mentor our students to become innovators themselves. They are enablers for our students and, through the ways they organize the teaching and learning process, the students develop their skills and confidence to create. We see this in abundance during the Imagine RIT festival. Any time you have faculty working alongside students, you have grassroots leadership that enhances the overall drive for innovation. In addition, faculty members serve as the primary drivers for moving our innovation curriculum forward. How they design the curriculum to encourage innovation will be critical, and I am excited to see how our faculty will make this happen.
Q: Is inclusiveness an important aspect of innovation?
A: The key to innovation is that it must be inclusive. The more ideas and potential solutions are brought to the table, the greater potential you have for achieving success. That’s why we are focused on creating a multi-perspective environment as part of our innovation curriculum. Collaboration between students from various disciplines is critical, but so is the opportunity to incorporate the perspectives of individuals from differing backgrounds. This helps to ensure the greatest impact.
Q: How will these changes better prepare students for success beyond RIT?
A: If we prepare students for the T-shaped profile I have described, they will enjoy the confidence that comes from the in-depth knowledge gained from studies within their chosen field. But we also provide them with a breadth of awareness that is gained by exploring areas outside of their major and by collaborating with peers representing a wide range of disciplines. This serves as a recipe for success in the 21st century. The confidence of their skills and the awareness of the world around them will make our graduates ”innovation receptive.” With these characteristics, our students will do great things.
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Photos: Meet the Eisenhower Tunnel crew trying to prevent you from getting stuck in gridlock
As part of this week's feature, "Rocky Mountain High," we went inside the control room of the Eisenhower Tunnel, the world's highest vehicular tunnel, which famously crosses the Continental Divide. More than 300 million cars have passed through since 1973, and the rate today is twice what is was thirty years ago. But detailed traffic counts show that in recent years, there has actually been a slight decline in cars.
Big photos below.
The 1.7-mile tunnel on I-70 -- located sixty miles west of Denver at 11,155 feet above sea level -- saw a record high of 11,735,362 vehicles in 2009. That number dropped to 11,391,704 in 2010 and to 10,760,470 in 2011. The total from last year is actually lower than the total in 2005 (see counts for the past ten years below).
"We started wondering about it," says John Wilson, a tunnel supervisor for sixteen years. "Our biggest months are in the summer and those have been lower a little bit."
Sam Levin Rod Henderson, senior maintenance supervisor, in the control room.
The Colorado Department of Transportation's first guess was that fewer people were skiing or vacationing in the mountains because of the recession. But when traffic counts continued to decline even as the economy recovered slightly, their answer became more complicated.
"The resorts are still getting good bookings, but the number of cars is going down," Wilson says. "That indicates carpooling."
Mike Salamon, a superintendent at the tunnel, adds, "Prior...it was just a steady increase of about 3 percent. I think [it's] due to fuel costs and the economy, and I think we're seeing in the wintertime a little bit more carpooling."
While the numbers have dropped a bit, that doesn't make the job maintaining the tunnel and monitoring thirty large screens any easier for the fifty employees who rotate through on a 24/7 basis. The tunnel and the one-acre attached control room are cut off from emergency services in either direction. That means the tunnel must be self-sufficient in many respects. It has its own water treatment facility and fire emergency equipment.
"We still have the same challenges," Wilson says.
Page down to see more photos from inside the control room and more traffic count data.
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Are Adirondack Grass-roots Efforts Dead?
October 8, 2012 - Ernest Hohmeyer
When I was a youngster parading around the Adirondack economic development world, I heard a lot about “please bring back big industry that once ruled the Park.” Everything was big in the 80s: big cars, bigger houses and large corporate businesses.
We may not realize it, but we are really caught up in the language of the day. How we speak now about economic development today is totally different in how we thought about it then.
Big was Better
Much of what we thought about centered on “big” and “expansion.” Corporate America and manufacturing ruled the day. Industrial recruitment was very “top down.” In other words, when a big company made up its mind they wanted to come to your community, well, you better get out of the way.
It was this world of “bigness” and fear of it that was one backdrop when the Adirondack Park Agency Act was created in the 70s. There was a concern that large companies and projects would overpower our small communities. In typical “top-down” thinking of the day, it was decided to implement a safety net to preserve the Park. And the battle was perhaps fought just as much on the grounds of how the APA came about, than what it was supposed to do. It didn’t help matters, that this paranoia of the Park being overrun by large industry led to a sometimes fiery and overzealous environmental leadership.
Corporate America and big business by themselves could not revitalize the Park’s economy.
Now you youngsters need to remember this was before the days of “entrepreneurship,” “small business,” and “sustainability.”
Then & Now
I remember going to a community meeting in a small Adirondack town back in those days and suggesting we create a strategy of “growing businesses two jobs at a time.” I was nearly bodily thrown out of this meeting. With longer hair and of younger stature, I could hear the rumblings of being one of those “liberals.” This is ironic to me now as with balding head and mid-life features, my kids in particular, have never used that term on me. In fact they think I am the world’s biggest “conservative.” I wonder if this has something to do with my policy of when they can take the car.
So as the 80s evolved into the 90s and the 21st century dawned, the world of “bottom-up” economic development was born. Developing “community economic plans,” “micro-enterprise” programs and “grassroots” development began. Small business led America’s recovery, in particular those companies with less than 20 employees. With that realistic focus, our Adirondack communities believed they now had a shot at real economic revitalization and were told by many of us “that communities were the drivers.” They could indeed establish the framework of their own destiny and state and federal support would follow. Adirondack community visions were transformed from focusing on “big” industry to “small business.” Tourism, once the orphaned child of our economy is now being looked at as a “transformational” industry to revitalize our Adirondack future. Indeed, there has been much success in this effort but ultimately not enough to reverse our economic plight.
Grass-roots Efforts in Decline?
Just as the days of “top-down industrial recruitment” as the only game in town are over, I wonder if grassroots, community-based economic development are finished as well.
In terms of grassroots economic development, did it really create success all by itself? Or were the most successful local efforts really made up of a partnership of county, regional, state and sometimes even federal stakeholders?
There may be 3 other factors which may be causing the decline of “grass-roots” economic development:
The Internet Everything about today’s world is about complete information that is fast and responsive. Can our local, largely volunteer efforts adequately respond to this new reality?
Further, the internet does not favor one geographic location over the other. It is not about local personalities. It is about information.
Today, economic development is moving into a new world. Yes, it is still a world of one site over the other and who has the better incentives. But these are increasingly becoming the same from community to community especially in the North Country. What is becoming more important is a “communities energy,” momentum and “quality of life.”
Is it Working?
While there has been some success, by and large community grass-roots efforts and on the other-hand our counties industrial recruitment approaches in the Park have not created the impacts we would have liked.
Can we join them?
In order to be successful in economic development do we need to stop thinking about physical locations, this site over that one and one community versus the other?
Do we need to get off our community high horse that we are king of the “grass-roots” economic development strategy, that no one can represent us better than ourselves? That other governments are the evil descendants of old efforts of trying to steal your industry?
On the other hand, do county governments, need to stop thinking they cannot get involved with “community development or grass-roots campaigns? After all, their geographic area is too large and they too have limited resources.
Or can they?
Information & Expertise
As the internet tears down these geographic barriers and personalizes information, savvy companies looking to locate here can learn more about your community than we know about it.
And an internet search will not prioritize a village over a town, it will be ruthlessly objective in ranking what a company is looking for.
And this information is far more than business data and is increasingly about personal and family preferences. The smaller the company, the more it is based on subjective features important to the entrepreneur’s personality.
Can we do this in our current world of volunteer local efforts? Are we filled with too many redundant efforts, perspectives and not enough effort in slaying the real beast - and that is information?
Do we really need all of these IDA’s, LDC’s and economic development groups or do we need coordinated “economic information response teams”?
A New Economic Development Approach?
Should we pursue an economic development agenda of bringing all of us together - to use the best of what each of us have to offer? Can that be organized in a way that is not based on separate and competing grass roots efforts but part of a regional coordinated strategy? Can we create a seamless approach among various municipalities and economic development groups that shares one information platform?
Can we be a model for the new "information based economic development world"? Can this model pool the resources of our many fine economic development groups and communities into a coordinated powerhouse mainframe of information? “Welcome to the Adirondack “Hub” of economic development opportunities.”
Economic Development Connectivity
The internet can level the playing field for small communities. If we can harness our individual assets, be focused in a strategic plan and be responsive, we can compete with larger areas. This is one case where the sum of our beautiful parts can turn us into an economic development “hub.”
In business it is all about linking. In the new world of recruitment, it may be about pursuing together, a similar policy of economic development connectivity.
Next week we will talk about one idea to try this out.
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The Friends of Nancy Steinbeck Expect to Release New Book: Passion Blew!
BISAC: Literary Criticism / American / General
It (Writer Beware™) purports that it “shines a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls.” Selectively? Maybe? Sure, until the scam strikes at home base.In 2007 it did; and, it’s a SCAM of EPIC proportions. It involves the estate of Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck (i.e. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) . . . yes, that Steinbeck. Huge? We think so. Was the failure of Writer Beware™ to report this scam an oversight or a case where they just turned their heads and looked the other way?What did this scam involve? In principle, it’s the kind of material that Writer Beware™ built its foundation on. Exposing scams that are relative to: 1) engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation; 2) breaching fiduciary duties to a client; 3) obtaining an unreasonable fee; and 4) engaging in conduct which tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute. These are the types of claims that spawned Writer Beware™ and its own version of their boycotts; otherwise known as their “Thumbs Down” lists. It’s time for the “bright light” to shine into the “dark corners of the shadow-world” of Victoria Strauss, Ann “A.C.” Crispin, Writer Beware™ and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers (SFWA). There’s one name we will not see on any Writer Beware ™ list and we’ll let you decide exactly why that happened.He represented “people who claimed they were defrauded.” He also goes by “Jaws” on some of the infamous writer and author awareness blogs. He was also known as the “Authors Lawyer.” His ties to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers (SFWA), Writer Beware™, Ann “A.C.”Crispin and Victoria Strauss are well documented; he worked “closely” with them and had frequent correspondence with Teresa Nielsen-Hayden. He called Victoria Strauss a “colleague.” Who was this highly lauded “scamhunter”? Charles Emil Petit. Also known as Charles E. Petit, Charlie Petit and/or C.E. Petit. AKA “Jaws.”Charles E. Petit is also believed to be an Absolute Write contributor and frequent commenter on Writer Beware ™. Confidential sources indicated to The Write Agenda that, at one time, all complaints and “cease & desist” letters regarding Writer Beware™ were to be directed to Charles E. Petit. On information and belief, it appears that he did accept service of process for several defendants in the Bauer vs. Glatzer in 2007. Petit never actually represented any of the defendants. He couldn’t because he’s not licensed in New Jersey. He did accept service and then referred the case to local New Jersey attorneys. He was subjected to disciplinary action, by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, after a complaint was filed by Nancy Steinbeck who was the former wife of John Steinbeck IV, the son of author John Steinbeck.
As of this writing, Charles E. Petit has not made any effort at restitution or returning the fees that he collected from Nancy Steinbeck.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
• Your purchase of this book has helped. Through The Friends of Nancy Steinbeck, proceeds from the sales of this book will be given to Nancy Steinbeck. Please refer it to your friends and family.
• Purchase Nancy Steinbeck’s book: The Other Side of Eden: Life With John Steinbeck. Available on Amazon.
• Boycott all of the books of authors Victoria Strauss, Ann “A.C.” Crispin and John Scalzi. Strauss and Crispin are the principals of Writer Beware™ which is sponsored by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). John Scalzi is the current President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).
• Contact Charles E. Petit, who now goes by C.E. Petit, on his blog site at http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com and request that he take the steps necessary to make restitution to Nancy Steinbeck.
The Friends of Nancy Steinbeck
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A debate has raged for years over whether to oust the seals from Children's Pool beach so it can be used by families in La Jolla.
Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofmann ordered the city to begin removing the seals by Thursday. The governor then signed legislation that allows the City Council to decide the seals' fate — starting Jan. 1.
A pro-seal lawyer is seeking an injunction to stop the dispersal, given the likelihood that the council will side with the seals.
The Children's Pool beach in La Jolla will likely attract hundreds of activists, police and onlookers this week if the city follows through on a judge's order to begin removing seals by Thursday morning.
The cove is a familiar site for standoffs between supporters of the longtime seal squatters and those who say the beach belongs to children.
Superior Court Judge Yuri Hofmann, who has had little patience with city attorneys in the case, yesterday ordered the city to start dispersing the seals within 72 hours and threatened heavy fines for each day the city fails to comply.
A federal court may intervene, given that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation yesterday that would grant the San Diego City Council final say over the fate of the Children's Pool starting Jan. 1.
The council leans in favor of letting the seals stay, but the city drafted a $689,000 dispersal plan under court order. A contractor would carry a public-address system emitting barking-dog noises to scare off the seals, and there would be police along to protect the contract workers.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said the city would follow the order by dispersing the seals “as humanely as possible” and in accordance with the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
“I urge the passionate activists on both sides of this issue to behave peacefully and to cooperate with law enforcement officers who will be on site during dispersal activities,” Sanders said in a statement before the governor signed the bill.
As city officials moved ahead, the chances improved throughout the day that they might not have to tackle what would likely be a public-relations nightmare.
Bryan Pease, a lawyer trying to maintain the seal colony, asked a federal appeals court yesterday for an emergency injunction that would stop the city from taking immediate action.
The injunction's chances were bolstered hours later by Schwarzenegger's decision to sign the Children's Pool legislation co-sponsored by state Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, and Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego. The council is expected to turn the area into a seal sanctuary.
Kehoe said she hopes the legislation will give the city more ammunition if it appeals Hofmann's decision.
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13. The Angels Also are Evangelists.
Now if there are those among men who are honoured with the ministry of evangelists, and if Jesus Himself brings tidings of good things, and preaches the Gospel to the poor, surely those messengers who were made spirits by God, 4518 those who are a flame of fire, ministers of the Father of all, cannot have been excluded from being evangelists also. Hence an angel standing over the shepherds made a bright light to shine round about them, and said: 4519 “Fear not; behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you, this day, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David.” And at a time when there was no knowledge among men of the mystery of the Gospel, those who were greater than men and inhabitants of heaven, the army of God, praised God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.” 4520 And having said this, the angels go away from the shepherds into heaven, leaving us to gather how the joy preached to us through the birth of Jesus Christ is glory in the highest to God; they humbled themselves even to the ground, and then returned to their place of rest, to glorify God in the highest through Jesus Christ. But the angels also wonder at the peace which is to be brought about on account of Jesus on the earth, that seat of war, on which Lucifer, star of the morning, fell from heaven, to be warred against and destroyed by Jesus.
Ps. civ. 4.304:4519
Luke 2:10, 11.304:4520
Origen, however, appears also to have read ἐυδοκιας: “among men of good will.”
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From the “Not really surprising” file… Returning soldiers and military veterans don’t really hold much hope or trust in the military to help them with their mental health needs — especially suicidal thoughts — according to a new report.
And why would they? The military is their employer. Would you feel comfortable talking to your bosses about all of your mental health issues? And not just mild stuff either, this is the serious depression, “I want to kill myself” stuff.
Most of us would be extremely uncomfortable with such a conversation. We would be even more uncomfortable with such a conversation knowing it is being recorded in our work record, and will follow us around for the rest of our professional career.
This is exactly what happens to soldiers and officers in the U.S. military.
Read on to see the preliminary results of the report…
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SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) More than a dozen wildfires that have burned in Utah this summer were sparked by people out target shooting in the wilderness. But that outdoor shooting may become a restricted activity in several areas in Utah.
On Monday, Governor Gary Herbert announced that the state had the power to put restrictions in place on public lands. Governor Herbert said after studying the legality of the issue the state was empowering State Forester Dick Buehler to set up restrictions. Gun owners we spoke to have mixed feelings about restrictions. Freddy Cordova says "I guess we are all going to be punished for the mistakes of a few."
Cordova, an Army veteran, says any restriction on outdoor shooting is just that - a restriction.
"I think you're punishing the masses by the mistakes and the lack of responsibility of a few." He understands why the state of Utah wants to ban outdoor shooting in some places, but he says the real problem isn't the gun – it’s the gun owner who isn't paying attention."You should be aware of your surroundings at all times. It’s one of the basic principles of firing a weapon."
We caught up with Richard Wyatt right after a gun range session at Doug’s Sport and Shoot on Redwood Road. He's worried about outdoor shooting as well. "I love to shoot as much as the next guy, but ultimately I don't want to start a fire somewhere out in the middle of nowhere."
He blames a few for causing all the problems, but he also believes with current weather conditions it’s time for a break. "You kind of have to have some commonsense and say, look its really dry out here, everybody needs to take it easy for a little bit."
Based on the state’s announcement we know the practice of wilderness target shooting throughout Utah will be limited. Right now, we just don’t know where.
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Maggie Changes HFH’s Direction A couple of weeks ago I attended a Horse Abuse Investigator’s Workshop, held by the Humane Society of the United States. The workshop was held ...Full Article
Update Dec 2012 Hundreds of horses pass through the gates of Habitat for Horses in any given year, each of them holding a special story and each deserving the ...Full Article
Saying goodbye to Rooster Some horses are people horses. They never do well in herds, don’t have any desire to stand side by side with another horse and had ...Full Article
There are times when I have to restrain myself, when it takes everything I have to stay within the limits of the law. Pulling up to a pasture this ...Full Article
Amigo Amigo must have been an incredible horse. A dun with a long, black mane and tail, black feet and the dark line down his back. He stood tall ...Full Article
Nicole finds love “There’s something about kids and horses,” is an often heard statement in the horse world. Kids and innocence, kids and hope, kids and the belief in ...Full Article
Scooby, the Mystery Horse Scooby walked up to someone’s house during one of the most rainy periods we’ve seen in this area. He was soaked, his hair was a ...Full Article
Shadow, September 8, 2001 Shadow came to us September 8th. She spent the last 17 days at the county pens, as required by law, waiting for her owner to ...Full Article
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Partnerships between Northside ISD, businesses and the community are designed to be mutually beneficial, customized to meet partner and campus needs, and increasingly meaningful as long-term relationships are developed. Become a partner today by filling out the partnerships application.
The Northside ISD School-Business-Community Partnerships Department seeks to engage businesses, community groups, parents and schools to create winning partnerships in order to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to make positive lifelong personal, social, academic and career choices. While not unique in San Antonio or the state, Northside is the only district within the San Antonio area where the Partnerships Director is part of the Superintendent's management team, or cabinet.
Northside Education Foundation
The Northside Education Foundation is an independent non-profit corporation promoting quality education within Northside ISD. The Foundation's mission is to foster community involvement in innovative educational programs by generating and disbursing funds and other resources to provide enrichment for Northside students.
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Western History & Genealogy Blog
Reply to comment
Of recent note is our acquisition of the Rocky Mountain Women's Institute records. RMWI was founded in 1976 by Peggy McIntosh and Nancy K. Hill, who sought an outlet that would offer financial support and community building to women in the arts. The organization persisted until 2009, when a lack of funding and space forced it to close its doors. The records of the RMWI are now a permanent part of our Archives Collection, and include administrative records, promotional materials, slides and photographs, and samples of projects. The collection is open to any and all interested researchers!
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Originally a little fishing town, Shanghai is today, with around 20 million inhabitants, one of the most influential metropolis in Eastern Asia. Not only is Shanghai the largest business and trade center in mainland China, but the city is also on the cutting edge in the areas of technology and science.
The city’s architecture is an interesting mix of western (skyscrapers) and Chinese (Shikumen) influences, that blend in to offer its visitors a unique feeling.
Shanghai features several national museums as well as many interesting attractions. Don’t forget to visit the Bund and the City God Temple as well as the Oriental Pearl Tower (468 m / 1,535 feet high) and make sure you experience one of the city’s main attractions : shopping !
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Diary of a Country Priest
A young priest arrives in the rural hamlet of Ambricourt in northern France to attend to his first parish. Confronted with an indifferent and often hostile congregation, he's thrown into a crisis of faith that plays out on the pages of his private journal. As he commits himself to overcoming the villagers' apathy at all costs, he pursues an ascetic life sustained by a diet of bread, sweetened wine and contemplation. Writer/director Robert Bresson also strips away the inessential. The film's restraint—low-key performances, elliptical edits, unobtrusive compositions, piercing long takes—intensifies the spiritual journey of a man approaching sainthood. Bresson's fourth film brought the director international acclaim cemented his stature as France's preeminent postwar auteur and influenced directors as disparate as Martin Scorsese, Olivier Assayas, Kathryn Bigelow and Pedro Costa. (Travis Bickle, the eponymous Taxi Driver, was inspired by Bresson's introverted priest.) Pauline Kael praised Bresson's film as "One of the most profound emotional experiences in the history of film. No other director, with the possible exception of Dreyer with The Passion of Joan of Arc, has come so close to communicating a religious experience."
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors (62+), students with valid ID. | New 35mm print!
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In addition to our AS/A Level Sport and PE course we offer both Level 2 Sport (Diploma) and Level 3 Sport (Diploma). These courses are equivalent to four GCSEs (Level 2) and two A Levels (Level 3). We also offer an Extended Diploma which is equivalent to three A Levels.
Our sport programmes cater for a wide range of abilities and attitudes. The Sports Academy is for students who are serious about sport and have a talent for football or netball. The opportunity to compete in local, regional and national competitions is provided by our affiliation to the British Colleges Sport network of competitions. Within the College day there are numerous opportunities to get involved in team practices or recreational sport. Our Sports Leaders courses are ideal for those who want to work with children in a sporting environment.
Sport has its own Twitter account. Follow us... @StMarysSportDep
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The Bank of England will defy expectations and raise interest rates next year on the back of a solid recovery and rising inflation, senior economists have warned.
Although still in the minority, a handful of leading experts believe the Bank will come under pressure to raise rates towards the end of 2013 18 months earlier than markets are predicting.
Simon Ward, chief UK economist at Henderson Global Investors, said rates will rise from their current record low of 0.5pc to 1pc in the second half of the year.
Andrew Lilico, at Europe Economics, said he hopes “we finally get a rise”, and Andrew Sentance, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee, said that inflation should be brought more firmly under control and interest rate rises should be “on the agenda”.
Mr Ward has a track record of correctly predicting interest rate increases, even when it is against consensus opinion. In January 2007, he was the only one of 50 economists who successfully predicted the Bank would lift rates from 5pc to 5.25pc.
More recently, in June, he said the Bank would restart quantitative easing. That month, the vote narrowly went against more QE, but an extra £50bn was announced in July.
Asked via email for his prediction for interest rates for the end of 2013, Mr Ward said 1pc.
A rate rise would be likely to hurt mortgage holders, many of whom are on variable-rate deals that would suffer an immediate increase in costs. According to Financial Services Authority data, 72pc of mortgages are currently on variable rates, compared with just 47pc in 2007.
A recent survey for the Bank by NMG Consulting found that more than 40pc of households are concerned about debt levels and more than a fifth are struggling to make repayments, even with interest rates at historic lows of 0.5pc.
Despite his rate rise forecast, Mr Ward said the housing market would improve next year due to an increase in mortgage availability helped by the Bank’s Funding for Lending scheme . Prices will rally 3pc, he said, in line with inflation. In real terms, that would mean house prices stagnating.
Inflation will remain stubbornly high, as a result of escalating food and energy prices, and the Governor will have to write another letter of explanation to the Chancellor, Mr Ward said. He expects better growth than the official 1.2pc forecast in 2013, predicting a 2pc rise as consumer spending, business investment and exports all improve.
Mr Lilico was less optimistic about house prices next year, forecasting a 5pc fall “in real terms” after inflation. And, although he said a rate rise would be necessary, he was not convinced the Bank will follow through. “Let’s hope we do finally get a rise, but it’s not guaranteed,” he said. “They seem to have abandoned all orthodox theory about interest rate setting.”
Interest rate policy could change dramatically next year after Mark Carney takes over as Governor at the Bank , Mr Ward warned.
Mr Sentance writes in the Sunday Telegraph: “If inflation remains stubbornly high, as I expect, action to gradually raise interest rates and withdraw monetary stimulus should be on the MPC (KOSDAQ: 050540.KQ - news) agenda next year.
“This would help curb some of the underlying sources of our inflation problem supporting the pound and giving a clearer signal to businesses that their ability to pass through price increases will be limited.”
Danny Gabay, at Fathom Consulting, expects the Government to change the 2pc inflation target to a dual mandate or nominal GDP target.
To make a big statement about growth, he expects Mr Carney to vote to cut rates to 0.25pc and add another £200bn of QE.
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Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is clear on the first step to avoiding the fiscal cliff — extend tax cuts for the middle class which would help nearly all Ohio taxpayers.
On Wednesday, Brown called on House Speaker John Boehner to schedule a vote as soon as possible on the Middle Class Tax Cut Act — legislation which already passed the Senate in a bipartisan vote in July and that would extend middle class tax cuts for the 99 percent of Ohio families making less than $250,000 per year.
The legislation also extends other tax provisions critical to the middle class — the American Opportunity Tax Credit, the expanded Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit — that help families afford college, cover their bills and provide for
“You don’t fix fiscal problems on the back of seniors, you don’t fix fiscal problems on the back of working families and we have to keep a focus on jobs,” Brown said as the fiscal cliff would increase taxes on all Americans and make cuts to programs across the board, which starts Jan. 1. “When it comes balancing the budget, I have been there and I have co-sponsored three balanced budget amendments while serving in the House.”
In an earlier story, Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman said he opposes raising taxes, but he does not want to raise them on any Americans since maintaining lower income taxes would likely create more jobs and spur the economy.
He said he wants to avoid the fiscal cliff and would like to do so by passing a temporary spending bill and then reform the tax code, regulations and entitlement programs.
During Wednesday’s media teleconference, Brown cited the income tax rates on the wealthiest Americans were higher under President Bill Clinton, which is when the economy was bullish and the United States used the money to pay off its debt and created a surplus. This disappeared under President George Bush.
The tax cut bill supported by Brown would cut the deficit by more than $800 billion by requiring millionaires and billionaires to contribute a fair share.
“I find it unconscionable the leader of the House is threatening to raise taxes on 98 percent of Americans unless House Republicans get for the wealthiest Americans tax cuts we couldn’t afford in the first place back in 2001 and 2003,” Brown said. “Much of our budget problems date from those two tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and it is unacceptable that inaction here would force median-income Ohio family to have their taxes increase by $2,200 by the end of next year.”
If Congress fails to act, Brown noted middle class Americans will likely be forced to cut their spending in other areas which will reduce the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) by 1 1/2 points.
“It’s critical that we prevent the economy from falling back into a recession,” Brown said. “By extending tax cuts for all but the top 1 percent of Ohioans, we will ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share while still investing in critical federal efforts that create jobs and promote economic development. After all, the budget deficit is also a jobs challenge — there are millions of unemployed Americans who would rather be paying taxes than collecting unemployment insurance.”
He said the bill would ask the 1 or 2 percent of Americans who make in excess of $250,000 to pay an amount that they paid in taxes during the Clinton years. Today, the wealthiest Americans pay income tax at a 35 percent rate compared to 39.6 percent they paid during the Clinton terms.
Brown explained they would still realize a tax cut on the first $250,000, and they would only pay a higher rate on the amount that exceeds that amount.
The Congressman blamed the current federal fiscal problem on the Bush tax cuts, which cost the federal budget $6.3 trillion in lost revenues because they were not offset by any new form of revenue. He also blamed the $16 trillon debt on two wars, which there was no plans developed on how to pay for them. He also said there was a giveaway to drug companies.
“We must pursue a balanced approach to reduce our deficit that builds on the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years that we’ve already made in one bill alone,” Brown said. “Most Ohioans believe that we should reduce the deficit by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay the same tax rates they did during the Clinton years, when we added 21 million jobs.
“The House of Representatives should vote on the Senate-passed bill that would prevent taxes from increasing for 99 percent of Ohioans,” he said. “It’s time for Speaker Boehner to stop holding hostage tax cuts for 99 percent of Ohioans.”
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Thu November 8, 2012
Syrian Opposition Movement Hampered By Fractures
Originally published on Thu November 8, 2012 5:02 pm
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now to efforts aimed at restructuring the Syrian opposition. The main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, is increasingly seen as ineffective, so people trying to bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad are meeting right now in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. NPR's Kelly McEvers is there and as she reports, the goal is to give the opposition more credibility with Syrians and the international community.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: The new initiative is being headed by a man named Riad Seif. He's a long time dissident who spent years in Syrian prison. He says the new group would be a kind of transitional government until the Syrian regime falls.
RIAD SEIF: (Speaking foreign language)
MCEVERS: He says the new group would include some members of the existing Syrian National Council, but it would also include new members, many of whom come from inside Syria. Seif himself says he has no interest in being a leader.
SEIF: Doesn't matter which person will be chosen, but anyhow we speak about institutions.
MCEVERS: The so-called Seif plan is backed by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised doubts about the legitimacy of the Syrian National Council last week and said the new group should be more inclusive. But perhaps the strongest backer of the new initiative is the host of this latest meeting, Qatar. Qatari officials say they want to see a unified opposition and no more bickering over who gets what.
As of this airing, it appears the various factions have agreed on a general framework for the new group, but not on who will be in it. Salman Shaikh directs the Brookings Doha Center, a think tank here. He says the new body could be a reliable conduit for international aid money for relief and reconstruction in Syria, but he says the international community needs to step up in other ways, too.
SALMAN SHAIKH: There is an important aspect here. It's not just about money. These people need protection.
MCEVERS: By protection, he means some kind of safe zone inside Syria. Turkey announced yesterday it hopes to ask NATO for patriot missiles to be stationed along the Turkish/Syrian border. British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said his government is willing to talk directly with Syrian rebels. Shaikh says both moves reflect shifts in policy toward providing some protection to the rebel fighters in Syria.
But he says none of these countries can act without the U.S.
SHAIKH: I think the Europeans are there or getting there. I think the region is certainly there. I think it's where we're waiting for Mr. Obama.
MCEVERS: The Obama administration for months has said it will not seek to impose a no-fly zone in Syria like it did in Libya, nor will it provide weapons to Syrian rebels. There was hope here that President Obama's reelection this week might mean a shift in his administration's policy, but so far, Syrian opposition members say the U.S. has not indicated any change. Shaikh says if the U.S. maintains this position, it's making a big mistake.
SHAIKH: I'm afraid the Obama administration's missed a very important strategic opportunity in order to be an active participant and partner in shaping the new Syria. Now, it's probably the last chance, literally, for the United States to step up.
MCEVERS: If they don't, he says, not only will they miss the chance to engage with a country that's in the heart of the Middle East, but they also might encourage extremists to fill the gap. Shaikh says he regularly hears from Syrians about how militant Islamist groups are taking hold in Syria. The extremists are here, they tell him, and our people have never been more ready to join them. Kelly McEvers, NPR News, Doha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
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(Health.com) -- In a vegan café in New York City, Nisha Moodley pushes a glass crusted with the remnants of a berry-açai-almond milk smoothie across the table and begins listing the foods she excised from her diet six years ago.
"Factory-farmed meats; hormone-laden dairy; conventional non-organic fruits and vegetables; anything hydrogenated; anything microwaved," the slender 32-year-old health coach says. "I would not eat irradiated food; charred or blackened foods; artificial coloring, flavoring, or sweetener; MSG; white rice; sugar; table salt; or anything canned.
Back then, a typical breakfast for Moodley consisted of buckwheat mixed with seaweed, raw cacao powder, flax oil, and flax seeds. Lunch was usually homemade brown rice with lentils, fresh vegetables, and kale, followed by a mid-afternoon snack of homemade flax-seed-and-buckwheat crackers. And for dinner, a salad with garbanzo beans, avocado, carrots, beets, and mushrooms.
Moodley initially adopted this diet to address recurring bad digestion. But her commitment to healthy eating -- something to be commended, ordinarily -- turned into an obsession that took over her life. "I was terrified of food that didn't fit within my idea of what was healthy," Moodley says. "I was terrified of cancer, of dying."
She couldn't eat out with friends, attend dinner parties, or shop at certain grocery stores because of her intense phobia. Her anxiety was so overwhelming that her stomach problems worsened.
Moodley knew she had a problem, but she didn't view it as an eating disorder. Although she had been a self-described "emotional overeater" for most of her life, the naturally slim Moodley had never been concerned about her weight, nor had she ever purged after her binges. Her unhealthy fixation with healthy food was something else, and it was years before she realized it had a name: orthorexia.
Orthorexia is not an official diagnosis. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) does not recognize it, and some eating-disorder clinics aren't even aware of it. But orthorexia -- which seems to include elements of other disorders, such as anorexia and obsessive-compulsive disorder—can be a serious problem. Left untreated, experts say, it can lead to malnourishment, anorexia, or disabling anxiety.
A murky diagnosis
Steven Bratman, M.D., coined the term orthorexia in a 1997 essay for Yoga Journal in which he described the disorder as a "fixation on eating proper food." Bratman, who himself had a food fixation while living on a commune in upstate New York, chose the prefix "ortho" -- which in Greek means straight, correct, true -- to reflect the obsession with maintaining a perfect diet. Bratman described orthorexia in greater detail in the 2001 book HealthFood Junkies, but it remains largely unrecognized and poorly understood.
It doesn't help that people with orthorexia can get positive feedback for behavior that appears healthy. For many people, strict diets such as veganism, locavorism, and fruitarianism (exactly what it sounds like) have become a way to eat healthier and also address their concerns about how food ends up on our tables.
"One of the things that's tricky about our culture is that orthorexia is socially acceptable and often even heralded as a great statement of self-control and doing the right thing for your health," says Amanda Mellowspring, a registered dietician in Miami who specializes in eating disorders.
The key difference between orthorexia and simply following a strict diet, Mellowspring says, is that orthorexia causes distress and interferes with everyday life. "What it boils down to is, how much does it negatively affect their life?" she says. "How much does it affect their social life? How much time do they spend thinking about food?"
Although orthorexia shares characteristics with anorexia, orthorexics don't always lose weight since they fixate on the quality (as opposed to quantity) of food. And they usually lack the distorted, negativeself-image -- known as body dysmorphia -- that causes some anorexics to look in the mirror and see oodles of fat when in fact they're severely underweight.
"Body dysmorphia will make you miserable, and those with orthorexia tend not to have that," says Alan Kaufman, a licensed clinical social worker who works with patients with eating disorders at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, in Berkeley, Calif.
That's not to say orthorexia doesn't pose health risks. Some patients do become malnourished and dangerously underweight, and dietitians and therapists say orthorexia can become a gateway to anorexia or bulimia.
In fact, orthorexia may in some cases serve to disguise anorexia. Because it's more socially acceptable to say, "I want to be healthy," than to say, "I want to fit into these skinny jeans," some anorexics may use orthorexia as a cover for their behavior. "[This is a] very common hidden agenda behind orthorexia," Bratman writes in Health Food Junkies. "A dietary theory can allow women to seek the culturally accepted norms of beauty without admitting it to themselves. ... You can 'accidentally' live up to the Barbie image without admitting you believe in doing so."
Similarly, recovering anorexics or bulimics sometimes latch on to orthorexia. Elizabeth Dear, a therapist based in Reno, Nev., who works with eating-disorder patients, says she does not consider anorexics fully recovered if they judge themselves according to the quality of the foods they eat. "This so-called healthy eating can easily develop into eating-disorder thinking," she says.
How orthorexia starts
Orthorexic tendencies often begin as a result of health problems. Alena's obsession with healthy eating started in 12th grade, when she found out she had Candida (a type of yeast infection) and a homeopathic doctor asked her to stop eating yeast, wheat, sugar, and dairy for several weeks as part of her treatment. She was already a vegetarian, so she mainly ate rice and vegetables. (Alena did not want her last name published.)
Then, when she was 19, she went to a naturopathic doctor with a collection of stomach symptoms, including nausea, constipation, and indigestion, and was again instructed to avoid processed grains, sugar, soy, dairy, and nuts. "And that's when I went crazy," says Alena, now a 22-year-old student at NYU. "I basically cut out everything from my diet. I convinced my mind that food made me sick."
Alena still goes through bouts where she swears off those food groups, and her forbidden list now includes carbohydrates, beans, tropical fruit, sugar, farmed fish, and potatoes that aren't from her own garden. Meat, non local produce (such as bananas), juice, beer, and dairy are all "evil," she says.
"What I do eat are a lot of vegetables. I have to have vegetables in every meal or I feel sick," she says. "I eat whole grains like barley, whole-grain kasha. Not rice, because it really hurts my stomach and for political reasons, because it is shipped from too far away. I eat seasonal fruits, fish, and eggs."
For Alena -- who has never been to a therapist or nutritionist to discuss her behavior -- anorexia and orthorexia go hand in hand. She has experienced bouts of body dysmorphia and sometimes exercises excessively to make up for minor eating binges, such as overindulging on dessert. She also exhibits other traits common among those with eating disorders, such as living vicariously through the diets of others. She often bakes for her family and roommates, and urges her sister to order hamburgers at restaurants so she can watch her enjoy them.
"The distinction for me is, anorexia is about what I look like and orthorexia is about my lifestyle," Alena says. "I want to feel good about what I'm eating. I want to feel cleansed and detoxified. And at times it is related to image. But I worry that if I start eating in an unhealthy way I'm going to start having stomach issues."
It may not be a coincidence that Alena studies food and agricultural policy in school. Few studies have been done on orthorexia, but some researchers have speculated that restrictive diets and orthorexic tendencies may be more common in dietitians and nutrition students.
Moodley's interest in nutrition and career choice certainly influenced her diet. Her burgeoning orthorexia seemed to worsen when she began studying at a nutrition school in New York City. (She stopped eating frozen vegetables, for instance, when she was taught that plant cell walls expand and break down from low temperatures, sometimes resulting in lost nutrients.) "If I had to draw a line, I'd say that my interest in nutrition spurred orthorexia," she says.
How to get help
Therapists, nutritionists, and eating-disorder experts have slowly begun to take orthorexia more seriously. Anorexia and bulimia were similarly slow to be recognized: Anorexia was long considered a symptom of hysteria, while bulimia was regarded as a type of anorexia and was not considered a disease in its own right until 1980.
There are no plans to add orthorexia to the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a new edition of which is scheduled to be released in 2013, in part because of the dearth of research. "The problem is, we don't know enough about it," says B. Timothy Walsh, M.D., a psychiatrist at Columbia University, in New York City, who chairs the Eating Disorders Workgroup for the new edition.
The workgroup does, however, recommend adding to the DSM something called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, which pertains mainly to children and preteens who are excessively picky eaters, to the point that they become undernourished.
Dear, who has been working with patients with eating disorders for 11 years, says adding orthorexia to the DSM could benefit people with the disorder by making clinicians more likely to recognize it. She says inclusion in the DSM could also be "counterproductive," however, if the diagnostic criteria are too narrow and leave some cases undetected and untreated.
If you suspect that you or someone you know may be orthorexic, Kaufman suggests approaching with care. "When you have a full-blown eating disorder there is a strong degree of denial [about] the extent of the condition," he says.
Recognizing orthorexia can be difficult if a person does not yet show outward signs of malnutrition, Kaufman says, but if the disorder has become medically compromising then they may need treatment to help them change their eating patterns and their thoughts that go along with eating. (Directories of eating-disorder experts can be found on the website of the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals.)
The ultimate recovery from an eating disorder is to get beyond labeling foods good or bad, Dear says. "You have to reach a self-loving place, not a virtuous place. It would be helpful [for] clinicians to have their radar out for orthorexia because it is easily misread as just healthy eating when it can be a major problem."
Moodley no longer considers herself orthorexic. Her work with clients made her realize that the correct diet is different for each individual and helped her overcome her orthorexia. But when she discusses her diet today, a sense of pride still lingers in her voice.
To some, her diet was the epitome of healthy perfection. She said she still maintains a healthy diet, but now it is a preference as opposed to an obsession. She prefers fresh vegetables, but isn't opposed to eating them frozen and she doesn't think of all sweets as junk anymore. She says her fears of "bad" food are gone.
But it still takes Moodley several moments of silent reflection before she can recall the latest treat she ate. Finally, after some deep thought on the matter, she remembers: "Two days ago. I had a cookie. An organic cookie."
Copyright Health Magazine 2011
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There are a lot of choices out there for clutches, whether you’re looking for something as simple as a stock replacement or as complicated as a twin-disc race clutch. Friction materials, hub design, spline count, release pressure, and much more – it’s enough to make your head spin. Add in the fact that some suppliers source their clutch components from all over the world, and you have to be an expert to get it right on the first try. Unless, of course, you take advantage of those who are already experts, like Advanced Clutch Technology. With more than 15 years experience designing and building all kinds of high performance clutches right here in the United States, ACT has what it takes to help you find the right clutch for your application, and to make sure you’re getting power to the ground once it’s installed.
We recently took a tour of their facilities in Lancaster, California, where they make their trademark bright yellow clutches, as well as high performance pressure plates and flywheels. They gave us an inside look at the manufacturing process, as well as the extensive quality control checks they employ to make sure you’re getting the best clutch they can provide.
Clutch covers, powder-coated ACT yellow, await assembly with diaphragms and pressure plates.
ACT clutches are well known in many different forms of racing for their strength and durability. They are perhaps best known for their products in Formula Drift, though, a motorsport that puts a tremendous amount of stress on a car’s clutch. By “kicking” the clutch pedal at high RPM to break the back wheels loose, drifters slide their cars sideways on the edge of control. Smoking tires are expected, but a smoking clutch is a disaster, and instantly applying 500 or more turbocharged horsepower is a brutal test of any clutch.
One factor that separates ACT from many other clutch manufacturers is that ACT makes or machines all of their parts in house. This gives them complete control over their products from start to finish, allowing better-than-OEM levels of quality. They make clutches for just about every brand, import and domestic, and many of their parts are SFI-spec, meaning they are approved for extreme duty in drag racing.
These ductile iron clutch face castings are much stronger and more durable than their OEM counterparts – an important factor when spinning to 7500 RPM or beyond, just inches from the driver’s toes.
A good example are the ductile iron face castings used for their pressure plates. The ‘gray iron’ typically used in factory clutches is weak and brittle compared to ductile iron, and with some ACT clutches rated to withstand 400% more torque than an OEM clutch, it’s easy to see why they’d use the better material. A pressure plate coming apart under stress can ruin your whole day (as well as totaling your car and activating your health care plan) and ACT understands that there’s no way to cut corners on critical components.
Because the work is done in-house, it’s much easier for ACT to quickly produce clutches for new applications or do custom designs.
ACT doesn’t just make their own parts – they design them as well. A good example is their patented diaphragm spring. This critical component not only determines how much clamping pressure is applied to the clutch pack, a key factor in the torque capacity of the clutch; it also has the biggest influence on pedal feel and how much strength it takes to disengage the clutch between gears. It takes careful engineering to balance these competing design criteria, and by handling it all in-house, ACT can produce clutches with tremendous holding power and reasonable pedal forces. Taking it one step further, ACT also does the heat-treating of this component themselves, ensuring that the diaphragm springs have the proper flexibility and strength they need thousands of miles down the road as well as when you first install the clutch kit.
Though some components, like these clutch cover stampings, come in partly finished from other suppliers, all the final machining and assembly work happens in ACT’s Lancaster, California facility, ensuring that every clutch kit that goes out the door is up to the same high standards.
One all the individual parts have been machined, heat treated, powder coated, or heat-treated, they need to be assembled. Assembling the pressure plate is an involved process, made all the more complicated due to ACT’s rigorous quality controls and testing procedures. Each pressure plate is dynamically balanced before meeting up with the clutch disc, which goes through a similar process to ensure the assembly spins without vibration once installed.
A multi-puck clutch disk gets its friction materials riveted to the hub.
ACT’s racing history dates back to the import drag racing scene that flourished in the late Nineties. In response to the turbo fours showing up at the track with far more power than any stock clutch could endure, ACT President and founder Dirk Starksen began producing racing clutches for this niche market, which quickly expanded to include street applications, then domestic RWD cars as well. Today it’s hard to find a vehicle or form of motorsports that isn’t covered in ACT’s extensive product line.
ACT believes in “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” and has a long history of backing successful cars, like Brent Rau’s 7-second Mitsubishi from the heyday of import drag racing.
Starksen thinks of the racetrack as a test bed for his products, as racers will throw everything they can at the clutch until it blows, giving ACT a chance to go back and make an even better product. Almost everybody at ACT is a performance enthusiast or weekend racer, and it shows in the vast amount of knowledge applied in every part of the company, from design to production to customer service.
ACT Founder and President Dirk Starksen knows that racing is the best test of his products.
ACT has found their products being used all over the world in just about every form of four-wheeled sports. What started with import drag racing has branched off into drifting, domestic drag racing, time attack, rally, and even land speed racing at the Bonneville Salt Flats. ACT’s dedication to the racing world doesn’t just make better race cars though. This technology trickles down to the clutches they make for the street as well, especially as cars get ever more powerful straight from the factory. Replacing a clutch is something you don’t want to do any more often than you absolutely have to, and ACT is determined to make sure that you do it with the right parts the first time.
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By John Letzing
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended his controversial proposal to prohibit the sale large-sized sugary soda drinks in the city, arguing that it will combat obesity and cut health-care costs.
During an appearance via video link Thursday at the D: All Things Digital conference, Bloomberg said his plan to ban the sale of sodas larger than 16 ounces in restaurants and movie theaters is part of an effort “to encourage people to live longer.”
“This is something we think we have the legal authority to do,” the mayor said. “Obesity is a local problem for us, and that’s why we’ve addressed it.”
The mayor said that New York spends significant amount money annually on obesity-related health issues, which ranks as a major cause of death since a ban on smoking in restaurants has gradually reduced that hazard.
“If you remember the smoking ban was very controversial at the beginning,” Bloomberg said. “I don’t think the public would stand to go back to the days where you have to breathe other people’s smoke.”
As the Journal’s Michael Howard Saul reported Wednesday, the soda proposal will be submitted to the Board of Health on June 12, which will mark the beginning of a three-month comment period before a vote. Since the mayor controls all the appointees on the board, the proposal is expected to be approved.
In his remarks Thursday, Bloomberg noted that the proposal would not prevent people from buying sodas in 32-ounce bottles from stores or multiple 16-ounce sodas at restaurants. He also pointed to studies showing that people who are presented with larger portions tend to consume them, which he said contributed to obesity.
The proposed restrictions on large-sized sodas are drawing a strong backlash from the beverage industry and is certain to revive debate about the Bloomberg administration’s “nanny state” policies.
“The city is not going to address the obesity issue by attacking soda because soda is not driving the obesity rates,” Stefan Friedman, spokesman for the New York City Beverage Association, said in a statement on Wednesday.
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Question: Do you have any advice for today’s business leaders?
Peter Guber: We're at the cusp of a technological revolution. Change has always been with us, but the rate of change is changing. It’s no longer evolutionary, it’s revolutionary. You know, the trajectory is changing, and the momentum is accelerating. It’s acceleration and trajectory change all at once. And three dimensionally.
But what you really have to recognize that what moves people is not state-of-the-art technology, it is state-of-the-heart technology. The idea that this technology is a cold comfort. Unless the engineer can serve the poet and the poet the engineer, unless there’s that connection between the two, technology doesn’t do anything. Unless it moves something, unlessit renders a benefit, unless it makes the distances closer, unless it makes it more resonant, more memorable, unless it offers a deeper meaning into your heart, into your soul, a deeper purposefulness, it’ll be vestigial, it’ll be gone.
So the idea is, don’t abandon state-of-the-heart for state-of-the-art. Ask yourself a very important question: the benefit of this technology, how does it make us connect better? I don’t mean connect technically better, that’s important but how does it make us connect better. How does it get more and deeper heartfelt connection between people? Now I think a Twitter is an incredibly valuable tool. It’s a way to send you know, short burst messages and information to people and really tell you where you are geographically. And it doesn’t mean that poetry has to be long, but the idea is venerate the state-of-the-heart, not just state-of-the-art of the 0’s and 1’s.
Question: How do you know when you’re being distracted by a fad technology rather than something of substance?
Peter Guber: Stand guard at the portals of your mind: technology isn’t an answer, it’s an enabler. It’s an enabler. It enables you to do something better, faster, more effectively, more joyously. You know, that’s really what it comes down. All of the social networks are an expression of human needs, human desires. That’s why they’re so powerful.
You drive out of your house today and you’re two miles down the road and you go like this… not down here, but this, what are you looking for? No, you’re not looking for you pen, you’re not looking for your photo album, you’re looking for your phone. It’s got right next to your heart. And if you don’t have it, you got a heart attack. And what do you do? You turnaround and you go get it. Why do you do that? Because this has habituated you to a connection that this mobile devices had which is tinkering with your neuro pathways. It has rewired you. It has gone almost from a want to a need. You are addicted to it if not habituated to it. But the reality is, why? Because it is a sense of connection; always being connected to our family, to your work, to your business and to your joy, whatever our joy is. You can look at your football game; you can look at your pictures of your family.
And very soon all your medical information will be on there. Oh my god! It’s gonna be your wallet. Those little Benjamins and Franklins and those Washington’s, they’re gonna be gone. You’re gonna pay for everything with this new thing called a mobile phone. That is a transformative device because of the way that it’s been absorbed into society and by us individually. And boy, you get total anxiety when you leave that home or lose it. And everybody knows it.
Recorded January 19, 2011
Interviewed by Andrew Dermont
Directed / Produced by
Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd
Image courtesy of Flickr user Jesslee Cuizon
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Monomania affecting Ubuntu users far and wide?
Last night in bed I was reading some more of a novel (Not Novell) called “The suspicions of Mr Whicher“. It’s an interesting book, based on a true story about infanticide in the middle 1800s and one of our very first real “detectives”. But I am finding it a bit on the “dry” side truth be told…
Anyway, about 1/2 way through the book I discovered something amazing. A reference to a psychological condition called:
How on earth could a 19th century detective know about the long running saga of a rather large and bloated software stack designed, it seems, simply to drive a wedge into the FOSS community and act as a trojan horse for our most [ahem] loved convicted monopolist?
The Wikipedia informs us that:
Monomania (from Greek monos, one, and mania, mania) is a type of paranoia in which the patient has only one idea or type of ideas. Emotional monomania is that in which the patient is obsessed with only one emotion or several related to it; intellectual monomania is that which is related to only one kind of delirious idea or ideas.
In colloquial terms, the term monomania is often attached to subcultures that to the general public appear esoteric. However, the differences between monomania and passion can be very subtle and difficult to recognize.
Truth is, of course Mr Whicher couldn’t have known. No one could have written such a tale of intrigue, double-crossing and skulduggery. But then neither could one have imagined the horrific tale of poor little Saville Kent’s untimely demise.
I was minded to post this piece mainly because I had just read a rather well put together history of the Mono saga so far by The Mad Hatter.
If this story doesn’t contain any monomaniacs then I’m a March Hare!
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V. P. Eswarakumar Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation and of Pharmacology
Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors (FGFRs)
The focus of my lab is to determine the mechanisms of signaling by Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors (FGFRs) during development and disease conditions. We are currently pursuing three projects in our laboratory:
Project 1 involves the mechanism of FGFR signaling in craniofacial development. The mammalian skull is composed of 22 separate bones which grow at specialized joints called 'sutures' to accommodate the rapidly growing brain during early development. FGFR mutations cause the premature fusion of cranial sutures prior to the completion of brain growth, a condition called craniosynostosis. We have made several animal models by 'knock-in' gene targeting to explore the mechanism of craniosynostosis caused by FGFR-2 mutations that includes the first animal model for Crouzon-type craniosynostosis syndrome. We are exploring the FGF-responsive transcription factors and signaling molecules that are activated in cranial osteoblast cells using genomic and proteomic approaches.
Project 2 involves the mechanism of FGFR signaling in branching morphogenesis. FGFRs are expressed as two major isoforms, 'b' and 'c'. The b isoforms are expressed in epithelial cell layers, whereas the c isoforms are expressed in the mesenchymal tissues. While the c isoforms play a major role in bone development, the b isoforms play a critical role in the branching morphogenesis of organs. We are using salivary gland development as a model to explore the mechanism of FGFR signaling in branching morphogenesis. We are employing 3-D organ culture, as well as biochemical, cell biological and genomic approaches, to understand the process of branching morphogenesis.
Project 3 involves the mechanism of Klotho-FGFR signaling in calcium and phosphate homeostasis. FGF23 is the largest member of the FGF family and is produced by osteoblasts in bone, released into the circulation like an endocrine hormone and is able to regulate phosphate and calcium re-absorption in the kidney. FGF23 requires Klotho to signal via FGFRs to mediate its endocrine function. Klotho is a single pass type I membrane protein highly expressed in the distal convoluted tubules of kidney and interacts with FGFRs. However, which of the FGFR isoforms that Klotho interacts to regulate phosphate/calcium homeostasis is not known. Therefore, we are creating a genetic tool to identify FGFRs in the distal convoluted tubules of kidney that interact with Klotho and to explore the signaling mechanisms that are involved in calcium and phosphate homeostasis.
The focus of my lab is to determine the mechanisms of signaling by Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors (FGFRs) during development and disease conditions.
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"Megan's Law," which requires that citizens be notified when a convicted sex offender moves into their community, has survived a challenge in the New Jersey Supreme Court, but it took an odd bit of jurisprudence to do it. In order to avoid holding the law unconstitutional, the court rewrote it from the bench, inserting safeguards that a panicky New Jersey State Legislature failed to include last year.
Nevertheless, this well-intended law still violates the United States Constitution's prohibition against state laws that retroactively add to the punishment for past crimes. Even if the state courts ignore this flaw, enacting these laws is unwise.
Gov. George Pataki signed New York's version of Megan's Law on Wednesday. It has many of the safeguards the New Jersey jurists added. Most important is the right of the offender to contest in court the police's judgment that he is still dangerous. But New York's law also violates the constitutional prohibition against adding extra punishment for past crimes. Other states are passing similar laws. Various courts have produced mixed opinions, suggesting that the United States Supreme Court will soon have to confront the matter.
The New Jersey law was an outraged reaction to the rape and murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was lured into the Hamilton County home of a man twice convicted of sexually assaulting young girls. No one denies the Legislature's power to require defendants convicted of sex crimes in the future to notify local police of their whereabouts. But it is quite another matter to force public disclosure of that information about past offenders.
The New Jersey court declared that the provision was not punitive since it was intended to serve the commendable objective of informing and protecting the public. In a cogent dissent, Justice Gary Klein challenged the majority's reliance on the Legislature's benign motives, especially when the law so clearly adds to the punishment of offenders previously convicted under existing penal laws, a classic example of an ex post facto law.
The majority expressed confidence that citizens would not harass offenders or spread their names beyond the schools or communities that the law says are entitled to the information. In doing so, however, it ignored widely reported instances where private citizens have already begun to abuse the law with vigilante assaults, harassment and publicity actions.
Laws like New Jersey's are the product of genuine community anguish and rage. But as the New Jersey Supreme Court has demonstrated, these laws also lure justices into specious reasoning and legal draftsmanship beyond their competence.
Correction: August 3, 1995, Thursday An editorial last Saturday, "Megan's Law, Rewritten," about the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision upholding that law, incorrectly identified the dissenting justice. He is Gary S. Stein. It also misstated the place where the murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka occurred; it was in Hamilton Township, not Hamilton County.
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At first it's just one buzzword here and there. But soon, whole groups worm their way into your messaging and campaigns.
"Data visualization doesn't sound so bad," you might find yourself saying. "What's the problem?"
And then someone will throw "enterprise data visualization to optimize the ripple effect and hyper-connectivity of your key influencers" into an article.
That's the danger of letting industry buzzwords run rampant.
Here are 10 words or phrases industry pros have used once too often. They can be unhelpful, unrealistic, irritating, confusing and vague. Can we all please cut back on using them?
Whoa, slow down! Did I say "mobile"? "Mobile" is a great buzzword—everybody and their dogs are on mobile these days.
"Mobile" means we can reach consumers whether they're at home on their couches or on the sidewalk looking for a restaurant. "Mobile" is where we have to shrink our ads and forfeit our click-through metrics. "Mobile" puts the "Mo" in SoLoMo (social-local-mobile).
The problem with "mobile" is that it's restrictive; you automatically think of a smartphone, tablet, or mini tablet. Trying to sum up and address all of those in one word might cause you to cut your efforts short.
A more flexible and accurate alternative for addressing "mobile" efforts is "multi-screen." There's definitely a time and place to use "mobile," but not as frequently as we use it now.
We've optimized everything from advertising campaigns to waffles. According to Merriam-Webster, "optimize" means "to make as perfect, effective, or functional as possible."
Wait a second. All of that other work we've been doing hasn't been to make things as functional as possible? Non-optimized campaigns haven't been pulling their weight? We've made non-optimized waffles with a less-than-perfect syrup-to-butter ratio?
Face it: "Optimize" is burnt out. Give it a break, or someone might decide that everything you haven't called "optimized" isn't as effective as possible.
3. Game changer
I admit this article might be a real game changer, but please stop using this term for every update, release, startup, feature and cat meme that comes across your desk. (Though I must admit, Grumpy Cat was a game changer.)
If we don't reserve this buzzword for actual game-changing innovations, Grumpy Cat is just one in a sea of equally amusing cat memes.
4. Digital ecosystem
I get it. We need a term to distinguish all those things we do online in the digital ecosystem from … the non-digital ecosystem? The outernet, maybe?
But the term "digital ecosystem" has a more substantial meaning than what many so often use it for. For example, it's a helpful term when you define specific online communities or processes, such as the "Twitter ecosystem."
Go ahead. Say "digital ecosystem" when you mean it. But make sure you attach a meaning to your usage. And stop tossing it around when all you really want to say is "online."
5. [Insert noun] marketing
Tablet marketing, mobile marketing, Facebook marketing, app marketing.
Where do we draw the line? Mini-tablet marketing?
While it's sometimes helpful to note distinct efforts or platforms (see "mobile"), we don't need a special marketing term for each screen or platform we operate on. It's a slippery slope that ends with you writing a mile-long list just to say "marketing."
Unless you think society is going to abandon its devices and online connections en masse, "hyper-connectivity" is a worthless concept for digital marketers. It describes current and future audiences that every business needs to learn to target and communicate with.
Primarily because of this sheer inevitability, we need to get over this term and move forward. We can't address "hyper-connectivity," but we can address changing online behaviors and decision-making patterns. Being connected is not the future; it's the present.
7. Data visualization
This is one of those buzzwords that we need to re-appropriate. While it means a visual display that communicates information clearly and effectively, it's come to be more synonymous with "infographic." Yes, "infographic" and "data visualization" go hand-in-hand, but they're not synonymous.
Yes, Apple does some cool stuff. But as recent patent battles have demonstrated, it doesn't have claim to everything hip and innovative. Do we really need an entire adjective to blame other companies for mimicking Apple? This really speaks to the industry's penchant for setting Apple apart from the standards it applies to everyone else, and for believing Apple did everything first. (It didn't.)
Apple has often successfully combined features into something innovative and progressively useful, but the problem with buzzwords like this is that they're part of an innovation-stifling culture. Apple wouldn't be the Apple we love today without some borrowing and tinkering along the way, and we shouldn't punish other companies trying to improve existing products or processes by labeling them "Apple-like," and therefore copycats.
9. Social media guru
"Master ninja keeper of the social media secrets," "whale tamer of Twitter," "the pin master," and "filtered photo virtuoso" also fit into this category.
No, you don't want to label yourself "social media butterfingers" on your LinkedIn profile, but these unconventional titles have been repeated far too often to retain originality. And many of them have little to no meaning, which in any other industry would be unacceptable. ("What did you say your job title is? I'm sorry, we're not hiring for a plastic surgeon grand master.")
A little shameless self-mockery and true originality are always welcome. Just don't use your job title or Twitter handle as an opportunity to be as unique as everyone else.
10. Low-hanging fruit
This term was such a low-hanging fruit I couldn't leave it off the list.
It's annoying, overused, and sells some of your best efforts short. It's an acceptable way of saying something is so obvious and easy that it requires almost no thought or effort. Is that really what you want to say? That you're going after the easiest—not the ideal—target?
To be fair, all of the terms on this list mean something and can be useful—if you use them appropriately. But they go from conveying industry-specific knowledge to worthless buzzwords when we overuse or throw them around as easy alternatives to solid explanations.
What buzzwords do you think are overused, vague, or utterly worthless?
Kaitlin Carpenter is a marketing associate at Carousel30. A version of this article originally appeared on iMediaConnection.
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The Massachusetts deer season is about to wrap up with tomorrow being the last day. It is muzzeloader season only, then hunters will have to wait another year.
There are numbers to post here from the other seasons. Some of them were a tad surprising to me. The shotgun season netted 4,995 animals which is good but down some from the predictions. There are still a few stations yet to call in their numbers which will take that number over 5,000.
The archery season was the very big surprise with 3,850 deer taken, just 1,100 shy of the shotgun hunters. This also shows the popularity of archery and how it has grown over the past two decades.
The paraplegic hunt had four in the 10 ring, the women's hunt had one, and Quabbin had 84. The Quabbin deer herd is now found to be in great shape and the controlled hunt is working very well. The largest deer taken there dressed nearly 200 pounds. Hunting is now done in four areas with one area not hunted each year.
The preliminary numbers are also in for New Hampshire's deer, bear and fall turkey hunting seasons, and it was a successful year for many N.H. hunters.
The estimated statewide deer kill for New Hampshire's 2012 season was 11,590 deer, up 4% from the final 2011 harvest (11,109 deer) and the highest harvest since 2007. The 2012 harvest represents about 14% of New Hampshire's pre-season population of about 85,000 deer.
Deer hunting closed in the state on December 15, the final day of the archery
"Last year's mild winter helped the deer population in much of the state and the statewide kill increased for the second year in a row," said Kent Gustafson, a deer biologist and Wildlife Programs Supervisor at the N.H. Fish and Game Department.
Hunters took a record number of black bears this fall, surpassing the previous record of 803 bears taken in 2003. New Hampshire bear hunters took a total of 806 bears (433 males and 373 females) in 2012, which represents a new record harvest. The numbers are still preliminary.
Fall turkey hunters also did well. Preliminary reports indicate that overall results for the 5-day fall shotgun season and 3-month archery seasons, New Hampshire hunters registered a total of 1,024 turkeys - a 60% increase over last year's combined fall turkey seasons.
The preliminary 2012 breakdown was 707 wild turkeys harvested during the fall shotgun season and 311 turkeys harvested during the fall archery season.
Bay State fishermen are finding a few gifts left for them to catch in area waters. Salmon from 5 to 12 pounds were stocked in Baddacook, Sluice, Horn, and Whites, Comet, Whalom and Plug Ponds.
Trout fishermen running the shoreline of Fort Pond these past two weeks have been treated to a decent number of rainbow trout. Dr. Eric Kuntson said he has been out a few times and done very well using power bait.
Ice is starting to form but remember you need three inches of solid black ice. Don't let snow ice fool you. Check the ice at the shore then every few feet. I hate to lose readers.
The Fly Fishing Festival will again be held in Marlboro at the Royal Plaza Hotel on Route 20 January 18, 19 and 20. There will be seminars each day on fly fishing as well as talks and films and booths. There will be just a film festival that cost $15 or general admission which cost $10.
The Rockingham Park Hunting & Fishing Expo will be held Saturday and Sunday, January 5-6, 2013, at Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H.
The expo features many local and national outdoor products and services, as well as hunting and fishing seminars. Young outdoor enthusiasts will enjoy trying their luck at the trout pond or hitting the bull's eye at the archery range. Half the proceeds will be donated to Barry Conservation Camp.
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Baha Mousa 'killed after father saw soldiers stealing'
The Iraqi prisoner Baha Mousa was killed in a revenge attack by British troops because his father had seen soldiers stealing money from a hotel safe, a public inquiry was told today.
Baha Mousa’s father, Daoud, claimed that his son - who suffered 93 separate injuries - had been picked out for particularly brutal treatment folowing his arrest because he had openly complained about the alleged theft to a British officer.
Giving evidence to the inquiry, Daoud Musa, a police officer in Basra, also said that his son’s death certificate was changed at the last minute to admit he had been strangled.Mr Mousa said he had refused to take away the body from a British camp because the document had initially stated the cause of death was a heart attack. The inquiry was shown a copy of the certificate with the word “asphyxia” added following the father’s protests, signed by a Corporal Sharon Cooper.
Baha Mousa died on 15 September 2003 after being detained at the Ibn al-Haitham hotel in Basra,, where he worked as a receptionist, by troops from the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment who said they were looking for weapons. A subsequent court martial in England resulted in the acquittal of six soldiers, including Colonel George Mendonca, the then commanding officer of the regiment which has since amalgamated.
One soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, became the first member of UK armed forces to be convicted of a war crime after pleading guilty to offences under the International Criminal Court Act (ICCA) of 2001 in connection with the death.
Corporal Payne, who had conducted a “choir practice” where the “ music” was the cries of pain from the hooded and handcuffed prisoners as they were being beaten, received a 12 months sentence.
At yesterday’s hearing counsel acting for Corporal Payne, told Baha Mousa’s father, in the witness box, that his client regretted the death and wanted to apologise to the dead man’s family, adding “ I hope you will accept that.” Mr Mousa responded “ I will not accept an apology from a criminal.”
Mr Mousa, repeatedly in tears as he gave his testimony, said he had not been asked to give evidence at the court martial which took place in 2007, and, indeed had not even been informed that the proceedings was taking place. His belief, he said yesterday, was that the savage beating leading to his son’s death was the result of the complaint about the theft.
Mr Mousa, who at the time was working for the Iraqi customs service, said he had witnessed “three of four soldiers” pocketing cash from a safe they had broken open at the hotel and alerted a British officer he knew as “ Lieutenant Mike”.
He “"I thought that it was a violation of English dignity and honour, and the honour of English troops and so I told the officer what I had seen and asked him to give me a signed paper to prove that I had seen the crime and had told him about it.” Mr Mousa also gave a written statement to the British officer who then searched a soldier who, it is claimed, was found with notes hidden in his clothing and told to leave the building.
Mr Mousa subsequently asked that his son, who he saw lying face down on the floor along with others detained, should be freed, partly because of the favour he had done in exposing “ the stealing” by the troops.
"I pointed to my son. The soldiers were standing by I think they knew the one I was pointing to was my son, therefore they wanted revenge against me." He added. "I believe that my son may have been treated worse than other people because I had made a complaint to Lieutenant Mike that money was being stolen from the hotel safe. That is certainly the view that was reached by other men who were detained with Baha."
Mr Mousa said he had no knowledge of claims that the Ibn al-Haitham Hotel had become a meeting place for former members of Ba’athist regime in Basra. He had been “ forced out by Saddam” from his post in the Iraqi police because he was a Shia and because he refused to take action against rebels in the intifada of 1991, he said.
Baha “ hated Saddam “ because of what had been done to his father and, like the majority of the population, had been pleased with the arrival of British troops in Iraq because “ they had got rid of the oppression of Saddam” said Mr Mousa.
“ We welcomed them, we gave them flowers. They were walking about around us in the market” he recalled. “ But we did not expect what took place, the arrests of innocent people.”
The hearing continues.
Emergency landing at Heathrow sparks further controversy over London airport capacity
Unrest may spread across Europe, warns Red Cross chief
French government seeks to ban extreme right-wing group
BNP and EDL accused of attempt to fuel racial hatred after Woolwich terror attack
You want to get an Eton scholarship? All you need to do is answer four (not so simple) questions
- 1 What, let gays get married? We must be bonkers
- 2 'Something passed underneath us, quite close': Airbus A320 has close encounter with UFO
- 3 Rocky Horror star Tim Curry 'suffers major stroke'
- 4 Exclusive: How MI5 blackmails British Muslims
- 5 Lord of the Sings: Sir Christopher Lee, 91, to release heavy metal album
BMF is the UK’s biggest and best loved outdoor fitness classes
Find out what The Independent's resident travel expert has to say about one of the most beautiful small cities in the world
Nook is donating eReaders to volunteers at high-need schools and participating in exclusive events throughout the campaign.
Get the latest on The Evening Standard's campaign to get London's children reading.
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
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This category follows the WMO convention of listing one site per country. Please post here only one site, maintained by a national government department, for a country which is not represented. Sites not in English belong in World/ under the appropriate language. There is a tendency for weather sites to state prominently that they use government data, but they turn out, on close examination, to be commercial sites. These sites belong in Regional/ under the relevant nation.
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New Delhi: Congress MP Manish Tewari on Wednesday refuted senior BJP leader LK Advani's allegation that the UPA Government has been delaying action on black money. Tewari accused the NDA of politicising the problem of black money and pointed out that the Centre has been taking action against those involved in evading tax.
"It is wrong to say that the black money problem has been created by the UPA Government. This is a legacy issue," said Tewari.
Tewari said that every third dollar in the world being invested is routed through some tax havens and that black money being generated internally in India is also huge.
Congress MP Manish Tewari also said that black money being generated internally in India is also huge.
"Tax havens make laws simple and guarantee confidentiality and secrecy," stated Tewari.
Commenting on NDA's allegations, Tewari said, "NDA does not intend to bring black money back to India but to politicise black money. This is not a UPA vs NDA debate. We also want that the black money in foreign banks should come back to India."
Tewari also clarified that there is no difference in black money in foreign banks and Indian Banks. "I appreciate NDA MPs giving undertaking that they do not have black money in foreign banks. They should give a similar undertaking for banks in India as well," said Tewari.
The Congress MP also said that no body has any idea as to how much black money is deposited in foreign banks.
Pointing towards NDA's tenure, Tewari said, "NDA diluted the provisions under the law on black money. I request NDA not to dilute the issue of black money by politicising the matter."
He said the steps taken in the last few years towards reaching a solution on black money have yielded results.
On tax evader Hasan Ali's case, Tewari said, "France gave information about 70 people,who were made to pay the tax due on them and action taken against the guilty."
Earlier in the day, Advani brought to notice that this was the first time that black money was being discussed in Parliament.
Advani claimed that due to no action against the culprits, India has become a soft state. "We should recognise that because we haven't taken any action against the guilty in the black money cases, we are being seen as a soft state," he said.
Calling black money a part of corruption, Advani said, "The effects of corruption is the most devastating in the developing world. Corruption is a key element to inefficiency."
Quoting a report of the Global Financial Integrity on black money, Advani said, "Indians have an amount of Rs 25 lakh crore black money is in Swiss banks."
Appealing to the government to give details on the names given by French government, Advani said, "It will be shameful if we come to know about these through some whistleblower like Julian Assange of Wikileaks did some time back."
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Published: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 at 8:35 a.m.
Brevard resident Harvey Miller is continuing his life of independence with the help of his new dog guide. The team successfully completed the training program at Pilot Dogs, a nonprofit organization that trains dogs to guide the blind.
For nearly two weeks, Miller and his dog worked with the professional trainers at the Pilot Dogs school in Columbus, Ohio. The team learned to navigate busy streets; use revolving doors, escalators and elevators; and utilize public transportation. While the dog does not know how to get to the grocery store or around the neighborhood, it will be able to help Miller arrive safely without instruction.
Federal access laws guarantee a blind person the legal right to be accompanied by a specially trained guide dog in all public accommodations. Public facilities include restaurants, libraries, office buildings and more.
Miller is a retired music professor with Brevard College. This is his third Pilot Dog.
"I appreciate my friends who donated to Pilot Dogs upon the retirement of Stoney," Miller said. "My new dog will continue the great service that I experienced with Tucker and Stoney. Tucker has since passed, but Stoney will continue living with me in a life of leisure."
Miller's Pilot Dog is a chocolate Labrador retriever.
Individuals should not approach, talk to, stare at or pet the dog if met in public, according to a release from Pilot Dogs.
"It is important for the dog to stay focused on the task at hand, which is to guide its master," said J. Jay Gray, executive director. "While people want to be nice and pet the dog, this is a distraction for the team."
Established in 1950, Pilot Dogs provides its trained animals to the qualified blind at no charge. The organization is supported entirely by public contributions, including support from the Lions Clubs, individuals, organizations and corporations.
For more information, call (614) 221-6367 or visit www.pilotdogs.org.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
Comments are currently unavailable on this article
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Testing costs money, often...
Testing costs money, often requires you to take time off work, and is practically useless unless you've put in the same amount of preparation (or more) than you would for a real race. So you might as well get the most out of it.
One of the big difficulties with racing out of your own pocket is that life gets in the way. That's not a bad thing, but it is reality. Sometimes new parts have to be delayed until after the house payment is made. And sometimes the car may not be as clean-or as completely prepped-as you might like because a member of your volunteer crew went on vacation, or had a kid get sick, and you simply didn't have enough hands on deck to get everything done.
This is especially true when it comes to testing. If you race the same equipment at the same track week after week, that's one thing, but if you are going to a new track or have changed virtually anything on your car it's practically impossible to be perfect right off the truck. Most tracks offer practice time the day a race is scheduled, but there are often times when an hour or two of track time just isn't enough and a full-blown test is called for. But tests are difficult because it costs money to rent the track, you and your crew probably will have to take vacation time from work, and getting the most from a test requires all the prep (and often more) involved with getting the race car ready for an actual race.
Good communication is vital....
Good communication is vital. Here, crew chief Mike Sibley is not only talking with driver Tommy Cloce about what the car it doing, he's also making sure he understands exactly how loose the car is when Cloce says it's "loose on exit."
That's why it is so important, if you are going to make the investment of time, money, and effort to go testing, to get everything you can out of it. With that in mind, we tagged along as Joe Gibbs Racing took driver Tommy Cloce on a test. Cloce is the 2009 Joe Gibbs Driven Racing Oil ASA Member Track National champion, and one of the perks of winning the championship is the opportunity to test with the Gibbs race team.
The team Cloce is testing with is the outfit that normally races in the NASCAR Camping World East series. However, the track for the test is Dillon (SC) Motor Speedway, an ASA Member track that was purchased and rennovated by former truck series racer Ron Barfield a few years ago. And while the purpose of the session is to test Cloce's abilities behind the wheel, crew chief Mike Sibley's intention is to treat the session as much like a real test as possible to see just what Cloce is made of. This allows us to see how a professional operation like JGR handles a test day at the track.
Just like the old adage that the three most important things in real estate are "location, location, location," the very same can be said about track testing and preparation. Sibley says that in order to test properly, your race car should be prepared to the very same level that it will be on race day. Make sure any work that needs to be done on the car is completed ahead of time so that you can spend the most time possible with your car on the race track. Also, in order for the test to be valid, you want everything possible to be identical to the way it will be during a race.
You may not have a setup as...
You may not have a setup as nice as this Joe Gibbs Racing operation, but with good planning you can be prepared with everything you want to test without having to drag your entire shop to the racetrack with you.
Obviously, once you hit the track you don't want to start making chassis changes without a plan. And planning must also begin well before you hit the track. Start with the setup you will put under the car to begin the test.
If you are testing at your home track, then you can begin with your race setup and adjust from there. But if you are going to a track you've never tested at before, you have a couple of options. First, you can call around to other drivers or even your chassis builder to see if anyone has any experience with the track and can offer you some advice on what setups seem to work best there. If you don't know anyone and have to go in "blind," your best bet is to start with something basic your driver is familiar with. Don't guess and go in with some wild setup you aren't used to because you won't already have an idea how the car should behave, and it will be more difficult to determine what changes need to be made.
If you plan to test regularly,...
If you plan to test regularly, a set of leveling scale pads like these are a good investment. They allow you to create four level areas at the track for all making all setup changes on the car. Then you can roll the car forward onto the scales if you want to scale the car.
Next, you need to determine exactly what you are trying to accomplish. For example, you may be trying to test some new components to see how they make your car react. In this instance, you aren't as concerned with determining the absolutely best setup as you are with gathering information that can be used later. You may be testing a new brand of shocks and need to learn how different settings affect the handling. And then how do the different shock settings react to different spring packages? This type of test is more about gathering information that should help you make adjustments on the fly during your next race.
The other type of test is all about determining the best setup package for a given track (and hopefully, under the same conditions you will be racing under). Work as if you are actually racing and try to find that right combination that will produce the fastest lap times while also keeping the car comfortable enough to drive that you-or your driver-can successfully negotiate traffic and pass when necessary.
At the Track
This is a boring photo, but...
This is a boring photo, but it illustrates a good point. When using leveling pads it is critical that after making sure everything is level, they be in the same place every time. The JGR team assures this by marking the pavement where the feet on the pads must go.
Remember, the entire purpose of going to test is to gather all the information you can. You won't learn nearly as much during the time spent wrenching on the car, so try to minimize that as much as possible. Sibley says you can make your test run much more efficiently if you prepare your packages ahead of time, including scaling the car. If you know what shock and spring setups you will be running, go ahead and set them up at the shop beforehand. Also, for example, if you plan to try a softer left rear spring, go ahead and install that spring on the car and measure how many rounds you will have to put back into the rear to get the ride height back to where it was before. Now when someone installs that shock and spring package, your crew can just count the rounds on the jack bolts and know everything is right.
And then there will be times during a test that you may want to make a chassis adjustment you hadn't originally planned on. Now you will likely need to recheck frame heights to make sure you aren't getting off track on your overall setup. An easy way to do that is to put a piece of tape on all four fenders and, while you are still at the shop on a level surface, mark a line on the tape at a consistent height on all four corners. Next, find the most level spot you can at the racetrack and use that as your pit area. Measure those four marks again and log the heights. The height may change versus what you measured at the shop if you aren't on level ground, but now you know your frame heights and can tell if they change. Now every time you make a change to the chassis you can easily refer back to those points to see if the frame heights have moved.
Once everything is level,...
Once everything is level, use the end of a carpenter's square or a straight edge to mark a consistent height on a piece of tape at all four fenders. Now you can easily check whether a chassis adjustment has changed the frame height.
Whether you are simulating long green flag runs or shorter sprints, there are some things you or your crew should check every time the car comes in. This includes tire pressures, recording how much the pressure has changed since the car left the pits, and shock travels. You have to be careful with shock travels, however, if you are using rubber grommets on the shock shafts. That will only tell you max shock travel, which can sometimes be thrown off if you hit a bump or a hole in the track. A hard transition from the track to pit road can also max out your shock travel. Still, travel indicators are a good way to see if any change you made to the chassis is affecting shock travel.
Another often overlooked area is communication between the driver and crew. If you have a long working relationship with your driver or crew chief, you have probably already worked through this, but for new drivers or crew chiefs it is important to talk beforehand about exactly what you mean when you describe something about how the car is handling. On the surface this may not seem like a big deal as long as you both speak English (or at least the same language). But we're talking about degrees of difference here. Most racers and crew chiefs settle on a scale to describe just how loose or tight the race car may be. Sibley says whether you use a scale that's 1-10, A-Z, or whatever; you need to make sure you mean the same thing when the driver says the car is a "seven loose." Otherwise the crew chief may over- or under-compensate on his chassis changes and it will take longer than necessary to dial in the chassis.
If you use dedicated setup...
If you use dedicated setup tires in the shop (and you should), take them to the track test with you. You don't have to put them on every time you make a chassis adjustment, but they are nice to have around if you want to bolt them back on after several changes to make sure you haven't gotten away from your base settings.
After all that, we will finally get to making changes. There's no way to cover it all in terms of what change affects the car in what manner, so we won't even try. For that, you can read Bob Bolles' excellent chassis and setup articles elsewhere in this magazine every month. But we will offer this one excellent piece of advice Sibley passed along.
When making changes to the car, always start with the handling problems that show up earliest in the turn. For example, if the race car is tight in and then bad loose coming out of the corner, resist the urge to fight the biggest problem first which is the car's looseness on turn exit.
The reason for this is simple; the problems you are experiencing with the car earlier in the turn often affect how the car handles later. In this example, the car is tight on turn entry. So you have to wait until the car slows enough before it will begin to turn. But because it is tight, many drivers overcompensate with the steering wheel and have the tires turned too far. Once the car slows enough that the front tires can get some grip, they are turned too far and the car goes from tight to loose. Fixing the tight condition on turn entry will change the way to drive into the turn and the loose condition on turn exit likely will fix itself.
Sibley strongly recommends...
Sibley strongly recommends taking notes of practically everything that happens during a test. Even if it seems unimportant at the time, there is no telling what information you will need later when you try to recreate that perfectly handling car you had at the end of a long day of testing.
Overall, both Sibley and Cloce said the test went well. "It's really good for me to see how these guys work," Cloce says. "They don't waste any time, and every time I gave feedback on how the car behaved they knew exactly what needed to be done. When we started the car was set up specifically for me or for this track, but because they already knew what changes worked with this chassis, they were able to get it to suit my needs as a driver very quickly."
The whole session was valuable for both Tommy and the JGR team. The ASA has again given a local short track racer the chance of a lifetime with another successful test with Joe Gibbs Racing.
Could you be in that seat next year? Of course you could, but first you have to be an ASA member racing at an ASA Member Track. Get those two things out of the way and all you have to do is race your hardest. This ASA Championship uses a weighted points system that allows competitors from different tracks across the country to compete against one another. You gain points by not only winning heats and features but also by passing cars on the track. While the formula to calculate all that may be complex, the goal is fairly simply: Accumulate the most points by the end of the season and you are crowned the champion.
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.
Press TV: Professor Chomsky, let us start with Pakistan. The White House is not commenting on the killings of people [in cross-border drone attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan]. Richard Holbrooke, someone whom you’ve written about in the context of Yugoslavia, is the man [President Barack] Obama has chosen to solve the situation.
Chomsky: It was pretty clear that Obama would accept the Bush doctrine that the United States can bomb Pakistan freely, and there have been many cases which are quite serious. There has been for example a great deal of chaos and fighting in Bajaur province, which is a adjacent to Afghanistan and tribal leaders- others there- have traced it to the bombing of a madrassa school which killed 80 to 95 people, which I don’t think was even reported in the United states, it was reported in the Pakistani press of course.
The author of the article reporting it, a well-known nuclear physicist, Pervez Hoodbhoy pointed out at the time that this kind of massacre will of course engender terror and reactions, which will even threaten the state of Pakistan. And that has been what is happening. We are now seeing more of it.
The first message of the Pakistani government to General [David] Petraeus, the American General when he took command of the region was that they did not want any more bombings in Pakistan. Actually, the first message to the new Obama administration by President [Hamid] Karzai of Afghanistan was the same, that he wanted no more bombings. He also said that he wants a timetable for the withdrawal of the foreign troops, US and other troops, from Afghanistan. That was of course just ignored.
Press TV: Some people are expressing optimism about George Mitchell’s position as Middle East envoy. [And there’s] Richard Holbrooke. We have talked to the former Bosnian foreign minister here, who seemed to imply that he may even have had a role in the say-so for the Srebrenica massacre, and of course, Dennis Ross is being talked about as an envoy for Iran.
Chomsky: Holbrooke has a pretty awful record, not so much in Yugoslavia, but earlier. For example, in the Indonesian atrocities in East Timor, where he was the official in charge…George Mitchell is, of the various appointments that have been made, the most decent, let’s say. He has a pretty decent record. He achieved something in Northern Ireland, but of course, in that case there was an objective.
The objective was that the British would put an end to the resort to violence in response to IRA terror and would attend to the legitimate grievances that were the source of the terror. He did manage that, Britain did pay attention to the grievances, and the terror stopped — so that was successful. But there is no such outcome sketched in the Middle East, specially the Israel-Palestine problem. I mean, there is a solution, a straightforward solution very similar to the British one. Israel could stop its US-backed crimes in the occupied territories and then presumably the reaction to them would stop. But that’s not on the agenda.
In fact, President Obama just had a press conference, which was quite interesting in that respect. He praised the parabolic peace initiative, the Saudi initiative endorsed by the Arab League, and said it had constructive elements. It called for the normalization of relation with Israel, and he called on the Arab states to proceed with those “constructive elements,” namely the normalization of relations.
But that is a gross falsification of the Arab League initiative. The Arab League initiative called for accepting a two-state settlement on the international border, which has been a long-standing international consensus and said if that can be achieved then Arab states can normalize relations with Israel. Obama skipped the first part, the crucial part, the core of the resolution, because that imposes an obligation on the United States. The United States has stood alone for over thirty years in blocking this international consensus. By now it has totally isolated the US and Israel.
Europe and now a lot of other countries have accepted it. Hamas has accepted it for years, the Palestinian Authority of course, [also]; the Arab League now for many years [has accepted it]. The US and Israel block it, not just in words, but in actions constantly. [This is] happening every day in the occupied territories and also in the siege of Gaza and other atrocities. So when he skips, that is purposeful. That entails that the US is not going to join the world in seeking to implement a diplomatic settlement, and if that is the case, Mitchell’s mission is vacuous.
Press TV: Obama did say that the border should be opened. Should we see any change in policy there?
Chomsky: He did say that, but he did not mention the fact that it was in the context of a lot other demands. And Israel will also say, sure the borders should be opened but he still refuses to speak to the elected government (i.e. Hamas), quite different from Mitchell in Northern Ireland. It means Palestinians will have to be punished for voting in a free election, the way the US did not want them to, and Obama endorsed the Condoleezza Rice-Tzipi Livni agreement to close the Egyptian-Gaza order, which is quite an act of imperial arrogance.
It is not their border, and in fact, Egypt strongly objected to that. But Obama continued. He says we have to make sure that no arms are smuggled through the tunnels into the Gaza Strip. But he said nothing about the vast dispatch of far more lethal arms to Israel. In fact, right in the middle of the Gaza attack, December 31, the Pentagon announced that it was commissioning a German ship to send 3,000 tons of war material to Israel. That did not work out, because the government of Greece prevented it but it was supposed to go through Greece but it could all go through somewhere else. This is right in the middle of the attack on Gaza.
Actually there were very little reporting, very few inquiries. The Pentagon responded in an interesting way. They said, well this material won’t be used for the attack on Gaza. In fact they knew that Israel had plans to stop the attack right before the inauguration, so that Obama would not have to say anything about it. But the Pentagon said that this material is being used for pre-positioning for US forces. In other words, this has been going for a long time, but this is extending and reinforcing the role of Israel as a US military base on the edge of the major oil-producing regions of the world. If they are ever asked why they are doing it, they will say for defense or stability, but it is just a base for further aggressive action.
Press TV: Robert Gates and Admiral [Mike] Mullen have been talking about the 16-month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq is just one of the options, a slight difference from what Obama has been saying in the campaign. And, Hillary Clinton famously said she was prepared to obliterate all of Iran and kill 70 million citizens. On Iraq and Iran what do you see as changes?
Chomsky: What happened in Iraq is extremely interesting and important. The few correspondents with real experience and who know something have understood it. Patrick Cockburn, Jonathan Steele and one or two others. What has happened is that there was a remarkable campaign of non-violent resistance in Iraq, which compelled the United States, step-by-step, to back away from its programs and its goals. They compelled the US occupying forces to allow an election, which the US did not want and tried to evade in all sorts of ways. Then they went on from there to force the United States to accept at least formally a status of forces agreement which, if the Obama administration lives up to it, will abandon most of the US war aims. It will eliminate the huge permanent military bases that the US has built in Iraq. It will mean the US will not control decisions over how the oil resources will be accessed and used. And in fact just every war aim is gone.
Of course there is a question of whether the US will live up to it and what you are reporting is among the serious indications that they are trying to evade living up to it. But what happened there is really significant, and a real credit to the people of Iraq, who have suffered miserably. I mean, the country has been absolutely destroyed, but they did manage to get the US to back away formally from its major war aims.
In the case of Iran, Obama’s statements have not been as inflammatory as Clinton’s, but they amount to pretty much the same thing. He said all options are open. Well, what does all options mean? Presumably that includes nuclear war, you know, that is an option. There is no indication that he is willing to take the steps, say, that the American population wants. An overwhelming majority of the American population for years has been in favor, has agreed with the Non-Aligned Movement, that Iran should have the rights granted to the signers of the non-proliferation treaty, in fact to develop nuclear energy. It should not have the right to develop nuclear weapons, and more interestingly about the same percentages, about 75 to 80 per cent, call for the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region, which would include Iran, Israel, and any US forces deployment there, within all kinds of verifications and so on.
That could eliminate probably one of the major sources of the conflict. There is no indication that the Obama administration has any thought of doing anything about this.
Press TV: Just finally Professor Chomsky, the US economy is dominating the news and the lives of all Americans and arguably the people around the world. [There’s ] the $ 825 billion dollar package. How do you think the Obama people are going to handle this?
Chomsky: Nobody really knows. What is happening with the economy is not well understood. It is based on extremely opaque financial manipulations, which are quite hard to decode. I mean, the general process is understood, but whether the $800 billion, or probably larger government stimulus, will overcome this crisis, is not known.
The first $350 billion have already been spent — that is the so-called part bailout but that went into the pockets of banks. They were supposed to start lending freely, but they just decided not to do it. They would rather enrich themselves, restore their own capital, and take over other banks — mergers and acquisition and so on. Whether the next stimulus will have an effect depends very much on how it is handled, whether it is monitored, so that it is used for constructive purposes. [It relies] also on factors that are just not known, like how deep this crisis is going to be.
It is a worldwide crisis and it is very serious. It is striking that the ways that Western countries are approaching the crisis [entirely contradict] the model that they enforce on the Third World when there is a crisis. So when Indonesia has a crisis, [or] Argentina and everyone else, they are supposed to raise interest rates very high and privatize the economy, and cut down on public spending, measures like that. In the West, it is the exact opposite: lower interest rates to zero, move towards nationalization if necessary, pour money into the economy, have huge debts. That is exactly the opposite of how the Third World is supposed to pay off its debts. That this seems to pass without comment is remarkable.
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TAVA is CAFY sponsored project. It is a teen focused, teen facilitated advocate group whose mission is to raise awareness about youth victimization and violence.
In 2006 CAFY was selected by the National Crime Prevention Council's Youth Organization of Victim Assistance as one of 32 sites across the nation to establish a teen victimization campaign. CAFY's leadership along with nine teens took on the challenge and created TAVA in September 2006.
This was an easy decision since CAFY has identified intimate violence in over 60% of teen cases they service. To impact that national statistic — that youth, ages 13-18, account for the highest percentage of victims in our county and across the nation — TAVA teens have focused on conducting outreaches to educate teens about:
|Teen Dating Violence||Bullying|
Facilitated workshops to address issues such as:
|Male victimization and reporting||Teens and Alcohol Abuse|
|Self-Defense for Teens|
TAVA has held Fashion Shows, Basketball Tournaments all in an attempt to get the word in a message acceptable to teens. TAVA's goal in line with CAFY's to educate, empower and embrace the teen population with the support of adults to change the message, the legacy and the volumes of teens being affected by teen violence and victimization. Every 2nd and 4th Friday, TAVA is at the Bowie Gymnasium holding teen "Rap" sessions and workshops to get the word out that teen can "GET OUT, RELEASE, GET LIFTED" from the stronghold of violence. For more information call CAFY 301-390-4092 or encourage another teen 'to come out.
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Florida’s Pam Bondi, for instance, has joined a handful of other Republican attorneys general in arguing against forcing banks to lower loan balances for troubled homeowners, a controversial practice known as principal reduction.
New York’s Democratic attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, meanwhile, has joined other states in pushing for stiff penalties for the firms involved, which include Bank of America and Wells Fargo. He also has insisted that any settlement should not let banks off the hook from the threat of future lawsuits.
The disparate views from some of the country’s largest, most influential and most foreclosure-plagued states means that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat leading the negotiations alongside federal officials, must walk a delicate line if he hopes to arrive at a settlement that his peers can support, that banks cans live with and that struggling homeowners (and voters) view as meaningful.
“I’m still confident. I think there’s a settlement there that everybody can agree to,” Miller said in an interview Tuesday, though he added: “There are still some major obstacles between here and there. Something like this can always get off track, but I still think we can come to a resolution.”
Nine months after widespread problems with foreclosures caused a national uproar, that hasn’t proved easy or fast.
A handful of crucial states, including California, Illinois and New York, have undertaken their own investigations into mortgage industry practices, subpoenaing information about business practices and seeking meetings with executives about such things as securitization to faulty court affidavits. Other officials, such as in Oklahoma, have threatened to pursue their own settlements with mortgage servicers.
Miller knows — and numerous banking industry officials agree — that failing to get the biggest and most influential states on board could undermine the legitimacy of any settlement, particularly because those are the states with the resources to undertake their own inquiries and where the banks could suffer the largest liabilities.
“The big states and the states that are heavily impacted are more important than some of the rest of us. We aren’t all equal in that regard,” Miller acknowledged, adding that “the banks want most or all of the large states included,” because if they don’t sign on to an agreement, the legal “battle would continue and be a significant battle.”
In fact, state and federal officials at a recent negotiating session in Washington tried to impress upon bank representatives just how uncertain the future could be if they refuse to settle, noting that the firms faced potential liabilities of at least $17 billion, based on the misconduct uncovered by investigators so far.
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powered by AFI
"You can't kill John Wayne," Bosley Crowther wrote in his New York Times review of In Harm's Way (1965). "That's the message - the only message - that comes through loud and clear in Otto Preminger's big war film." On the screen, the Duke seemed practically immortal (even if he did die in a few films) but at the time of In Harm's Way, his health was in decline. During the filming he was plagued with a constant cough and it wasn't until the completion of Preminger's film that he learned he had lung cancer, marking the beginning of an eleven year battle with the disease. Despite the toll cancer took on the actor, Wayne soldiered on in his career just like his character Capt. Rockwell Torrey in In Harm's Way. In some ways, Preminger's film is less about the Pacific campaign of World War II then it is about the enshrinement of Wayne's screen persona.
Set in Hawaii on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 6, 1941) and culminating in a decisive naval battle between the U.S. navy and the Japanese fleet, In Harm's Way was an attempt by Preminger to create a courageous epic. "After all these anti-war films which seem to have been more defeatist than pacifist," he said, "the Navy needs a film like this!" (from Behind the Scenes of Otto Preminger by Willi Frischauer). And who better than the Duke to play the brash full-speed-ahead Capt. Torrey aka "The Rock," a career navy man who abandoned his wife and family years earlier because his duty to country came first. Like Torrey, Wayne was a hawk and well known for his right wing politics. His choice of screen roles also reflected his belief that playing weak, ambivalent or villainous characters would alienate his fans and he was probably right. Wayne couldn't, for instance, understand why Kirk Douglas would want to play the brooding, deeply conflicted Commander Paul Eddington in In Harm's Way (he couldn't fathom why Douglas wanted to play the tormented Vincent Van Gogh in Lust for Life either). In a crucial scene, Eddington gets drunk and rapes the fiance, Ensign Annalee Dorne (Jill Haworth), of Torrey's estranged son Jeremiah (Brandon De Wilde). The incident drives Annalee to commit suicide and Douglas to sacrifice himself for the greater cause but Wayne was very unhappy with how the screenplay depicted Eddington. Wayne said, "If I were playing this part, I would want the girl's boyfriend to return, face me, and kill me." For his own character, Wayne wanted it made clear that he cared about his men. "I must show that I care about other people. Otherwise, when they go off and get killed on my orders, people will hate me." (from John Wayne: Prophet of the American Way of Life by Emanuel Levy).
Wayne was equally adamant about the casting of his female co-star. He had been particularly uncomfortable with the romantic scenes in Hatari! (1962) opposite Elsa Martinelli, who was young enough to be his daughter. He no longer thought it appropriate for a man his age to be cast opposite some young ingnue so he was particularly happy to learn that the thirty-eight-year-old Patricia Neal had accepted the part of his love interest, Lt. Maggie Hayes. Neal wrote in her autobiography, Patricia Neal: As I Am, that In Harm's Way "brought me back into a working relationship with John Wayne, whom I had not seen since Operation Pacific . Those days were not pleasant for either of us and we had both been through a lot since then. He was certainly a better man for it, much more relaxed and generous. This time we got along splendidly."
Surprisingly enough, both Wayne and Neal also enjoyed a good relationship with director Otto Preminger who had a terrible reputation in the industry for his often cruel and contentious behavior on movie sets. Hollywood insiders expected a battle of egos between the director and Wayne but the actor told an interviewer, "He had my respect and I had his respect. He is terribly hard on the crew, and he's terribly hard on people he thinks are sloughing off. But this is a thing I can understand because I've been there...I came ready and that he appreciated." As for Neal, she admitted, "This will come as a surprise to some...but Otto Preminger may have been the most generous man I ever knew." According to the actress, he held up the production of In Harm's Way until after the birth of her child plus he invited her entire family to join them on location in Hawaii and covered all the expenses.
Kirk Douglas, however, had a different view of the director who on this film would strut around on the set proclaiming, "I'm the man with no hair who shoves around the people with hair." Douglas was particularly appalled by Preminger's treatment of actor Tom Tryon who had already been humiliated by the director during the making of The Cardinal (1963) and should have known better than to work with Preminger again. "Whispered rumors that Tryon was gay might have inspired Preminger's venom." (quoted from John Wayne: American by Randy Roberts and James S. Olson). "Kirk Douglas remembered, "Otto would scream. He would come right up to Tom, saliva spitting out of his mouth, and he would just yell. I've never seen anyone treated that way. Tom was shattered." Douglas begged Tryon to stand up to the old man. "The next time Otto screams at you," Douglas counseled him, "just yell right back. 'Otto, Go f*ck yourself!' and walk off the set." Tom Tryon did not like confrontations and kept his peace, suffering through the abuse. Preminger tried to bully Douglas a few times, but the star would have none of it. "Once, he raised his voice in a nasty way toward me. I walked over to him, nose to nose. In a very low voice, I said, 'Are you talking to me?' That was the end of it. He never insulted me again."
Preminger gave short shrift to In Harm's Way in his autobiography but he did admit that "Wayne is an ideal professional: always prompt, always prepared" and noted with some pride, "The good timetable that we kept in the making of In Harm's Way helped to save John Wayne's life," a reference to the fact that Wayne was able to arrange a medical exam (where they discovered his cancer) because Preminger finished ten days ahead of schedule. The director also recalled with some amusement (in The Cinema of Otto Preminger by Gerald Pratley) Paula Prentiss's final scene in the film (she plays Bev McConnell, the newlywed wife of Tom Tryon's character). "...She so much wanted to be good that she kept unconsciously kicking herself in the ankle. When the scene was over, she suddenly couldn't walk, and she was taken to the hospital. She had broken her ankle, but she was concentrating so hard on the scene that she didn't realize it."
In Harm's Way, based on James Bassett's best-selling novel, was indeed an epic undertaking and Preminger was able to count on the US Defense Department for practically everything he needed in order to recreate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other combat scenes. The U.S. Navy "supplied him with the USS St. Paul, a cruiser, and sailed the entire cast and crew from Seattle to Hawaii. On the way Preminger shot a number of the onboard scenes, ordering the St. Paul's captain and crew around as if they were employees. The naval base at Pearl Harbor became a Preminger set..." The only obstacles to overcome were mere technicalities: "No importation of explosives into operational bases and no laying mines in Pearl Harbor by civilians. Instead, dummies were rigged up on vacant lots and wired with gas and oil for controlled fires." (from Behind the Scenes of Otto Preminger by Willi Frischauer). In some battle scenes, Preminger resorted to using miniatures which some critics realized were obviously toy ships and detracted greatly from the film's realism; John Wayne also complained to Preminger about it.
Reviewers were clearly divided on the merits of In Harm's Way. The New York Times proclaimed "This is a slick and shallow picture that Mr. Preminger puts forth here, a straight clich-crowded melodrama.." Mike Mayo, author of Videohound's War Movies, wrote that the actors were "all saddled with a convoluted story that's so idiotically written it's unfair to judge the actors' work...One clue to the bad writing comes in the place names that were invented for the fictional campaign. When Torrey says, "You're gonna mop up Gavoobutu and mount the invasion of Lavoovona," it sounds even sillier than it reads." Kirk Douglas's volatile character doesn't come off any better with dialogue like "We've got ourselves another war...a gut-busting, mother-loving Navy war!"
Weighing in with positive assessments, however, were such respected publications as The New Yorker, Films in Review, and Variety. Brendan Gill of The New Yorker wrote, "The picture lasts two hours and forty-five minutes, nearly every one of which is filled with storm and stress, both literal and figurative, and it's an honest measure of its success as a melodrama that I, who am usually irritated by long movies, never once bent forward in my seat to consult my watch." Wilfred Mifflin of Films in Review confirmed Preminger's original reason for making the film: "I was absorbed not because its story is novel....but because I'm starved for movies which "accentuate the positive"...In Harm's Way is a pleasure to watch because it makes possible whole-hearted identification with a hero."
But it has to be said that the movie's major appeal was the Duke. Variety acknowledged this, stating "This picture was tailored for John Wayne...He is in every way the big gun of In Harm's Way. Without his commanding presence, chances are Preminger probably could not have built the head of steam this film generates and sustains for 2 hours, 45 minutes." Nevertheless, In Harm's Way was virtually ignored at Oscar® time with the exception of a well-deserved nomination for Loyal Griggs for Best Cinematography. His beautiful cinemascope compositions are particularly striking, especially during the opening sequence that sets up the pre-dawn attack on Pearl Harbor.
Producer: Otto Preminger
Director: Otto Preminger
Screenplay: James Bassett (novel), Wendell Mayes
Cinematography: Loyal Griggs
Film Editing: Hugh S. Fowler, George Tomasini
Art Direction: Al Roelofs
Music: Jerry Goldsmith, Michael Hennagin
Cast: John Wayne (Capt. Rockwell Torrey), Kirk Douglas (Eddington), Patricia Neal (Maggie), Tom Tryon (Mac), Paula Prentiss (Bev), Brandon De Wilde (Jere).
by Jeff Stafford
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I just re-read Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America. It’s strikingly relevant for movement building today. I suggest you read it. But in case you can’t, here are my top take-aways from the book, as always, in 800 words…
1. There is a formula for movement building.
Goodwyn argues there are four, sequential stages: “(1) the creation of an autonomous institution where new interpretations can materialize that run counter to those of prevailing authority… ‘the movement forming’; (2) the creation of a tactical means to attract masses of people—‘the movement recruiting’; (3) the achievement of a heretofore culturally unsanctioned level of social analysis—‘the movement educating’; and (4) the creation of an institutional means by which new ideas, shared now by the rank and file of the mass movement, can be expressed in an autonomous political way—‘the movement politicized’”.
The genius of the Populists was that the autonomous institution formed (1) and into which masses were recruited (2) was not overtly a political group or organizing group but an alternative, economic self-survival formation. Rural farmers suffering under the crop lien system (where they sold rights to their crop to get seeds and tools but then the selling value of the crop wasn’t high enough to cover the debt due to intentional deflation) were drawn en masse to farming cooperatives that collectivized costs. Practical needs got people in the door; politics were cultivated.
2. Mass political education is critical (and possible).
Once the farming cooperatives got members in the door, they weren’t just asked to write letters to Members of Congress. The Populist Movement (in the form of the Farmer’s Alliance) had 40,000 traveling lecturers educating Alliance members about the prevailing systems of economic power and privilege in America. Think about that: 40,000 traveling lecturers! And we complain that we can’t educate the masses because we don’t have our own TV station. The Populists didn’t let a lack of mass media stop them from mass education.
Goodwyn articulates political education as the primary goal of any social movement, far above particular issue demands: “Towering over all other tasks is the need to find a way to overcome deeply ingrained patterns of deference permeating the entire social order.” In the case of Populism, the movement wasn’t about farm loan policy or hard money currency or any of the issues of the day—“the meaning of the agrarian revolt was its cultural assertion as a people’s movement of mass democratic aspiration.” That’s as good a test for any to apply to our movement aspirations going forward, instead of making the central point about the particular issue or group being organized.
3. Things have become steadily worse since 1896.
Williams Jennings Bryan, representing a more accommodationist branch of the Populists that co-opted the movement, won the Populist and Democratic parties’ nomination for President in 1896, delivering a significant blow to the movement. When Bryan then lost to McKinley, it was the final knockout. “The economic, political, and moral authority that ‘concentrated capital’ was able to mobilize in 1896 generated a cultural momentum that gathered in intensity until it created new political guidelines for the entire society in twentieth-century America… They have remained substantially unquestioned since.”
Goodwyn elaborates, “The American populace was induced to accept as its enduring leadership a corporate elite whose influence was to permeate every state legislature of the land, and the national Congress as well. A new style of democratic politics had become institutionalized, and its cultural boundaries were so adequately fortified that the new forms gradually described the Democratic Party of opposition as well as the Republican party of power.” Déjà vu, anyone?
Radical populism faded into “progressivism” and eventually “liberalism”—the “sophisticated despair, grounded in the belief that hierarchical American society could, perhaps, be marginally ‘humanized’ but could not be fundamentally democratized.” Arguably, even 60s and 70s movements’ aims to add marginalized communities to the ranks of the privileged elite rather than abolish caste and elitism altogether reflects this persistent reality. This history also suggests the inverse is true; if we want to bring about radical
4. The solution is “self-generating creativity” to challenge hegemony.
Goodwyn defines the “ultimate cultural victory” in movements and politics “being not merely to win an argument but to remove the subject from the agenda of future contention.” To change the rules of the game. Goodwyn argues that the corporate elite did this effectively and, so far, indelibly in 1896. Goodwyn accuses left-leaning political thought since, especially socialism, of “dull dogmatism” that preferenced ideological rigidity over democratic authenticity (not to mention democratic values) and, thus, a “capacity for self-generating creativity”. In other words, to be both legitimate and effective at challenging the anti-democratic elite status quo, movements must embrace participatory democracy (see, e.g., “Five Lessons on Participatory Decisionmaking” http://movementvision.org/books-in-brief/particiaptory-decisionmaking/). Goodwyn argues that, in movements, people must generate their own democratic culture “in order to challenge the received hierarchical culture.”
The era of the Populist Movement is one in which corruption in the credit markets led to widespread disempowerment and disaffection, in which mass movements rose up to educate and aggregate the power of these communities, yet the consolidated power and cultural influence of corporate America closed the door on any significant prospect of change. Parts of this history feel eerily familiar today, but hopefully learning from the past, we can write a different ending this time. Just to boggle your mind again with the scale of things, in 1896 at the start of its decline the Populist Movement had over 2 million members (at a time when the 1890 Census estimated between 62-75 million Americans total). By that measure, we should have a movement of at least 8 million now — but why stop there? Many millions more feel the need for change. We just need to give them a practical and inspiring outlet.
I love book reviews that expand your understanding of a book even before you’ve read it and that offer to be omniscient companions as you eventually open the text. But I also love book reviews that are better than the book being reviewed, that take an author’s work and mix it up with broader analysis and context into something even more profound.
Jeff Chang’s review in ColorLines of Rich Benjamin’s Searching For Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America does exactly that. It’s a great book review peppered with deep insights and sharp prose. I learned a lot. I recommend you check it out start to finish.
Perhaps the most powerful thing about Benjamin’s book, and Chang’s analysis, is the looming political vision to connect the justified anger of people of color with the justified anger of poor and working class whites — the idea that the shift toward social and cultural isolation, economic scarcity and elitism, the destruction of government and the common good, these all hurt the majority of white folks just as much as they hurt those who are black and brown. Citing Benjamin, Chang writes:
He updates arguments about segregation’s ills for an era of Black suburbs and white exurbs. He writes that “retrograde monoculture” hurts white children, who will be competitively impaired in the emerging nation and world. He believes Blacks face increased social, occupational and educational risk in hyper-segregated suburbs, and middle-class whites are increasingly subject to “winner-take-all frenzy for scarce public goods” in booming Whitopias.
I was struck recently watching focus groups of low-wage white women and working class white men in Maine talking about the economy that, though they have more in common with new immigrants than CEOS (economically, but even politically and socially) these white folks tended to complain about immigrants getting ahead but worship the CEOs. In a country where big business owns everything, from the means of production to the levers of politics, the focus groupers credited CEOs and the superrich with working hard, getting the right education, playing by the rules and winning. The immigrants, on the other hand, cheat.
Something is terribly wrong in our nation when the desperation to cling to racial alliances is so strong that hardworking immigrants are labeled cheaters and CEOs who cheat the system and rig it against the rest of us are labeled heroes of the American dream.
Chang ends his review by saying that Benjamin’s book, while in his mind mixed, “has helped restart one of the few conversations really worth having.” Amen.
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Italian-born painter and sculptor. Circa 200 letters received from galleries, museums, and artists, four manuscripts, and
circa 20 printed items primarily relate to the Surrealist retrospective "Le Surrealisme en 1947"
curated by Andrei Breton and Marcel Duchamp and held at the Galerie Maeght in
Paris, July-August 1947.
The Italian-born painter and sculptor, Enrico Donati, became an
American citizen in 1945. During the 1930s and 1940s he was associated with
Surrealists in Paris and New York, contributing to the Surrealist retrospective
in Paris in 1947.
Contact Library Rights and Reproductions
Open for use by qualified researchers.
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The LAC du DER area invites you to undertake an unusual journey through a delightful part of the Champagne region, to the edge of a splendid lake, nestling in a wonderful lush setting. 4,800 hectares, and a 77 km shoreline. Everything here is impressive and beautiful.
Tourism for all seasons
As soon as the fine days of summer arrive, brightly-coloured sails can be seen, bobbing across the waters of the lake. The summer heat brings with it swimming and sunbathing enthusiasts, who come to enjoy any one of the Lac du Der's six beaches with their visitor amenities.
As they relax, motorboats and water-skiers put on a display on the 600 hectares of lake specially set aside for them.
When the light begins to take on the colours of autumn, anglers launch their boats and set out to fish for pike, carp, perch or roach.
As winter sets in, the lake takes on the appearance of an estuary at low tide. Visitors see a very different scene at this time of year.
This season is above all the time for watching the migrating birds. More than 270 species have been seen on the Der, some of them rare and endangered. Every year, over 250,000 birdwatchers make their way here to watch nature's great performance.
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US 5002049 A
Portable smoke and gas dispeller for use by anyone working in conditions--for instance a welder--in which hindering smoke or gas is developed and serving to prevent the smoke or gas being inhaled by the user. It comprises a housing which is affixed to the chest of the user when in use and hangs with its rear wall in front of or against the chest. It is provided with an inlet orifice and an outlet orifice, the latter being arranged such, that the air streaming out forms sort of an air-screen between the breathing area and the smoke/gas-area. Preferably it is provided with a strip or sheet which in use is affixed against the chest so that it may hinge about a horizontal axis and the direction of the outstreaming airflow remains the same.
1. A portable smoke and gas dispeller suitable for use by a wearer in conditions in which hindering smoke or gas is developed, said dispeller having means to prevent the smoke or gas from being breathed by the wearer, said means emitting a stable air screen, said dispeller comprising: a single housing unit having a front wall, side walls and rear wall along with a top and bottom, said housing being positioned during use such that said rear wall is contiguous to the wearer's chest, said front and rear walls of said housing being provided with at least one air inlet orifice, a horizontally-lying slot-like air outlet orifice that extends horizontally outward around said housing from one edge of said rear wall along both of said side walls, and said front wall of said housing to the other edge of said rear wall, said orifice being arranged at a constant upward angle of approximately 5 plane for blowing air upward over an arc of 180 plane for introducing air into said single housing unit and for expelling said air under pressure via said outlet orifice and directing a stable air screen toward the breathing zone of the wearer.
2. The portable smoke and gas dispeller defined in claim 1 wherein said housing is provided on an edge of said rear wall with a strip portion affixed thereto by a hinge about a substantially horizontal axis.
3. The portable smoke and gas dispeller defined in claim 2 wherein light sensor means which is sensitive to welding-arc produced light is disposed on said front wall of said housing and which renders said blower motor operative when exposed to said welding-arc produced light.
4. The portable smoke and gas dispeller defined in claim 3 wherein said outlet orifice is arranged at a constant angle of approximately 15
The invention relates to a portable smoke and gas dispeller for use by anyone working in conditions in which hindering smoke and/or gas is discharged and which serves to prevent the smoke or gas being inhaled by the user. Such apparatus is used by a welder for example. Gases and smoke are produced during welding and these are injurious to health when inhaled. The smoke and gas dispeller described herein serves to hold the smoke or gas as clear of the so-called breathing zone as much as possible.
A known method of limiting the amount of smoke or gas inhaled by a welder is to well ventilate the area in which he is working by using extraction apparatus herefor. It is even possible to provide an extraction apparatus which is so dimensioned and located as near as possible to the smoke and gas generating source so that it can extract these directly. In many cases however, the operational effectiveness hereof is highly insufficient, particularly where the distance between the extractor and ventilating provisions and the welding position further change quite frequently. Through such a situation, it is often necessary to adapt the position of the extraction apparatus with respect to the welding position. The disadvantages of such installations are that in working with such apparatus the production speed is affected adversely and that the user carries an added burden.
Better provisions are those in which the distance between the extractor and the welder always remain the same. In the interests of promoting this requirement, welding helmets with extraction facilities have been developed. Here however the disadvantage is that the welder's movements are again limited. In many cases it appears that the weight of such a helmet is too heavy. Also in the case of the alternatives to extractors known up to the present such as face-masks provided with filters and over-pressure hoods present many objections to their use. These include too heavy a weight on the head; rapid fouling-up of the filters; noise inside the hoods; a stuffy and imprisoned feeling etc. and thus they are very often unacceptable to the wearer.
The object of the invention is to provide an apparatus which combats the said smoke and gas in a fargoing manner and which does not have the known foregoingly quoted disadvantages. The smoke and gas dispeller according to the invention is characterised in that it comprises a housing which is affixed to the chest of the user when in use with its rear wall hanging in front of or against the user's chest, which is provided with one or more inlet orifices for air and an outlet orifice arranged at a constant angle of approximately 5 15 air upward and which is provided with or can be connected to means for introducing air into the housing and for expelling the air under pressure to the exterior again via the outlet orifice.
Other than in known apparatus, this specification concerns an apparatus which blows away the smoke/gas instead of extracting it. In the case of the gas or smoke developed in welding, the so-called welding-smoke plume is blown away from the zone in which air is breathed by the user (welder) by air blown out by the apparatus itself and which air serves as a sort of air-screen between the ever rising plume and the breathing zone so that the blown air and the upwardly rising (welding) smoke are prevented from entering the breathing zone.
Air is introduced into the housing via the inlet orifice therein as the air is used to form a sort of air screen between the area from which air is inhaled and the area containing the smoke or unwanted gas and exits therefrom via the outlet orifice; otherwise than with the apparatus known so far it is not necessary to purify the air. The use of filters and the like may thus be avoided. For example, a preferable means for introducing air into the housing comprises a motor-driven blower accommodated in the housing itself and which sucks the air thereinto via the inlet orifice and which blows it to the exterior again via the outlet orifice under pressure. In this context one may also consider pressurizing air which can then be introduced into the housing from an external air supply source via the inlet orifice(s) therein.
The air outlet orifice is so constructed that when the apparatus is affixed to the user's chest, air can be blown out of the housing in all directions including both the forwards and sideways directions. To this end, the housing is provided with a mainly horizontally-lying slot-like outlet orifice which blows out air over an angle of 180 outlet orifice is located such that the air is blown upward at the quoted angle with respect to horizontal plane.
In a constructively easy to achieve embodiment of the apparatus according to the invention, the outlet comprises a slot-like orifice or a series of suchlike orifices lying in prolongation one with respect to another and which extend approximately horizontally outward around the housing from one edge of the rear wall to the other and around the side walls and front wall of the housing.
In use in a preferred embodiment of the invention, the housing is provided on the upper edge of the rear wall with a strip or sheet-like portion affixed thereto to hinge about a substantially horizontal axis. In use, the strip-like portion is affixed to the upper part of the user's body and the housing then hangs with its rear wall to the chest or hangs downward from a hinge free of the chest. The latter arrangement being such that the quoted angle to the horizontal plane is substantially maintained even when the user bends forward.
The apparatus according to the invention is used particularly by welders as a welding-smoke dispeller. The welding smoke plume is then deflected in a direction away from the user. In the main, when the airstream is generated with the aid of a battery-driven motor, an energy-saving advantage accrues herefrom when the air is blown away only when welding starts, and then ceases to be blown again when welding stops. A welding-smoke dispeller according to the invention is also preferably provided with a sensor on its foreside which is sensitive to welding-arc produced light. When such light is produced, a motor accommodated in the housing is started and stops again when the arc-produced light is extinguished. The following data has been derived from an exemplary embodiment of a working prototype of the smoke dispeller according to the invention. The smoke dispeller has been designed and produced in the form of a flat casket with a hinge-strip and which hangs on the user's shoulders with the aid of a carrying harness, one end of which harness is affixed to the hinge-strip so that the casket remains pressed to the chest. The housing has an uninterrupted outlet slot which when in use lies at an angle of approximately 15 to the horizontal plane and is located approximately 15 cm. below the welders collar. An airstream of from 6 cm.sup.3 /sec. appears to be sufficient for good operation of the apparatus. This airstream is generated by two blowers built into the housing, each with a diameter of 36 mm. and each driven by a motor, both of which motors are supplied with power from two 9-volt batteries. It appears that an optimal air discharge-rate of approximately 8 m/sec. is achieved at the slot-like outlet orifice.
Naturally and in general, the dimensions of the slot-like discharge orifice are determined by the chosen combination of airstream (volume) and air discharge-rate.
The apparatus is provided with a light-sensitive cell functioning as a sensor for detecting and reacting to the welding-arc produced light and through which reaction the blowers are switched on and off.
In comparison with local air extraction systems according to known methods the so-called reduction factor, that is to say the factor with which concentrations of welding smoke in the breathing zone are reduced, was measured and found to be improved by a factor of 7.
The invention is now further to be described with reference to the accompanying drawing which is a perspective of an exemplary embodiment of the apparatus according to the invention.
The housing 1 is provided on the front and rear sides with two air inlet orifices 2 and 3. Air is drawn into the housing via these and blown out via the slot-like orifice 4. This slot-like orifice 4 runs from the edges of the rear wall 12 (not shown on the drawing) via sidewalls 11, 13 and the front wall 10 over the whole width of the housing. The air blown out through the slot-like orifice 4 is thus blown out over an arc of 180
The housing 1 is provided with a light-sensitive cell means 5 by which means the housing-accommodated blower motor 15 can be switched on in the presence of welding-arc produced light or off in the absence of welding-arc produced light.
A strip-like portion 6 is affixed via a hinge 7 to the upper side of the rear wall of the housing 1. This portion 6 also remains lying against the user's chest when the latter bends forward. In the event of this occurring, then the rear wall of the housing 1 will no longer lie against the user's chest because the housing 1 will continue to substantially maintain its vertical stance through its pivoting action about the hinge 7. The carrying harness straps are indicated by the reference numerals 8 and 9 and by which means the housing 1 is suspended from the user's chest, the strip 6 continues to lie pressed against the user's chest during the movement of the welder.
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Good afternoon, Senator Pacheco and members of the Committee.
I welcome the opportunity to answer questions that have arisen about ITD's recent adoption of the Open Document Format, or "ODF" and to clear up many of the misunderstandings that have arisen about the ODF standard.
Before I address such misunderstandings, I want to put ITD's publication of the ODF standard in context. Several years ago, the Legislatively created IT Commission examined how the Commonwealth could better acquire and use information technology. The Commission concluded that the Commonwealth's IT systems were a hodge podge of different and incompatible technologies resulting in information silos. For many years, I have stated "if someone made one and a vendor sold one, I guaranteed we bought one. As a result, in this era when state agencies must share data across agency and system boundaries using interoperable systems, we cannot do so, or cannot do so without building expensive interfaces. Our goal has been and remains appliance computing. Meaning everything can talk to everything else without expensive retrofits and interfaces. Over simplification Senator, but I always think of Legos; different shapes and colors but they all snap together. That is how the computing environment should look like within the Commonwealth.
In response to these concerns, and to a specific recommendation from the former IT Commission, ITD began to develop an IT architecture, a coherent, standards based blueprint for the development of the Executive Department's collection of IT systems. Our architecture, the "Enterprise Technical Reference Model" or "ETRM," is based on a framework developed and distributed by the Federal government and the National Association of State CIOs. Its basic premise is that by adoption of a "service oriented architecture," focused on open standard technologies, the Commonwealth can be transformed from an IT Tower of Babel to an IT United Nations. Adoption of industry IT standards will enable the Executive Department to use plug and play IT components that interoperate seamlessly because, while they are not all sold by the same vendor, they are built to the same standards. ITD has published various versions of the ETRM and one of them, version 3.5, required that all documents created in Executive Department agencies would be created in ODF, an open industry standard.
ODF is a type of "XML" or Extensible Markup Language. XML is an interchange format. It allows documents created by disparate systems to relate to one another. A document created on a system using a particular version of XML can be read and recreated with fidelity by a different system capable of reading that particular version of XML.
We chose to adopt as a standard the version of XML used in ODF. The Library of Congress has adopted ODF as a text format preference (along with PDF, which ITD also adopted in ETRM V. 3.5), for the preservation of Library of Congress collections. Fynnette Eaton, ERA Program, Change Management Officer: "NARA is requiring that those series of documents that are likely to be looked at in the future are saved in nonproprietary XML." She also said that "Anyone who thinks that the use of proprietary formats is acceptable for electronic records archiving doesn't know what they are talking about."
Many national, state, county and municipal governments around the world have already adopted or are considering adopting ODF as their preferred document format.
ITD adopted ODF because it is an open standard. Some versions of XML are proprietary, encumbered by restrictive copyright and patent licenses that restrict the ability of developers to write software that supports such versions of XML. By comparison, ODF was developed through an open peer review process, is maintained by an open community, and is available under patent and copyright licenses that impose minimal restrictions on software developers who wish to write applications to support it, now and in the distant future.
Documents created in proprietary XML formats cannot always be opened by applications created by vendors other than the format owner. Moreover, unlike documents created in ODF, documents created in proprietary formats will be inaccessible centuries from now because the ability to read them is tied to certain proprietary software. If history is our guide, today's applications will be as hard to locate in 100 years as Selectrix typewriters are today. By comparison new applications can always be written to support documents formatted in open standards like ODF long after the original software used to create such documents has disappeared. As an open document format, ODF, and applications that read it, are far more likely to be available in 300 years when our great grandchildren want to read the electronic records we create today. Furthermore, multiple office applications support ODF even today, so citizens making public records requests will have a choice of office applications when they read electronic public records created in that format.
In short, the Commonwealth's documents belong to its people and should not be locked up in proprietary formats that either restrict access to those who are willing and able to buy particular software tools to open them, or prevent access to those records in the far future because their readability is dependent upon software that is no longer available.
Having stated our general position, I want to dispel a number of misconceptions about our choice of ODF.
First, the applicability of the ODF standard is limited, like the rest of our architecture, to Executive Department agencies. It does not apply to the Judiciary (although the Judiciary, on its own, is way ahead of us in this regard and has already rolled out 2,000 desktop applications that support ODF!); the Legislature; the Constitutional Offices, or the district attorneys offices. It also does not apply to members of the public who send documents to Executive Department agencies, or require that we use ODF when sending documents to members of the public when they make public records requests. It does not require us to migrate the countless current electronic documents to ODF.
Second, adoption of the ODF standard does not require that we abandon our investments in legacy IT systems. The standard applies only to office documents, and not all of our legacy systems rely on such documents. Those existing IT systems that do will be retained and used by agencies until and unless a cost effective means of replacing the office document components are found. Thus ITD has not and will not ask any agency to dismantle any legacy system that relies on office documents created in formats other than ODF.
Third, we have learned from the well informed community of persons with disabilities that there are currently no office applications supporting ODF that meet the current standards for the accessibility of such applications. We will not disenfranchise the community of persons with disabilities. We will ensure that their legal rights are respected. We are working with the Mass Rehab Commission, the Mass. Commission on the Blind, the Mass Office on Disabilities, and the Mass Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, private sector vendors, and the open source community, to ensure that accessible ODF supporting applications are available. Our current effort to work with the community of persons with disabilities to bring accessibility to the office applications supporting ODF parallels the Commonwealth's leadership in the 1990's of the effort to work with Microsoft to ensure that its office applications were accessible.
Fourth, there seems to be a misconception that adopting the ODF standard creates a procurement preference or will limit competition. In fact, adoption of ODF, an open standard that can be supported by any vendor, throws open the door to an enormous amount of new competition. Even the vendor that currently owns 90% of the Executive Department's office applications, has recently announced support for an open format, PDF, and is therefore clearly capable of supporting ODF, if it chooses to do so!
I thank you for allowing me to describe the highlights of our position today, and request an opportunity to respond in person today or later in writing to arguments raised by opponents of the ODF standard.
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We picked the first phase of our cherry harvest on the 12th of June, almost two weeks later than we would normally expect to do so. Last year they were ready well before the end of May, but we were told by our neighbours that it was not advisable to harvest them before June 1st.
What a difference the weather can make.
We picked around twenty kilos from this massive old tree this year, but you can see from this photo that they are not as healthy looking as you would normally expect them to be.
You will notice the difference if you take a look at last years photos. Cherry Harvest May/June 2009
The second phase of the cherry harvest on June 15th we were lucky enough to have the help of my sister and her husband who are here on holiday at the moment. There are a few more photos of the harvest on Flickr
Unfortunately in this second batch, a different variety from the previous ones we found some of these rather unwelcome bugs. I dread to think how many I may have consumed without realising, well you are supposed to eat some while you are picking surely? Somehow I now wish that maybe I had not done so! I do not appear to have come to any harm though as this was a few days ago.
Oh my don't they look disgusting!!
Sadly the majority of these beautiful cherries were wasted. You can see the holes in some of them!
We think it was a combination of too much rain and not enough sun that ruined our cherries this year. We were fortunate that we picked twenty kilos in the first batch which we have enjoyed fresh and frozen in batches for use throughout the year. We still have jam and bottled cherries left from last year as well which was a really magnificent crop.
Lets hope for a better spring weather-wise and therefore a healthier crop next year. At least we can now understand why the cherries are so expensive this year with such wastage, 7 Euros a kilo in the markets and shops.
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We love what we do!
Our staff and teachers make you feel welcome. We offer a very relaxed and safe setting. We don’t want you to feel like you are in school again.
We understand the problems you may have when you try to read. We work at your pace. We make our class size small so our teachers can help everyone. We have computers to help you as well.
We treat you like an adult and we want to boost your self-esteem. We make it fun to learn. As one student put it, “If there is something you don’t know, this is the place to be.”
CLC has many times available for classes, during the day and also at night. Night classes are held twice a week for two hours. Classes are held at many places in Oklahoma City. All of our classes are free of charge.
We also have volunteers who can work with you if you need extra help or are not ready to be in a class. We teach our tutors how to teach you.
You can call us
To learn more about our classes, you can call us at (405) 524-7323.
What will happen when you call?
When you call, we will tell you about our program to you and we’ll also ask you to make an appointment.
At your appointment, we will have you fill out a form. Don’t worry; we’ll help you if you need it.
Once you have filled out our form, we will ask you to answer some questions on a worksheet. The worksheet will have reading, spelling, and math questions. This is not a test. It is an assessment of your skills. It will show us your level of skills so that we know how to help you.
After you finish the worksheet, we will let you know how you did and help you decide if you would like to take classes at CLC.
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A proposal from the NFL's competition committee suggests the NFL abandon the infamous "tuck rule," which gained popularity during a New England Patriots playoff win over the Oakland Raiders in January 2002.
Under the proposed rule change, a quarterback who loses control of the football when bringing it back to his body after a pump fake will be deemed to have fumbled. Under the current rule, such a play would result in an incompletion.
In the 2002 playoff game, that was the case when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was hit from behind by Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson. A video review overturned the call of a fumble, which prolonged the Patriots' drive. New England came from behind to win the game and went on to win Super Bowl XXXVI.
The league owners will vote on this and five other proposed rule changes at the upcoming NFL owners meetings. Among the other proposed rule changes is a modification to illegal challenges by coaches.
The competition committee is looking to do away with a rule that prevents challenges if a coach illegally throws his red flag on a play that was to be automatically reviewed.
This past Thanksgiving, Lions head coach Jim Schwartz threw a challenge flag on a touchdown run by Texans running back Justin Forsett after his knee clearly hit the ground. Because all scoring plays are automatically reviewed, his challenge was illegal and no video replay ensued. The Texans won the game in overtime.
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HOUND HUNTING LIMIT
Your editorial "Hound hunting" (April 7) ignores the empirical data. In the 1960s, I lived in upper Newport News and could walk across two-lane Warwick Boulevard after school and hunt deer and small game. I have hunted in 18 counties in eastern Virginia over 40 years. Much of that land is now developed and gone forever for such purposes.
The population of Virginia was about 3,800,000 in 1960. Today it is in excess of 7,200,000 and projected to be about 8,700,000 in 12 years. Rural Virginia is being replaced by highly fragmented counties along all the major interstates.
Expressed in people per square mile, current population densities of counties allowing hound hunting include: Stafford (342), Spotsylvania (225), Gloucester (160), Mathews (107), James City (336) and York (531). Population density is why Georgia and Florida adopted measures to regulate hound hunting.
It is inevitable that there will be issues when packs of hounds can be released in counties with these population densities, and these densities will only go up. We need to deal with it now, so please do provide your input to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries at Hunting with Hounds Study, 4010 W. Broad St., Richmond, VA 23230, or e-mail it to HoundHunting@dgif.virginia.gov.
HOUND HUNTING FREEDOM
After reading recent Letters to the Editor and the editorial "Hound hunting" (April 7), I am reminded of how much I love to cast my hounds and listen to their beautiful music. Jeff McDermott has been allowed much space in letters, articles and a full length sidebar, all with the same song. The song keeps playing but skips a verse every time I hear it.
We have enough laws, too much government, too many real problems - poverty, drugs, terrorism and general godlessness in our society - to waste resources pacifying the rich. A load of buckshot and a big pot of venison chili seem a better solution to a healthy, stable deer herd, but then I'm just one guy with many, many brothers.
Paul W. Foster
Editor's response: Our aim was to encourage a good-faith discussion and search for solutions, understanding that living along the changing boundary between rural and suburban life requires respect for both.
These two comments show there are views on both sides of the boundary.
We suggest people who are concerned become involved in the survey at the Game and Inland Fisheries' Web site, www.dgif.virginia.gov.
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I used to think that short meetings were best. Clearly, I confused the private with the social optimum.
For bonus points compare the picture with Tyler’s discussion of meetings. How many items can you spot?
Meetings are not always about the efficient exchange of information, or
discovering a new idea. Meetings can be about displays of power,
signaling that a coalition is in place, wearing down an opponent,
staging "theater" to make someone feel better, giving key players the
feeling of being insiders, transmitting information about status, or
simply marking time until something better happens. It’s one thing to
hate meetings. But before you can improve them, make sure you know what
meetings are all about.
Hat tip to J-Walk Blog for the picture.
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Top White Papers
CNET News.com: Transmeta shoots for 700 MHz with new chipJan 19, 2000, 18:39 (2 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Stephen Shankland)
"The highly secretive start-up Transmeta today finally unveiled its technology plans and made it clear that it aims to compete against chip giant Intel."
"At a company conference here, Transmeta said that it will come out with two different processors for distinct classes of devices. The first, a low-power chip called the 3120, will run at about 400 MHz and go into handheld devices and Internet appliances running Linux, said Steve Johnson, head of software operations at Transmeta."
"A second chip, called the 5400, will run at between 500 MHz and 700 MHz and include a 250-MHz secondary cache integrated into the chip. This chip will be targeted at Windows-based notebook computers. Combined with its "long-life" power management technology, the 5400 will run on one watt of power. Users will be able to run their notebook all day on batteries, Johnson said."
0 Talkback[s] (click to add your comment)
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by Joe Shea
American Reporter Correspondent
March 29, 2010
HOW TO SAVE OUR ECONOMY
BRADENTON, Fla. -- There is one, and only one, answer to America's burgeoning national debt, now in the many trillions of dollars and seemingly impossible to repay. There is a way - and also a means - that can be summed up in two words. The first is prosperity.
What happens when individual American suddenly once again have cash in their pockets, jobs to go to, and money in the bank? If the prosperity endures for any length of time, debt begins to fall as tax revenues grow. So what is the word that is going to make that happen? Well, there was a different word that made it happen in the Clinton Administration: Internet.
The Net exploded on the world scene in 1994, when a clever man by the name of Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. Soon, from the University of Illinois supercomputing center, came the first Internet browser, called Mosaic. With the advent of Mosaic, e-mail - pretty much the only widely accessible function then - was overtaken by the advent of jazzy Internet graphics.
With HTML encoding, such as I do by hand for every edition of The American Reporter (we don't use any templates), the power of the Internet immediately began to emerge. By the turn of the century, revenues from all Internet operations closed in on $1 billion. By the end of the past decade, advertising revenues alone reached $23 billion.
But even in 1999, according to an otherwise flawed report by the University of Texas McCombs School of Business in Austin, jobs traceable to the Internet had gone from the dozens in 1993 to 2.67 million by 1999. Oh, what a little invention can do!
Because of the Internet, President Bill Clinton could leave a $127 billion surplus in 2001 for the Bush Administration to squander (it was all gone by 2003). By 2005, Bush was running a budget deficit of $519 billion, according to Bloomberg News. So the question becomes, "Where can President Obama find another Internet?"
He doesn't have to look far. But he may have to ignore the Dept. of Energy.
That's the second word: energy. Back in 1988, "cold fusion" and its discoverers, the late Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and English chemist Dr. Martin Fleischmann, were being tarred and feathered for their claims by both the media and fellow scientists. A "60 Minutes" segment in November 2009 would later rehabilitate them and their theory, which now has been replicated at least 2,000 times.
But in April 1989, one observer was just a few steps outside the fray. Soon he, too, would be disparaged, but never on the same scale. His name is Dr. Randell C. Mills, a graduate of Harvard Medical School who'd been encouraged by a mentor there to study bioengineering at nearby MIT. Some of our readers were not yet born when Drs. Pons and Fleischmann were branded as fools, so let me recount a little of what happened.
On March 23, 1989, the day before the 10.8-million-barrel Exxon Valdez oil spill on the pristine shores of Alaska's Prince William Sound, Pons and Fleischmann held a press conference. Even as a number of universities and other laboratories rushed to claim the same achievement first, they told the press in Salt Lake City that they had produced "tabletop" or "cold" fusion, i.e., that they had harnessed the power of the sun. And not in a hugely expensive magnetic bottle, as physicists expected to do some day, but in a couple of plain glass vessels on a laboratory countertop in the chemistry building at the University of Utah.
Pons and Fleischmann declared that during simple electrolysis, using palladium as the anode and deuterium, or heavy water, as the electrolyte, the reaction to an electric current was demonstrably emitting far more energy (as the palladium's lattice absorbed a high percentage of deuterium) in the form of far more heat than conventional chemistry could account for.
For five years starting in 1983 they had labored to do this, and just as other labs threatened to beat them to a patent, the university, Fleischmann says, pushed them to hold the press conference in advance of publication of their paper on the topic, in the obscure but peer-reviewed Journal of Electromagnetic Chemistry. The story was a huge one, making headlines across the entire world; the Valdez story was on the front page with it.
The irony in that coincidence has escaped most historians, but the two stories together created a tale of breakthrough and disaster that could be a great tragedy, if well-told. That's because in the seeds of cold fusion are the death of Big Oil.
But the Pons-Fleischmann claim was more immediately and profoundly threatening to a group of well-funded physicists whose careers were buttered with tens of billions of dollars in federal funding for their fruitless hot fusion projects, such as the Tokomak reactor.
To date, none of this funding - perhaps $50 billion worth so far - has produced a working hot fusion reactor, or saved an American consumer a single cent. The return on taxpayers' $50-billion investment: zero. The advent of a simple, cheap, competing technology, if it were allowed to stand, would be absolutely ruinous to them, these men knew. So, they didn't wait to publish, either.
Instead, with a poor understanding of what occurred in Utah, they rushed through attempts at replication. Instead of the lengthy times needed to allow the palladium lattice to absorb that high ratio of deuterium, they invariably tried to get the reaction the Utah scientists did quickly and easily - and it didn't happen. NASA scientists later criticized the would-be replicators harshly for flawed and "hurried" experiments.
Meanwhile, new billions of taxpayer dollars were in the pipeline for all kinds of hot fusion studies and projects. Their spokesman was Bob Park, the president of the American Physical Society and a columnist for the society's prestigious scientific journal, Physical Review. His "What's New" column relentlessly attacked cold fusion and its discoverers, and later Randell Mills.
According to the Village Voice, Park actually lied on at least one occasion about Mills' work. His well-read column told the world acupuncture didn't work, that Jesus Christ was an "itinerant healer," and, ever the breathless insider, that the North Koreans couldn't build an ICBM - on the day before they successfully launched one.
By early May, just weeks after they announced their discovery, Dr. Park and the APS took their anti-cold fusion show on the road. By May 9, less than two months after the cold fusion announcement, Malcolm Browne of the New York Times wrote, "Top physicists directed angry attacks at Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann, calling them incompetent, reciting sarcastic verses about their claims and complaining that they had refused to provide details needed for follow-up experiments. A West European expert said 'essentially all' West European attempts to duplicate cold fusion had failed."
Browne was one of hundreds of science writers who felt betrayed and embarrassed by their initial reports, and some - like Thomas Maugh of the Los Angeles Times, who first report I read, would never touch the subject again. The reporters were burned, all right, not by Pons and Fleischmann but by Bob Park and his pals in the publicly funded hot fusion industry.
The denunciations came as Dr. Pons was actually in Washington, getting ready to meet with President George H.W. Bush to ask for $25 million for further study of cold fusion. That meeting never happened. Very quickly, long before any serious effort at replication could be mounted, the tide was turned. It was awful to watch, especially for those whose hopes for a pollution-free future had risen so high, so far and so fast.
Later, when a new patent had already been published in the Gazette of the U.S. Patent Office, a "poison pen" telephone call from Bob Park to friends at the patent office got the patent grant to Mills reeled back in and then denied. That had apparently never happened before.
By himself, Park has probably saved the oil industry twice, and cost Americans countless billions of dollars in cheaper energy costs they might have enjoyed. But more about that shortly.
One scientist who joined Park in denouncing the hydrino theory of Randell Mills, way back in 1999, was physics Nobelist Dr. Steven Chu. Today he is Secretary of Energy. Despite the validation of cold fusion - now called LENR, for Low Energy Nuclear Reaction - and the laudatory revelations of the November 2009 "60 Minutes" piece, and groundbreaking presentations at the March 26, 2010, convention of the American Chemical Society, Chu is not parting with money for more research. The Dept. of the Navy and a private firm had to finance the latest study. But Mills has not sought government funding or Wall Street equity money, and has raised $71 million on his own.
Chu and Park have one thing in common: the craftiness to disable the rise of a new scientific theory just at the point when the public might demand action to implement it, and save Americans the endless billions of expense that then go to fuels and electric power. Park's lightning strike on Pons and Fleischmann came just as a meeting between Pons and the President was about to give them the green light; Chu's came just as Randell Mills was ready to make public his plan to change the way the world used the energy of hydrogen.
"It's extremely unlikely that this is real, and I feel sorry for the funders, the people who are backing this," Chu told the Wall Street Journal's Dow Jones News Service in 1999, when Mills results' were being validated by America's national laboratories, major universities and NASA.
But scientists are catching up with these two deft dodgers. At the March 26 meeting of the American Chemical Society, for instance, Michael McKubre, director of SRI International's Energy Research Center in Menlo Park, Calif., told National Public Radio's "Science Friday" program about an American company in Israel, Energetics Technologies, that has recently demonstrated a 25-fold increase in energy after putting 40 Joules of heat into their cold fusion process and getting 1.47 megaJoules out.
"We're seeing thousands or tens of thousands of times more energy than can be explained by any form of chemistry that I'm familiar with," McKubre told NPR. "If you could do that every time with cheap materials and no dangerous byproducts, that is a practical technology. That is commercializable, just there," he said.
As impressive as they are, the Energetics results from a cold fusion process pale in comparison to those from Mills' hydrino reactors. The inventor of the BlackLight Process rejects quantum mechanics and its relativistic answers in favor of Einstein's concrete, classical physics that yield hard, clear, testable numbers. That has divided and re-divided the world of physics like a great amoeba. Some physicists have hardened their position against Mills, some have moved from skeptical to undecided, and others have joined his camp. Meanwhile, peer-reviewed journals have published 84 papers on the hydrino and the theory behind it, all in support of Mills' dense calculations.
But Mills already has 20 working 50- and 75-kilowatt reactors at his plant in Cranbury, N.J. (not far from where both Einstein and Edison worked), and big-name venture capitalists (like a former CEO of Westinghouse and formed USAF chief of staff) have so far backed him to the tune of $71 million. In fact, you might coin a new adage in the field of high-energy physics: "One working self-regenerating reactor is worth all the theories of quantum and classical physics combined."
Meanwhile, the relativistic theories of quantum mechanics seem to have met their match in Mills' unified model of classical and quantum theory, in that his devices work - and have about $700 million in contracts awaiting roll-out. The latest came from a sprawling Italian multinational, the RadiciGroup, which ordered a 750MW hydrino reactor to power all the Group's industrial and corporate facilities in a deal announced on March 19, 2010.
So what is the savior of the economy? Either, or both, cold fusion and hydrino reactors. Both could - by virtue of their relatively low-cost materials, need for no fuel but water, and emission-free production of electricity transform our manufacturing base, our employment picture, our state and federal tax revenues, and our lives and burdens almost overnight. These are technologies that work now and can be implemented now.
With real leadership in Washington, we can be self-sufficient in energy just two years from now and free of fossil fuels in a decade. When the President called on Americans to alert him to any technologies that are "ready to go" to address the nation's energy needs during a Town Hall session in North Carolina on March 29, 2010, cold fusion and hydrino energy both came immediately to mind.
And like the Internet once did, they can save the American economy - this time for good. Now there is a greater imperative than there has ever been to adopt and fund them: without such a boon, we will become a bankrupt nation, unfathomably deep in debt to China and other trading partners. Those in power have a hard, cold choice: take what the good Lord has given us in these new technologies, and abandon those that have failed and polluted this lovely planet, or die as other civilizations have, in debt, desolation and disgrace. Those are choices that separate the real patriots from the flingers of rhetoric and defenders of the status quo.
Too many people presume that putting the oil industry out of business would be a terrible thing. That's not true. With a new source of electricity that is pretty close to free, hundreds of thousands of small businesses would spring up overnight, both to replicate the technology under license and to develop new applications for it.
In turn, that would stimulate jobs for hundreds of thousands of well-educated engineers and millions of people who will assemble these devices from newly-manufactured parts. Finally, energy-intensive businesses that have gone broke on $3 gas can spring back to life without that burden of cost and maintenance.
Hydrino vehicles, according to the latest "concept car" from BlackLight Power, Mills' company, will get 1,500 miles on a single liter of water. Not only would automotive design soon be back in a big way, but motorists - needing no more fuel than 50 gallons of water for the life of the car - would have tens of billions of extra dollars in their pockets as they put the automakers back to work. You can add billions to that from cheap residential electric and heating costs. The hydrino "cell stack" that powers an electric motor will power a conventional-looking car that costs just $9,800 to build and at 276HP has more than twice the horsepower of my speedy little Saturn SC-2.
Just two words: "Energy" and "prosperity," can save us. The economy, sans Big Oil, will renew and replenish itself overnight if the vast inventive capacity of America is allowed by the Obama Administration to put itself to work again. Even Republicans could vote for that.
Contact Joe Shea at firstname.lastname@example.org.
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Thomas D. wrote:
HOW DOES THIS QUICK SYNOPSIS HELP ?..........
Back in Feb '09 Roger said various things;
The "biographers" are describing it in its "adapted" form. The one that could be taken as Christian as well as Roman/Pagan.
The coins I pointed out, describe it as it was, in its raw splendour (leaving off the tara-diddles and jewels).
Cannot get more explicit than this;
Hi Tingra, eagle-eyed researcher of all researchers, I didn't mention the Bordeaux coin because I simply skimmed over it and because it's almost the same as another representation.
Hi Sandy, the Rodez coin is very interesting, isn't it? It's an out-of-scale deconstruction of the actual object.
I forgot to correct you in that Constantine did not bring it to France, he acquired it there. Ironically, it went back to more or less where it originally came from, when Childebert brought it back to St Germain des Pres (at the time Ste Croix et St Vincent).
Ever hear of the vacuum of the Lendit?
This sounds like someone who knows...
Now... you want me to tell you how it came to be in RLC and how Sauniere got it, and what he did with it, and why, and how it was spirited away? You don't ask for much, do you? You'd probably like my credit card numbers as well? Don't you think I've been generous enough
I don't see IMHO so it looks 'ex Cathedra',,,,,,,,
Wrong track. The premeditated and extensive christianisation campaign with regard to the object is probably at the source of its alleged Old Testament connections (it has variously been alleged to have belonged to Moses, Aaron, Solomon, etc. - all false, unless someone can explain how it became such a prominent feature of a pagan solar temple in the Lendit - most unlikely! It's defintely pre-Frankish, whether Germanic or Celtic or some other Gallic tribal origin - Henry d'Arthenay has been launching some interesting educated speculations as to its actual origin - religious, if not historical, ). In reality, its only proximity to anything related to the Old Testament lies in that it was purloined from Rome, by the Wisigoths, in conjunction with the remains of the treasure of Jerusalem. Hence, it would be "biblical" by contamination rather than by true origin.
Similarly, it purported ability to throw off "flammeches" may or not be ascribed to a desire to ape the legend of Moses' "flammeches". Note that small flames bursting forth from some prominent character's head (or hair) form a substantial part of many legends of the period.
Who jumped the Gun?
We do know that certain people took action to hide and preserve it at various times, so we can guess at their motives. We also know that, during dynastic shifts, efforts were made to retrieve it (Sauniere's time being no exception).
But we aren't in that phase yet, are we? We've still to find out what happened after it came to the Abbaye de Sainte Croix et Saint Vincent...
(I like to proceed in order... as Sheila will no doubt tell you!)
You can take this to the bank.........
The item is made of gold.
Doesn't sound like a guess......
I could take you to where the relic WAS... it's gone, as I've told you
The secret of success.......
Dumb luck, at first... then followed up by lots of hard work (and privileged access, that helps a lot) to make sure... However, I don't think the hard work (or access) would've amounted to a hill of beans without the dumb luck coming first.
Yes, and I believe that's all I've asked people here to do, based on my hinting and sometimes broad hinting, no ?
I have to give credit where credit is due. If I hadn't run into IBJ, the "dumb luck" portion of this would never have happened. His completely different approach to all this (which I scoffed at, at first) was what put me onto what the true subject of all this really was.
Which book ?
After proper identification, further research and consultation, this is actually a great find, Tingra, because it allows us to solidify the provenance of the object prior to its Gallic worship. I'll explain later.
You'll get credit in the book!
Just to clarify IBJ joined in to make a point.
Now you have to know that the object depicted on Merovingian coins goes by the following name: “CRISTA”. It is an exceedingly rare object, a unique one in fact, which symbolizes the power of Constantine. It is the real article, the only genuine Pax Chi-Rho.
It is called Crista because according to the historians, this object is like a crest, featuring two arcs which are affixed to the top of the object, and fall back downwards on both sides of it, exactly like the crested helmet.
However, the coins Tingra showed us date back to a time long before Constantine ever gained power, and even before Christ came into the world. Therefore, this symbol is clearly not Christian, and it is not even connected with Christ in any way, shape or form.
Ndawe asks who it serves?
At present, no one. It rests hidden, unused.
Which may be a good thing. I don't know.
Well... that's the fascinating quest. For me and the IBJ team, anyway. Tracing its meanderings through history, from the Abbaye de St Germain, to...???? It's the same object all right, there are no two alike. But perhaps it's best to simply see if you can find its track through time.
I did what I wanted to do. I made you conscious of its existence, and I believe we had fun doing it?. Do with that as you please, from there on.
No, Roger is quite impressed and pleased with you all.
I hinted, you found.
Looks like the question was asked.......
No, it's not a theory, but I'm not optimistic about the present "owners" agreeing to any sort of examination. We'll see what is brought on in the fullness of time.
Yes, it's as I keep saying, and as you can see, this is Cherisey's only real "code", which isn't really a "code" at all. Once you know what he's really talking about, it becomes fairly easy to follow.
I need to clarify why he's doing this... He's reaching out to anyone who also knows the whole story. People who don't know will not be able to follow. Logically, therefore, he's trying to talk to people who do know. And that's just a few groups.
Last bit for Tim. Yes, sovereignty has been exercised, without assistance of anything more than brute force. No real need of any legitimacy whatsoever, whether real or perceived. But that's not quite what we're talking about here. We're talking about being able to lay claim to the Imperial seat, to be Constantine's heir, and pretty much on the same basis as on which Constantine solidified his authority. The legend of a divine apparition and possession of a very real object, as a confirming sign.
Sandy, on the money as usual asked these questions....
You didnt answer these questions yet
) How do we know it is all related to this 'relic' that you both refer to? Have you seen it yourselves?
2) How are you going to show that this is all linked to Sauniere?
3) At the moment, i visualise this relic as an artifact, not very big, made of gold as you say, not attached to anything, in fact, imagine the people who wear crucifixes round their necks .... flat pieces of gold ..... thats how i view this relic, but obviously bigger. Would this be correct?
Is it associated or part of another artifact etc etc?
4) I know you know of it 'from privelege', but you said a colleague showed you. So how does that person know its related to Sauniere? Have you evidence of Sauniere finding this relic? Was it in the crypt under the church, buried with a Hautpoul family member? etc etc.
1) How do you think we know what it is?
2) By laying it all out in the next book.
3) Bigger than a crucifix, you wouldn't want it around your neck, unless you're one of those gangsta-rappers who "over-gold" instead of over-dose.
4) That's a compound question that has, amongst its premises an incorrect interpretation of what I said. But let me say that IBJ showed me what was in front of my nose. As far as where it was, I'll only say it came to RLC from Limoux, due to the Revolution.
That's all I'm going to say on that. I've already told you that I'm only interested now in seeing whether you can track its progress. I'm not interested in telling you all our secrets.
What a week that was in Feb 2009. Does that cover the main points Tim?
Anyone know about that 'next book' ?
One of the many threads on the subject "the Crista" yielded the following quotes back in 2010 underlining the
role played by 'Roger' IMHO.
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Practically the worst hindrance to having pets in the house is the fact they can bring in fleas. But so can humans. Fleas can jump on you when you're in the yard and hitchhike a free ride into your home where they multiply like crazy. In less than a week, you could discover a full blown flea infestation has taken over.
Selling a house where pets live has its own unique set of problems without having to deal with fleas. Now, you might not even notice when your dog or cat seems to be scratching a lot more than usual. But you will notice when the fleas bite you. By then, it's too late.
Are Fleas in the House?
- The first place to look for fleas is on your pet. When you part the hair, fleas will run the other direction and hide. It might be hard to find the fleas without using a special flea comb.
Flea combs are easy to use, but you need to be prepared to dispose of any live fleas that get trapped in the teeth of the comb. So, here's what you do:
- Start with your pet's head, near the ears. Also check near the tail or under the arms (legs).
- Quickly run the comb backwards through the fur.
- Then before the fleas have a chance to spring loose, immediately dip the comb into a bowl containing a solution of liquid dish soap mixed into a small amount of water.
- Any fleas that were trapped in the teeth will die in the soapy water.
- Repeat for as long as your pet will tolerate you dragging a wet comb through his or her fur.
Spotting Fleas On You
Put on a pair of white knee-highs and walk around in your stocking feet. For some reason, fleas are attracted to white clothing. Plus, they are much easier to see against a white background.
Flea Control for your Pets
Combing out fleas is a temporary measure. Your best bet is to kill the fleas that are present on your pet and kill those that hop aboard later. I know of two great products, Frontline and Advantage, that not only get rid of fleas but keep them from coming back for at least three weeks. However, once the flea infestation in your home is under control, it might take a couple more treatments to kill the remaining fleas and those that hatch.
How to Apply Frontline / Advantage
Simply puncture the tube of flea control and squeeze the contents. It's best to apply at the back of your pet's head, near the base of the neck, in a spot where your pet can't lick or scratch it. Part the hair until you can see skin and apply the treatment in that spot.
Flea Control for the House
- You can try foggers, but you will probably need one for each room.
- They are flammable, so turn off all pilot lights.
- Remove birds and fish.
- It's toxic, so don't breathe the fumes.
- Protect surfaces by placing the fogger on a newspaper.
- Leave the house undisturbed a minimum of two hours or as directed.
- Thoroughly air out before introducing small children or vulnerable animals to the environment.
A safer and more environmentally friendly product, which I have personally found to be highly effective, is called Fleabusters. The product is a powder.
- Remove all bedding - wash or dry clean.
- Thoroughly vacuum all carpeting and rugs.
- Sprinkle powder inside sofa cushions, along the perimeter of all the walls and cover your floor area with it.
- Scratch or brush into the carpet.
- Vacuum excess and at least two to three times a week.
- Discard vacuum cleaner bags.
Flea Control for the Yard
There are a number of yard products available.
- Attach product to your garden hose and spray thoroughly all affected areas.
- Do not spray near flowers or vegetables.
- Repeat as required.
It may seem like a lot of extra work, but if you apply flea control products on your pets at least once a month for two or three months, and aggressively treat the house and yard, your flea problem should disappear -- provided you do not continually bring more fleas into the house.
At the time of writing, Elizabeth Weintraub, DRE # 00697006, is a Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate in Sacramento, California.
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NBC Miami is reporting that plans to expand the too-small Apple store in Miami Beach are being blocked, thanks to preservationists who argue that the demolition needed to build a new glass-enclosed cube design store would hurt its historic roots.
Apple submitted its demolition proposal in June because it is simply running out of space at its current store. However, members of the Miami Beach preservation board says that the demolition needed to build the iconic Apple cube would demolish what people come to the city to see, its historic Art Deco designs.
When the board returned the application, it asked Apple to use parts of the old building instead of demolishing it, which caused the company to withdraw its build-out application in September.
Here’s what the current Miami Beach Apple store looks like:
Luckily, Apple won’t leave the city and plans to work with Miami Beach on a better way to grow the store and its business. Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower said:
It was unfortunate what happened. I made the overture because they are good people to have in Miami Beach. They bring people here. I said I would help in any way to make them happy, and they assured me they’re going to stay.
As we know, Apple loves to incorporate its eye for design in buildings, with its “Spaceship” headquarters coming to Cupertino sometime in the future.
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Connecticut reaches deal on tough gun laws after Newtown
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Column: Other issues in focus as war, economy fade
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High court poised to upend civil rights policies
WASHINGTON (AP) — Has the nation lived down its history of racism and should the law become colorblind?
Addressing two pivotal legal issues, one on affirmative action and a second on voting rights, a divided Supreme Court is poised to answer those questions.
In one case, the issue is whether race preferences in university admissions undermine equal opportunity more than they promote the benefits of racial diversity. Just this past week, justic...
Marketing studies help craft health overhaul pitch
WASHINGTON (AP) — How do you convince millions of average Americans that one of the most complex and controversial programs devised by government may actually be a good deal for them?
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Cartels dispatch agents deep inside US
CHICAGO (AP) — Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States — an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world’s most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.
If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels’ move into the American interior could render the syndicate...
NY town: OK to boo, politely, at board meetings
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — A New York town’s board members have decided it’s OK to boo at their meetings — but only if it’s done politely.
The Riverhead board voted to ban booing earlier this month. But Newsday reportedt the board voted 4-1 last week to strike the anti-boo rule from the books.
The board on Long Island retained another part of its code. That part prohibits disruptive behavior and disruptive demonstrations.
No explanation was given ...
State congressman off to a running start
Tom Cotton hit the ground running in January and hasn’t stopped since.
The freshman representing Arkansas’ 4th Congressional District has stayed busy both in Washington, D.C., and back at home.
This year’s legislature bypassed the slow start that is typical at the beginning of a new session. At the end of 2012, a deal reached to avoid a so-called fiscal cliff called for an agreement to be reached by March 1 to avoid a series of automatic spe...
Public Affairs (March. 31, 2013)
Lamar City Council, 6:30 p.m., Lamar City Hall. (885-3865)
Dardanelle City Council, 7 p.m., Dardanelle City Hall. (229-4500)
Dover City Council, 6 p.m., Dover City Hall. (331-3270)
Atkins Planning Commission, 7 p.m., Atkins City Hall.
Pope County Quorum Court, 5:30 p.m., first floor of Pope County Courthouse. (968-6064)
(Pope County Quorum Court Budget Committee — Tuesday preceding the first Thursday of mo...
The South: A near-solid block against ’Obamacare’
ATLANTA (AP) — As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest states.
“Not in South Carolina,” Gov. Nikki Haley declared at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. “We will not expand Medicaid on President Obama’s watch. We will not expand Medicaid ever.”
Widening Medicaid ins...
Veterans fight changes to disability payments
WASHINGTON (AP) — Veterans groups are rallying to fight any proposal to change disability payments as the federal government attempts to address its long-term debt problem. They say they’ve sacrificed already.
Government benefits are adjusted according to inflation, and President Barack Obama has endorsed using a slightly different measure of inflation to calculate Social Security benefits. Benefits would still grow but at a slower rate.
Business, labor get deal on worker program
WASHINGTON (AP) — Big business and labor have struck a deal on a new low-skilled worker program, removing the biggest hurdle to completion of sweeping immigration legislation allowing 11 million illegal immigrants eventual U.S. citizenship, labor and Senate officials said Saturday.
The agreement was reached in a phone call late Friday night with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and Democratic Sen. Ch...
US consumer spending, income jump in February
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumers stepped up spending in February after their income jumped, aided by a stronger job market that offset some of the drag from higher taxes. The gains led economists to predict stronger economic growth at the start of the year.
Consumer spending rose 0.7 percent in February from January, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the biggest gain in five months and followed a revised 0.4 percent rise in January,...
Cleaner gas rule would mean higher price at pump
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration’s newest anti-pollution plan would ping American drivers where they wince the most: at the gas pump. That makes arguments weighing the cost against the health benefits politically potent.
The proposal to reduce sulfur in gasoline and tighten auto emission standards, released Friday, would raise gasoline prices by less than a penny per gallon, the Environmental Protection Agency says. But the oil indus...
Scooter ads face scrutiny from government, doctors
WASHINGTON (AP) — TV ads show smiling seniors enjoying an “active” lifestyle on a motorized scooter, taking in the sights at the Grand Canyon, fishing on a pier and high-fiving their grandchildren at a baseball game.
The commercials, which promise freedom and independence to people with limited mobility, have driven the nearly $1 billion U.S. market for power wheelchairs and scooters. But the spots by the industry’s two leading companies, The ...
Business, labor close on deal for immigration bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — Big business and major labor unions appeared ready Friday to end a fight over a new low-skilled worker program that had threatened to upend negotiations on a sweeping immigration bill in the Senate providing a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who’s been brokering talks between the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement that negotiat...
Obama pitches public works spending to create jobs
MIAMI (AP) — Trying to show that the economy remains a top priority, President Barack Obama promoted a plan Friday to create construction and other jobs by attracting private money to help rebuild roads, bridges and other public works projects.
Obama fleshed out the details during a visit to a Miami port that’s undergoing $2 billion in upgrades paid for with government and private dollars. The quick trip was designed to show that the economy a...
Neither party has cash for student loan rate fix
WASHINGTON (AP) — Incoming college freshmen could end up paying $5,000 more for the same student loans their older siblings have if Congress doesn’t stop interest rates from doubling.
Sound familiar? The same warnings came last year. But now the presidential election is over and mandatory budget cuts are taking place, making a deal to avert a doubling of interest rates much more elusive before a July 1 deadline.
“What is definitely clear, this...
Risk and reward at the dawn of civilian drone age
WASHINGTON (AP) — The dawn of the age of aerial civilian drones is rich with possibilities for people far from the war zones where they made their devastating mark as a weapon of choice against terrorists.
The unmanned, generally small aircraft can steer water and pesticides to crops with precision, saving farmers money while reducing environmental risk. They can inspect distant bridges, pipelines and power lines, and find hurricane victims s...
Confederate flag at old NC Capitol coming down
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A Confederate battle flag hung inside the old North Carolina State Capitol last week to mark the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is being taken down after civil rights leaders raised concerns.
The decision was announced Friday evening, hours after the Associated Press published a story about the flag, which officials said was part of an historical display intended to replicate how the antebellum building appeared in 1863...
Lawmakers tighten belts amid automatic budget cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of Congress are traveling less and worrying more about meeting office salaries. Their aides are contending with long lines to get inside their offices and fewer prospects of a raise. Such are the indignities thrust upon the men and women who brought the country $85 billion in government spending cuts this month.
There probably won’t be much sympathy for a senator or congressman making $174,000 a year who is in no dang...
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tribute to Jameson
The Combat Medic Training Center at Logistical Support Area Anaconda
was renamed the "Sgt. 1st Class Tricia L. Jameson Combat
Medic Training Center" to honor the fallen soldier of the
Nebraska Army National Guard's 313th Medical Company. Jameson,
who had been in Iraq for about two weeks, was killed when an
improvised explosive device detonated near her Hum-Vee as she
attempted to reach a group of injured Marines after they had
been struck by an earlier IED.
"This training center is exactly
what Sergeant Jameson was all about,"
said Capt. Robert Miller, the executive officer and field medical
officer of the 313th Med. Co. "She was not only a medic,
but she was a teacher. Sharing and teaching others, and caring
for Soldiers was what she was about." Miller worked closely
with his fellow Nebraska Army National Guard Soldier for many
years. Both had worked as instructors at the Regional Training
Institute at Camp Ashland, Neb., to train soldiers from seven
states. Miller recalled times when Jameson would drive 50 miles
to his house to ensure he had all the necessary equipment to
teach the next day's class. "When it came to organization,
managing and working with soldiers, her patience was phenomenal,"
Miller said. "She was probably the easiest person in the
world to get along with."
Miller described Jameson as a typical
Midwestern woman, saying she'd
be caught a little off guard to see the dedication. "She
wasn't a glory seeker," said Miller, "she'd be humbled
by this, very humbled."
Miller also felt it is fitting to name
the training center in honor of Jameson.
"This is her. This embodies everything she was always about,"
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To be totally truthy, I’ve been struggling writing about this topic all morning- how do you talk about “how to find original ideas” in an original way? Eek! Conundrum!
I started writing about how our minds are kinda like radios- constantly on, always chattering- sometimes you’ll find good music, sometimes only static, all depending on what frequency you’re tuned into.
It was going to be a how-to post on tuning into the “creative inspiration station” in your brain. But it was quickly becoming lame. And just wasn’t truthy enough.
So now I’m back to the drawing board, and starting from there- the truth.
Truth is, I value myself a lot on the basis of originality and individuality. It’s a cornerstone of who I think I am, the one thing I know about myself for sure- I am original.
And the fact is, we all are original. We all are a uniquely combined set of DNA and life experience that is unlike anyone else out there. But the weird thing is- we think a lot alike, in a lot of ways.
It’s kind of freaky really. Even right here on the blog we witness everyday evidence that we’re not alone in these thoughts we have of ourselves and the world around us. And so it’s no wonder we’re often on the same wavelength as each other when it comes to the formation of ideas.
It could be said there are really no original ideas left, and when you knock everything down to its base, I have to agree.
But there are original people- you being one of them. People who can take an idea that we’ve all heard before and turn it into something we’ve never even imagined.
Your perspective, imagination and interests are what gives you the ability to create something “new”, different or innovative.
So I really believe the more we can turn the crowd noise down and tune into our own thoughts (Jen shares some ideas in her post today on how-to) the better we can come up with ideas that are not only truly fresh ways of looking at something, but that also really resonate with others.
And the more opportunities we give to ourselves to get out and experience life, to indulge our interests and curiosities, to try the things we’ve always wanted to try, the faster and clearer and sparkier those ideas come.
When I was sitting at my notebook this morning staring blankly, no interesting ideas were coming through. So I got up, had some kitty cuddle time, made some coffee and took a break. And then I thought- “why don’t I just write about how I’m having trouble writing about this, and see where it goes.”
And that’s the seed where original ideas begin, I think- in exploring the truth of your individual perspective, and seeing where it goes.
Check out Jen’s post on how she comes up with new ideas and gets inspiration (with some pics from our beach trip!)
Share your thoughts/tips/struggles around original ideas and inspiration on your blog too, and we’ll post a link right here for our readers to check out!
Gillian from Craftzilla Conquers the World on creating time for originality & creativity
Kelly from Living Apockylypse on how to stay original & embrace your differences
Courtney from Chakra Glow on original content and nature as inspiration
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It was late and still warm outside, but what I remember most was the overwhelming darkness that hovered the air. It was its own entity – not a frightening one, just a knowledgeable one – and it comforted me.
I felt small standing there. I was small in comparison to the hugeness that held me tightly. And the car I was leaning against gave me no concept of scale for what was around me. I was in a snow globe of desert stars, head raised up with eyes closed, feeling the desert’s fullness in the warm silence.
I opened my eyes seeking something that I didn’t know at the time. I wanted to know something. Anything. It wasn’t a crisis of faith; I have that. It wasn’t necessarily a need to know who I was in relationship to the universe; I know that. Yet, my eyes opened wide and desperately sought out the stars for something that I couldn’t understand and wasn’t able to articulate.
Have you been there before? There, under the stars in the desert? That place where the only sound you hear is the moment when your breath changes from in to out? If you have then you know where I was – it was the place where the night’s darkness seeks you out, crawls into your empty spots and fills you. It’s where you want to fall to your knees, weeping, for no other reason than to know you can feel.
I saw it at that moment, right when the emptiness was filled, when my eyes focused in the night. It was the Milky Way stretching across the whole of the sky. The stars were so comfortable there inside its custody, lazily arranging themselves where they belong. There is no pretense to the stars. The light we see from them radiates from millions of years ago. There is nothing more genuine than stars; we would not be here to see their artificiality and so there is no reason to try.
This moment here with the stars and the Milky Way and the desert’s darkness whispered away some, if not all, of the strain of the past years’ struggles. My trials were real and significant and so were the effects on me and my family. And yet, now it seems so long ago.
So, so long ago.
The reflection of time that appears now from then is as if it is the same as the stars’. Millions of years shine upon us. And this is how it often is with such things. We merely feel what was and we will send off into the night what will be.
The night around me grew darker still as I gazed up, wondering at all the stars that night had first seen that were now reflecting on me, The Milky Way tucking them in close so they didn’t get lost in their storytelling. Their whispers calmed me. These ancestors knew me, and I was humbled.
For all the times I wondered, “Why?” at what I had experienced in the past, crying and questioning the purpose of my trials, I knew, then, what my choice could be – and it always is a choice. I could continue to always question and anguish, or I could be a part of this moment and become a reflection of time.
There is a certain peace in reflecting time – a certain anchoring in space while dancing in the ambiguity. Time becomes real and unforgotten. It becomes part of that desert silence and welcomed into that ancestral light.
I stepped into the car as a star fell and watched the desert catch it.
Photograph by Jeremy Stanley, used under a Creative Commons license.
“Let it always be known that I chose joy over despair, family over the world, and to fight when it mattered. Welcome to me. I give a damn.”
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25 Years After Fla. Courthouse Shooting, Last Victim Dies
Posted Mar 19, 2009 8:03 PM CDT
By Martha Neil
It was a time when courthouse metal detectors and bag searches were not yet commonplace. So when Thomas Provenzano walked into the Orange County Courthouse on Jan. 10, 1984, no one knew that the Florida man, who had a history of mental illness, was carrying three guns.
Intending to shoot the police officers who had given him a traffic ticket, Provenzano instead murdered one bailiff inside a courtroom, wounded another, who died in 1991, and narrowly missed a judge. He was trading fire with another deputy in a courthouse hallway when a corrections officer, Mark Parker, got caught in the crossfire.
Then 19, Parker was paralyzed by the shooting. He died early today, at age 44, remembered not only as the last victim of the courthouse massacre but as a man who went on to make the most of his life and continued to focus on helping others, reports the Orlando Sentinel.
"He never stopped trying to make it better for people who had suffered catastrophic injuries like he did," says former Sheriff Kevin Beary. "He made several trips to Tallahassee to lobby for better benefits for injured law enforcement officers, firefighters and corrections officers."
Provenzano was executed at Florida State Prison in 2000.
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On June 15, 2011, representatives from Joyful Heart joined a statewide coalition of advocates, law enforcement officials, survivors and policymakers in Albany, New York State’s capital city, to advocate for legislation to expand New York State’s DNA Databank. We met with representatives from both political parties in the Senate and Assembly, as well as members of the press.
We went with a simple message: pass legislation to collect DNA samples from more convicted criminal offenders.
New York’s DNA Databank is a powerful and cost-effective crime-solving tool. Since New York established its Databank in 1996, thousands of crimes—including 3,353 sexual assaults and 800 murders—have been solved using DNA evidence in the Databank and many, many more have been prevented.
Currently, New York law allows for collection of DNA from offenders convicted for only 48% of all crimes. We know how important DNA can be in bringing about justice for survivors of sexual assault, and how important justice can be in the healing process. Solving each one of these cases brings a measure of healing to survivors and their families.
At a press conference at the Capitol led by Linda Fairstein, a national expert on criminal justice issues and Joyful Heart founding Board Member, two courageous survivors spoke about their experiences waiting for justice and living in fear. One of those survivors lived through a horrific assault in her home in 2006. Though her attacker had been convicted of a low-level offense in 2003, the law did not require him to give a DNA sample. He went on to attack six other innocent people before he was finally convicted of an assault that required him to submit DNA, which linked him to the terrible acts of violence he inflicted on his victims. Speaking about her case publicly for the first time, the brave survivor implored lawmakers to pass legislation that would require more convicted offenders to submit DNA samples:
“He took more than my personal property and jewelry. He took my peace of mind and security of my own home, throwing off his bloody clothes with literally throngs of police, helicopters and dogs at his back. My peace of mind remained shattered for 14 long months until his arrest in October of 2007. The tragedy is that the horrors this man went on to commit against other innocent people during that 14 months never had to happen… He wasn’t in the DNA Databank, so he remained free.
"We’re not asking a lot of our legislators. The DNA database has never been compromised. No information from it will be used except to match suspects to crime scenes. So many horrible crimes can be stopped before they happen if we take a DNA sample from everyone convicted of a crime… Just please, do it: pass this law.”
Mariska Hargitay, Joyful Heart’s Founder and President, prepared a statement underscoring the importance of this initiative. In her statement, read by Linda Fairstein at the press conference, Mariska expressed:
“I am proud to stand with survivors, advocates and members of the criminal justice community to support the expansion of the New York State DNA Databank to send a powerful message to survivors: ‘We hear you. You have suffered enough. Your healing—and pursuit of justice—are our priorities.’”
Lawmakers listened to our message and the stories of survivors. Coalitions of victims’ groups from throughout the state have put their support behind expanding the Databank, as have New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo. In a letter address to Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Governor wrote:
“Together we share the sober responsibility of keeping New Yorkers safe from harm and ensuring justice for all of us. No single tool has been more important than DNA in making certain that we discharge this responsibility fairly, swiftly and effectively…The time has come to say simply: Yes. We know what works. Now, let’s do what works.”
We are hopeful that the Senate and Assembly will pass this legislation in the 2012 legislative session. Not only would expanding the DNA Databank prevent countless future violent crimes, it would bring healing and justice to survivors and families of victims whose cases remain unsolved.
You can read more about this issue and our efforts in various news outlets, including The New York Times, the New York Post, the Times Union, and the New York Daily News.
To view a message from Mariska and to help this year's effort to expand the New York DNA Databank, click here.
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JERUSALEM — Officials here are concerned that growing American-Israeli disagreements over the so-called “separation fence” between Israel and the West Bank may mar next week’s planned meeting in Washington between Prime Minister Sharon and President Bush.
Sharon is coming to the United States on the heels of the first-ever visit to the White House by a Palestinian prime minister. The recently appointed premier, Mahmoud Abbas, will urge Bush to pressure Sharon to halt construction of the fence immediately and to be more generous in the release of Palestinian security prisoners.
The back-to-back visits come against the backdrop of an extraordinarily acrimonious meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers this week in Jerusalem. Sharon told Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, that Israel would release more prisoners only if the Palestinians started to “get serious” about fighting terrorism. Abu Mazen’s message was the reverse: that only a substantial prisoner release can garner the Palestinian Authority enough credibility to start tackling the terrorists. The meeting was widely described by observers here as a deadlock, and both sides are now looking to Bush to break the stalemate by pressing both sides for concessions.
Lurking just over the horizon, however, a new political crisis is brewing that could render the diplomatic deadlock moot. According to well-placed judicial sources, Israeli police investigators believe they have collected enough evidence to prosecute Sharon on charges stemming from campaign finance violations during his 1999 leadership bid and a questionable loan he received from a South African businessman to pay the resulting fine. One of his sons was interrogated last week but chose to remain silent. Several Cabinet ministers told the Forward that Sharon seems “preoccupied” lately and that they believe the campaign
finance case and his and his family’s future are weighing heavily on his mind.
If Sharon is indeed indicted, he may be forced to step down as
prime minister, throwing Israel into a leadership crisis that would put the peace process on hold for an unknown period of time.
For now, Sharon appears to be looking forward to his Washington trip as a break from his troubles, despite the prospect of presidential pressure. The prime minister is said to be bringing a package of concessions on prisoners and checkpoints to present to the president. The two leaders are also expected to see eye-to-eye on Washington’s tougher posture toward Damascus and Tehran. Both Sharon and Bush are dismissing Syria’s recent overtures for direct negotiations with Israel as nothing more than a public relations ploy aimed at warding off American pressure.
But it is the fence, say worried Israeli officials, that may send Sharon and Bush to a head-on collision. Senior diplomatic sources told the Forward that in advance of his trip, Sharon has privately assured the administration that continued construction of the fence, especially in those areas where it is to deviate substantially from the pre-1967 “Green Line,” is “not on the table” right now. Sharon’s private reassurances, however, have been contradicted repeatedly in recent days by his own statements and by remarks attributed to both Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sharon asked the Likud’s Knesset caucus this week for urgent approval of a $170 million package to finance “quick and thorough” completion of the fence. Moreover, both Sharon and Mofaz have acknowledged, to the annoyance of administration officials, that in addition to the “Western Fence” — which deviates substantially from the 1967 borders in several areas, especially around the West Bank town of Ariel — the army is now in advanced stages of planning an “Eastern Fence.” This segment, running parallel to the Israeli-Jordanian border but several miles inland, would effectively encircle the Palestinian-controlled territory from the east and delink it from the Jordan Valley.
According to well-placed Palestinian sources, Abu Mazen intends to tell Bush that Israel is in effect constructing a Palestinian “ghetto” in the West Bank that would be cut off from any direct link with the outside world. Abu Mazen will claim that the massive fence, including moats and 30-foot concrete walls as well as a sophisticated electronic fence, is undermining Bush’s “road map” to peace and pre-empting future Israeli-Palestinian border negotiations.
The Israeli public has traditionally shown massive support for the fence, but public pressure appears to be on the wane following the sharp decrease in terrorist activity since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire. Counting on this lull, a group of Likud Knesset members who oppose the fence, fearing it will isolate Jewish settlements and weaken Israel’s claim to the entire West Bank, decided this week to defy Sharon and bottle up his request for emergency funding for the fence.
The Likud rebels have conveniently latched on to the high cost of the fence, which will ultimately exceed $1 billion, as an excuse to delay further construction. The opponents point to massive budget cuts recently approved by the government and the Knesset, claiming that money for the fence would be better spent easing some of the social hardships created by the austerity measures.
Indeed, Sharon’s trip to Washington comes against the backdrop of unprecedented social unrest in Israel, epitomized in highly-popular protest marches to Jerusalem by single mothers, who have been especially hard-hit by the recent cuts. Netanyahu, as finance minister, has tried to blunt the negative publicity by exhorting the mothers to “go to work” instead of relying on government handouts. But the deepening recession and still-rising unemployment have undercut Netanyahu’s arguments and deepened public unhappiness with his and the government’s economic performance. An ongoing crisis in the country’s hospitals, some of which have stopped treating patients altogether, is adding fuel to the economic fire.
Sharon is trying to stay clear of Netanyahu’s troubles, although recent polls suggest that despite the popularity of his security and diplomatic policies, the economic mess is starting to take a toll on him. In a poll published last weekend in the daily Ma’ariv, Sharon’s overall approval rating dropped to a dead-even 45% to 44%, an unprecedented low for the previously untouchable prime minister.
But while the economic discontent does not appear to threaten Sharon’s political stability for the time being, informed judicial sources maintain that Sharon may face a far greater threat from an entirely different direction. According to the sources, police and prosecutors investigating suspicions of illegal campaign financing and allegations of bribe-taking by Sharon have already reached the conclusion that the prime minister is more likely than not to be indicted as the case unfolds. In that case, Sharon would probably have to step down, at least until his trial is completed.
The allegations, which were first uncovered in a state comptroller’s report and compounded during the height of last winter’s election campaign, revolve around illegal campaign contributions collected by Sharon in 1999 and a questionable $1.5 million loan that he received from South African millionaire Cyril Kern in order to pay the stiff fine imposed by the State Comptroller.
Last week, the police interrogated Sharon’s son Gilad, who refused to answer questions and maintained his right to silence. In the coming days police will summon Sharon’s other son, Omri, who is now a Likud Knesset member.
According to the judicial sources, police are investigating growing suspicions that Kern was actually serving as a conduit for money fronted by unnamed Austrian millionaires who wanted to finance Sharon for their own interests. Following the completion of the Austrian chapter of the investigation, police sources say, Sharon himself will be interrogated — a step that is certain in and of itself to touch off political controversy and instability.
From there, the scandal is likely to escalate and evolve into full-fledged political crisis, assuming it is true, as the sources claim, that the police already have enough evidence to prosecute Sharon.
Cabinet ministers told the Forward that Sharon’s suspension from office, if and when it comes, would touch off a long and bitter battle for succession within the Likud, which could also have a dramatic effect on the Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire and on the road map process.
It is as yet unclear whether Sharon, if indicted, would only suspend himself temporarily or whether he would have to be replaced altogether. Recent precedents set by the Supreme Court point to the latter possibility, a scenario that would set loose a harsh political battle between ranking government ministers to replace Sharon. According to Israeli law, the removal of the prime minister does not mandate new elections but rather the selection of a successor to Sharon by a majority of the current members of the Knesset.
The popular defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, is barred from replacing Sharon during the current term of the Knesset because he is not a member. Conventional wisdom holds that the other leading contenders are Netanyahu, whose popularity has significantly eroded because of his economic policies, and the deputy premier and trade and industry minister, Ehud Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem who is also said to be facing criminal charges on other matters. It is not inconceivable, therefore, that a “dark horse” will ultimately emerge from within the ranks of the Likud to claim the throne.
In any case, the politicians say, if the dire predictions of Sharon’s legal entanglements are borne out, the entire picture is likely to change, and next week’s supposedly “critical” meeting between Sharon and Bush will ultimately be remembered as a marginal footnote in the greater scheme of things. Sharon, at the White House next week, will be concentrating on Bush but at the same time will be keeping a wary eye on the legal developments in Jerusalem.
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has undertaken the difficult task of helping to shepherd a possible ceasefire. Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi, meanwhile, is playing a key role as an intermediary with Hamas, a group labeled by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
Updated at 4:50 p.m. ET: Following her arrival in Israel, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated at a press conference Tuesday that America's commitment to Israel's security is "rock solid," adding that "the goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike."
"The rocket attacks from terrorist organizations inside Gaza on Israeli cities and towns must end, and a broader calm restored," Clinton said, adding that there are no substitutes for security and a just and lasting peace.
Speaking in Jerusalem, Clinton also offered her condolences for those lost in the violence.
"Our hearts break for the loss of every civilian, Israeli and Palestinian, and for all those who have been wounded and are living in fear and danger," she said, adding that she would work with Israel and Egypt on brokering a truce in Gaza "in the days ahead."
Israel is prepared to escalate its offensive but would prefer a long-term diplomatic solution, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
"If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem with diplomatic means, we prefer that," he said in a public statement alongside Clinton.
"But if not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people."
Earlier, a Hamas official said a truce with Israel would not be reached Tuesday because the Israeli government had yet to respond to proposals.
"The Israeli side has not responded yet, so we will not hold a (news) conference this evening and must wait until tomorrow," Ezzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas leader, told Reuters. "The truce is now held up because we are waiting for the Israeli side to respond," he added in a short telephone interview.
A flurry of violence hit Gaza Tuesday as Israel bombed a Gaza bank and targeted the homes of militants. Hamas responded with more than 100 rockets. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Clinton landed at 9:51 p.m. local time in Tel Aviv, where she met with Netanyahu. Later, Clinton will meet with the President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah before heading to Cairo.
A U.S. official stressed to NBC News that Clinton would not meet with representatives of Hamas, the Islamist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, largely because of its failure to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel's right to exist.
Egyptian officials said talks are ongoing to reach a truce in Gaza, although any agreement appears unlikely to address the long-term areas of disagreement between Israel and the Hamas leaders of the Gaza Strip, NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reported Tuesday.
The expected "cessation of hostilities" will call on all parties to use maximum restraint, according to one former intelligence official familiar with the talks.
Two sides exchange deadly airstrikes, rocket attacks.
Earlier Tuesday, President Barack Obama spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who is seeking to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
According to White House officials, Obama spoke to Morsi for the third time in 24 hours. Deputy National Security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama wanted to talk to Morsi before Clinton's arrival in Israel.
Rhodes said Obama underscored the importance of Morsi working toward a de-escalation to the conflict in Gaza. He also commended Morsi's efforts to pursue a de-escalation and acknowledged Egypt's important role in the region's security.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is attempting to bring about a ceasefire, or to prevent Israel from invading Gaza while convincing Egypt's president to pressure Hamas to stop firing rockets. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
Rhodes said Obama emphasized the importance of a diplomatic solution, but said that rocket fire from Gaza into Israel must stop.
Israel Defense Forces continued airstrikes overnight, and also said 39 rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel Tuesday in a message on its Twitter account.
Since Israel launched its military campaign seven days ago in response to rocket fire, more than 100 people in Gaza and three people in Israel have been killed.
Internationally, the main focus was on stopping the violence, and Morsi hinted at a possible breakthrough Tuesday.
Speaking at his sister's funeral in Egypt, Morsi said the "aggression on Gaza" would end Tuesday. He made the apparently off-the-cuff comments in front of mourners who had come to pay their respects, but did not elaborate. Several journalists traveling with Morsi confirmed he made the remark.
In Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Israel would be a “willing partner” in a cease-fire, but also issued a warning.
He said if further military action proved necessary “to stop the constant barrage of rockets, Israel will not hesitate to do what is necessary to defend our people.”
And Mohammed Deif, the new leader of Hamas' military wing, sounded a defiant note, saying that the movement was ready to fight and would not back down from its efforts to liberate Palestine.
He was speaking in his first audio recording since the group’s previous top military commander, Ahmed Jabari, was killed in an Israeli airstrike Wednesday. Deif, who has survived several assassination attempts in the past, called for Hamas’ supporters to remain steadfast.
It is unclear how much influence Clinton can have on the situation.
“She is going to go out there to be in the region to have direct, face-to-face discussions with those leaders,” Rhodes said. “I don’t want to predict exactly what the outcome of those discussions will be. We all know how difficult this situation is.”
The White House thinks the leaders who are heavily involved in the region “understand what the best outcome is,” Rhodes added, but that a peaceful goal is only achievable “if Hamas takes action to stop what they’ve been doing.”
An Israeli soldier and a civilian died when rockets exploded near the Gaza frontier, police and the army said.
An Israeli air strike on two cars in the Gaza Strip killed six Palestinians Tuesday, while two children died in an attack in the north of the territory, local residents and medics told Reuters.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and said a threatened Israeli ground operation in the Palestinian enclave would be a “dangerous escalation” that must be avoided.
Later, standing alongside Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Ban urged Israel to show "maximum restraint" and condemned rocket attacks on Israel.
Also Tuesday, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and the foreign ministers of Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and Sudan traveled from Egypt to Gaza in an unprecedented move designed to show solidarity with the Palestinians, NBC News reported.
US Embassy guard wounded
Meanwhile, a man was arrested after he stabbed a security guard Tuesday at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, a police spokesman told Reuters.
The spokesman said the guard opened fire during the attack.
Israel Radio said the attacker, who police said was armed with a knife and an ax, was wounded.
Oded Balilty / AP
Israeli police officers detain a man who attacked a security guard at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday.
NBC's Shawna Thomas, Ayman Mohyeldin and Ian Johnston, and Reuters contributed to this report.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Too much democracy? Apathy triumphs in UK's latest election
- Obama's visit a sign of Myanmar's dizzying pace of change
- Key players in the Israel-Gaza cross-border conflict
- French girl found tied up - but alive - in trunk after routine traffic stop
- Mexican company Bimbo may be eyeing Twinkies
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Shaping Procedures for the Agility Trainer
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This Session is about planning and evaluating the key features of shaping sessions. Attendees will learn to custom-suit shaping procedures for agility purposes.
The fresh approach from Eva and Emelie fully integrates the principles of clicker training with what they refer to as Good Agility Practices. A maxim of Good Agility Practices is always to work with maximum focus and full intensity within your chosen system of handling. Eva and Emelie begin with the principle that everything connected to your agility should happen in accordance to Good Agility Practices. This requires refined shaping procedures where every part of the procedure is thought out thoroughly.
Shaping agility behaviors involves an interconnected set of decisions, including determining the right goals of a training session, choosing a shaping process that fits those goals, and executing the shaping process for maximum impact.
Learn to rethink how and what you shape in your own training sessions, how to choose and deliver a reward for maximum impact, and how to ensure that all of the features of your training fit with your main agility goals. Propel your training forward!
Eva and Emelie are top agility instructors in Scandinavia and are the authors of the important new book Agility Right from the Start.
This Session will include videos, demonstrations, and material to improve all your training (not just agility). While the Session is aimed at the agility trainer, all teachers and trainers will benefit.
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Most Active Stories
Thu May 31, 2012
Ritu Sharma, Helping Women 'Thrive Worldwide'
Originally published on Thu May 31, 2012 2:51 pm
May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. All month, Tell Me More is talking to people who trace their heritage to that part of the world, and have changed the game in various fields.
Nonprofit "game changer" Ritu Sharma knew from a young age that she wanted to make a difference. Now, as the president and co-founder of Women Thrive Worldwide, she is hoping to lift women and children around the world out of poverty by influencing U.S policy.
Sharma is a first-generation American. Her family's roots are in Punjab, India, so it's easy to understand where she gets her taste for international affairs. The challenge sometimes is convincing people crafting U.S policy that keeping women and girls out of poverty should be an issue of national concern. In an interview with Tell Me More host Michel Martin, Sharma says there's a correlation between countries with less-than-stellar women's rights records, and countries where governments are unstable and where terrorism might take root.
In order to advance her work, Sharma tries to make a trip once a year to live with underprivileged women for a week at a time. She does this while living as the women there live, and using what they live on.
Sharma says the experiences are critical to being able to better understand the women for whom she advocates.
"You really don't know what it's like until you at least try to walk in their shoes," she says. "Standing there next to an African farmer and trying to weed with a little hoe that's about 5 inches long, you know, my back hurts after five minutes! She's out there for five or six hours a day."
But Sharma insists that women around the world aren't lamenting their situations, and they're not asking for a handout.
"They are tenacious," she says. "They just want equal access. They want a little bit of a hand so that they can get ahead; they can do the rest themselves."
A do-it-yourself approach has been critical to Sharma's own success. She co-founded Women Thrive Worldwide in 1998, before she had turned 30 years old. Her decision to go into the nonprofit world wasn't at the top of her parents' wish list.
"I think my parents really hoped I would become a Wall Street banker or an engineer," she says, noting that her parents thought that was where she could put her international economics degree to work. But, she adds, "my parents are also people who supported me — unlike many, many Indian parents — as a girl to follow my dreams." It's a lesson that she says defined her work, and inspired her to do the same for women around the world.
Cooperation and cultural understanding are central to Sharma's approach. Rather than impose a Western way of thinking on some societies, Sharma chooses to rely on forward-thinking men and women in all cultures to achieve success organically. That, says Sharma, is how change happens.
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